Similarities Between Assyrian Aramaic and Arabic

In today’s language challenge, we are comparing two Semitic languages, Aramaic and Arabic! The participants are Berta (neo-Aramaic speaker) and Meena (Arabic speaker from Iraq), challenging each other with a list of words and phrases. 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. What makes videos such as this even more important is the fact that the number of fluent Neo-Aramaic speakers has shrunk significantly, especially since many have been forced to leave their ancestral homelands.

Arabic is a Central Semitic language and has official/national status Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Chad, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, SADR, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania (Zanzibar), Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
I would like to thank my friend Paul for helping me put this wonderful video together!

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