Aqra (Xərpa)

Further information about Aqra (Xərpa)

The Xərpaye were forced to leave their village in 1961, during the war between the Kurds and the Iraqi government. Kurdish rebels moved into the village and the Christian inhabitants fled to Mosul and Baghdad.

General remarks about the dialect

This dialect is similar to the dialects of Shōsh-u-Sharmən and Nargəzine-Xarjawa, following Sh-Sh in some things, and N-X in others, e.g.: (1) */u/ > /u/ = N-X, v. Sh-Sh /ü/. (2) 3pl. personal pronoun ʾanni = N-X, v. Sh-Sh ʾani. (3) 2pl. -oxum, -loxum, ʾaxtoxum = Sh-Sh, v. N-X -axum etc. There are also some differences from the other ʿAqra dialects. The main ones found so far are: (1) Far-deixis demonstratives ʾăwaʾa, ʾăyaʾa, ʾănaʾa rather than ʾăwaha etc. (2) Imperative háy-sa 'come!' rather than hayyu. (3) There are no true compound 3rd person suffixes (i.e. besəd-dídu). Instead, the possessive pronoun follows the noun without the inflectional suffix being elided (-a did-). Prepositions are conjugated by analogy with nouns: besa didu 'their house' mənna dìdu 'from them'. (4) The present progressive aspect is expressed in the construction hō-g-qaṭəl, presumably from hole g-qaṭəl. The particle nə- is not used. (5) The verb 'to speak' has fully merged with the Stem I paradigm (mḥk I), e.g. maḥək 'he may speak', v. Sh-Sh/N-X maḥke (ḥky III).

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