13 Facts About Turoyo

Turoyo, referred to as modern Surayt, or modern Suryoyo, is a Central Neo-Aramaic language traditionally spoken in the Tur Abdin region in southeastern Turkey and in northern Syria.

Turoyo speakers are mostly adherents of the Syriac Orthodox Church, but there are some Turoyo-speaking adherents of the Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church, especially from the towns of Midyat and Qamishli.

Turoyo is not mutually intelligible with Western Neo-Aramaic, having been separated for over a thousand years; its closest relatives are Mlahso and western varieties of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic like Suret.

Turoyo has evolved from the Eastern Aramaic colloquial varieties that have been spoken in Tur Abdin and the surrounding plain for more than a thousand years since the initial introduction of Aramaic to the region.

The Turoyo-speaking population prior to the Syriac genocide largely adhered to the Syriac Orthodox Church.

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The language is considered endangered by UNESCO, but efforts are still made by Turoyo-speaking communities to sustain the language through use in homelife, school programs to teach Turoyo on the weekends, and summer day camps.

Until recently, Turoyo was a spoken vernacular and was never written down: Kthobonoyo was the written language.

Turoyo has borrowed some words from Arabic, Kurdish, Armenian, and Turkish.

The main dialect of Turoyo is that of Midyat, in the east of Turkey's Mardin Province.

Attempts to write down Turoyo have begun since the 16th century, with Jewish Neo-Aramaic adaptions and translations of Biblical texts, commentaries, as well as hagiographic stories, books, and folktales in Christian dialects.

Verbal system of Turoyo is similar to that used in other Neo-Aramaic languages.

Turoyo has developed the use of the demonstrative pronouns much more than any other Aramaic language.

Turoyo has three sets of particles that take the place of the copula in nominal clauses: enclitic copula, independent copula, and emphatic independent copula.