Thanks, sparkey. Please let me add a few notes. Hello,
MOESAN. Regarding
the nomenclature issue, please see the opinion of the eminent Assyriologist, Dr. Simo Parpola, in my post here, and copied below:
National and Ethnic Identity in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Assyrian Identity in Post-Empire Times
Dr. Simo Parpola (Assyriologist)
Regarding our vernacular, "Sureth," here are the "Remarks on the Historical Background of the Modern Assyrian Language," by Cambridge Professor of Semitic Philology,
Dr. Geoffrey Khan:
Further work by Dr. Khan, on the Assyrian dialects of N Iraq, specifically, the dialect of Barwar:
And, perhaps the most important data of all, the genetic data. Here is a recent post of mine, from another forum:
A comparison of speakers of Assyrian and Babylonian Aramaic, based on Dienekes' Dodecad K12a values, posted a bit below. Though, not a great many of the Jews and Mandaeans remain fluent in the language.
Map of Assyria and Babylonia:
View attachment 5436
Assyrian-Aramaic (Northeastern Aramaic): Assyrians
Babylonian-Aramaic and Mandaic (Southeastern Aramaic): Iraqi Jews, Iranian Jews, Mandaeans
Assyrian ASY
Babylonian1 IQJ
Babylonian2 IRJ
Babylonian3 MAN
Bits from the Iranica.com article on Mandaic (written by the Aramaic scholar, Christa Müller-Kessler):
View attachment 5437
And, the corresponding K12a population values. The Mandaean sample, unfortunately, only stands at 2, in the population below:
Code:
ASY1 12 0 0 2 0 0 52 14 0 19 0 0
BAB1 12 0 0 0 0 0 48 14 0 24 0 1
BAB2 10 0 0 0 0 0 50 16 0 22 1 1
BAB3 10 0 0 0 0 0 47 19 0 22 0 1
The column K components, are as follows (left to right):
K1 Mediterranean
K2 Far_Asian
K3 Siberian
K4 North_European
K5 South_Asian
K6 West_African
K7 Caucasus
K8 Gedrosia
K9 East_African
K10 Southwest_Asian
K11 Southeast_Asian
K12 Northwest_African