History
Aramaic speech in Almaty
The Salmas dialect connects family histories in Iran, the Caucasus and Kazakhstan.
Published
This is a translation. The original is Русский. Language review: not performed by a native speaker.
Almaty’s Jewish linguistic history includes more than Russian, Yiddish and Hebrew. Linguist Geoffrey Khan describes speakers of the Salmas Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialect living here. Its name comes from Salmas in northwestern Iran.
A study published in 2018 describes the community’s migration route. It led from the Salmas area in northwestern Iran through the Caucasus and Tbilisi to Almaty. The author dates the forced resettlement to Kazakhstan to 1950. This history differs from the familiar account of Ashkenazi families migrating from Eastern Europe.
Khan also notes that Almaty speakers of the Salmas dialect used Russian even among themselves. The study records the language’s situation at a particular time; it does not give the number of speakers today.