Similarities Between Assyrian Aramaic and Hebrew

In today’s episode, we’ll be comparing some of the similarities between two Semitic languages, Hebrew and Aramaic, with Berta and Sidorie (Assyrian Neo-Aramaic speakers) and Hila and Noa (Hebrew speakers from Israel) challenging each other with a list of words and sentences. Hebrew and Aramaic have many similarities, which Hebrew being a Northwest Semitic language and the only living Canaanite language left in world, while Neo-Aramaic consists of several languages which are varieties of Aramaic. Among these, the Northeastern Neo-Aramaic and Central Neo-Aramaic dialects are spoken primarily, but not exclusively, by ethnic Assyrians, who are native to Iraq, Syria, Iran, and Turkey. Assyrians are among the Christian minorities in the Middle East, being members of the Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church (Eastern Rite Catholics), Syriac Orthodox Church, Ancient Church of the East, Assyrian Pentecostal Church and Assyrian Evangelical Church. Ancient Hebrew went extinct as a spoken language many centuries ago. However, it survived as a liturgical language for Judaism thanks to Jewish liturgy, rabbinic literature, intra-Jewish commerce, and other texts. For this reason, Hebrew is now considered the only truly successful example of a revived dead language. In the 19th century, it was revived as a spoken and literary language. Hebrew became the lingua franca of Palestine's Jews, and subsequently the official language of the State of Israel. After Israel, the United States has the second largest Hebrew-speaking population in the world.

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My apologies for the few typos in the video. I would like to take a minute to address them.

In the video the words nefesh (נפש) and sakhah (שחה) were read, but I had written נְשָׁמָה and לשחות
as I had multiple terms. "len" (ܠܢ) in the first Assyrian Aramaic sentence is a vernacular contraction and should be spelt (ܠܐ ܝܘܢ). "reshakh" (ܪܫܟ̣) has a silent feminine yod at the end, so should be spelt (ܪܫܟ̣ܝ). Also, just to note, the word "shna" (ܫܢܐ) is the absolute state of the feminine noun meaning year - and that's more a feature of Biblical Aramaic and Classical Syriac. In modern Assyrian absolute state is only used in fossilized vocabulary borrowed from Classical Syriac, so it's practically never used. So in almost all cases, the emphatic state which is "sheta" (ܫܢ̄ܬܐ) in the singular, and "shinne" (ܫܢ̈ܐ) in the plural are used.

[LawBooZ]

Hebrew and Assyrian Aramaic is two very ancient languages. You guys should be very proud that these languages are still alive and spoken by millions of people until today. Shlama/Shalom from Sweden!

[surayas]

As an Assyrian I really enjoyed this video. Thanks for posting this. It is so amazing (and nice) to see how similar these 2 languages are. I never knew that when really listening closely to Hebrew, how much similar it is to Assyrian and how I'm able to actually understand quite a bit of it.

[wisergreener]

I'm really glad to see that you've included the Assyrians in your language comparison videos. The Assyrians, a tiny Middle East minority, are often overlooked. Beautiful languages! Beautiful people!

[perelium-x]

I'm an Ethiopian Amharic speaker and I cannot tell you how much of the words they said was exactly same with us. Its crazy. Loved it!

[marinae.]

I’m an Assyrian, and I absolutely love both languages. I’ve always wanted to learn Hebrew. Lots of love to my Jewish cousins xx

[dahliathereader]

We Semitic people (Arabs, Assyrians and Jews) have more in common than we do differences. As an Assyrian I feel very proud and honoured to have a special connection with the Hebrew language ❤️

[XSNN]

As an Assyrian we love our Jewish friends may the Lord protect you always 🙏

[yochai]

As someone who study the Jewish Talmud (which is in both Aramaic and Hebrew) I knew most of the words and it is interesting to mention that most Jews used to speak Aramaic as the the main language just before and through the beginning of the “Galut” (going exiled) religious Jews know a lot of Aramaic and we actually still use it in our every day prayer, for me to hear the “living” version of it with a young voice is really special! Thanks!

[mjohn]

Being a Christian Israeli Arab myself, speaking both Arabic and Hebrew fluently. Knowing both ancient and modern hebrew and some assyrian aramaic from church. I have got to say that the similarities between these languages are incredible especially hebrew and aramaic. Yet the jewish girls had a problem knowing the Hebrew meaning of words that for me were so obvious. The reason is that in modern day Israel the widely spoken dialect is that of jews from european descent in which the pronounciation of some letters change from the original way hebrew was spoken, which in turn leads to the percieving of the interchangable letters between languages becomming less intuitive. The sephardic girl probably speaks wih the same accent/dialect. But she must have heard relatives speak the language a bit differently. you can see how the Ashkenazi girl was less able or at least slower, in identifying the words.

Great video guys!
Keep up the good work man!
Greetings to my jewish and Aramaic brothers.
In this opportunity also, Merry Christmas to all!

[fanaticalzealot]

Omg thank you so much I have asked for this for ages. It’s so cool that you actually like, heard me haha. I’m Assyrian and just want to say thank you for allowing our language to be heard, you are absolutely amazing.

[sargono]

Hello friends, I am an Assyrian or Acadian or Aramean or sumerian. Because I believe that we were all one and the same people. Our Jewish brothers and sisters are also included. We all come from one and the same origin. And I'm proud of you I love you guys and I pray every day that one day we will all live and laugh together again

[grngal]

This was great!! Thanks for the video! Greetings from a Persian-Jew :)

[Tied]

To all people insulting modern hebrew, saying it’s a disappointment etc, well I’m sorry a language wasn’t able to stay the absolute same after 4 thousand years, half of which we were in exile having to speak the native language

[sidsomocoelho]

The video turned out so great!! Thank you so much Bahador for making this happen!! 😩❤️

[nannettec]

absolutely amazing! Thank you! I'm an Assyrian and I got really happy when I saw this and other videos showing our similarities in language with our neighbor countries.

[MADGAG]

Two of the most ancient languages. Amazing to see their similarities

[JordanVanRyn]

I have to say this is really informative and educational. As a New York Jewish woman, I did go to temple once when I was 5, but my parents wouldn't let me. So I had difficulty speaking Hebrew because Google translate doesn't have phonetic pronunciation. But I'm learning Yiddish and Japanese. I'm not religious but hearing the semitic languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic and Assyrian really makes me want to learn it. It's fascinating how multiple cultures are bonding though learning languages. It's how we connect through humanity.

[aharondikel]

A video on the similarities between Aramaic of the Talmud and Assyrian Aramaic would be super interesting for people who study the Talmud

[Dorito]

This makes me smile so wide. WE ARE BROTHERS AND SISTERS.

[RafaelRabinovich]

Finally, thanks!
The Sephardic lady had a hard time distinguishing כ from ח, a sound modern Israelis and Ashkenazi do not distinguish but Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews do, as well as speakers of all living Semitic languages. That is what took them so long to identify the word for "angel", and they confused it with the word for "salt". The Ashkenazi lady jokingly asked about Malawah, a doughy dish named in Yemenite Arabic, unaware that Aramaic is closer to Hebrew than Arabic.
If their ear got used to the sounds of Assyrian pronunciation, they would sooner tell the meaning of Aramaic words.
Perhaps religious Jews, familiar with some Aramaic preserved in prayers and religious texts, would understand even fluent conversational Aramaic.