We are happy to bring to our readers, JAAS Vol. XIV, No. 1.
The contributors in the English section are well known by the readers, and need
not be reintroduced at length.
The lead article in this issue
is "Qateeni Gabbara: William Daniel’s Legacy." Mr. William Warda and
Dr. Edward Odisho who have co-authored this article are among previous JAAS
contributors. Dr. Odisho is founder and first editor-in-chief of this journal,
Mr. Warda wrote a scholarly two part article titled "The Heritage of the
Contemporary Assyrians: Setting the Record Straight," in JAAS, vol. VIII
no. 1& 2, 1994.
The contributions of the late William Daniel to Assyrian
music and poetry are well known to Assyrian communities around the world. The
Epic of Qateeni Gabbara, known by the majority of Assyrians, was especially
popular among the Assyrian "Ashirets," of Hakkari Mountains. Daniel’s
composition of this old tale, a monumental task, was his greatest contribution
to modern Assyrian poetry. This article is a brief analysis of the poetic,
linguistic, and symbolic significance of this literary masterpiece.
The Aramaic language, its history,
structural properties, and dialectical variations, is a vast topic for scholarly
investigation. This ancient language became the vernacular of masses in
Neo-Assyrian Empire, and achieved the position of lingua franca during
the era of Persian Empire. Despite its continuous decline after the Arab
conquest, it has survived among the Christian communities and ethnic minorities
in the Middle East to this day. Our colleague Dr. Efrem Yildiz, professor of
Biblical Studies at the Universidad de Salamanca in Spain, addresses
controversial issues regarding dialectical variations and their classification
in this issue of JAAS. We hope that his article will stimulate other scholars in
the field to further investigate the evolution of this historical language, and
the history of its speakers.
Dr. Zomaya Solomon has been
introduced in every issue of JAAS since 1993 as the author of informative
articles in Assyrian grammar. The "Inflection of Weak Verbs in Assyrian
Aramaic, Part I: The I Conjugation" is the thirteenth part of this series
of articles discussing different aspects of the Assyrian Aramaic grammar.
Mr. George Yana’s three
book reviews in the past issues have stimulated interest among many of our
readers on the subject of modern Assyrian history. In his article, "Myth
vs. Reality," he challenges the claims made by some authors that the use of
the name "Assyrian" for modern Assyrians was a creation of the
Anglican Missionaries in the nineteenth century. By bringing additional
information and documentation, especially from the "Chronicle of
Carmelites in Persia," the earliest Western Christian missionaries in
Iran, he proves that the use of the name "Assyrian" for Christian
communities in Iran and Bet-Nahrain has a long history and was used centuries
before the arrival of British and American missionaries in the Middle East. For
additional information on this subject we refer our Assyrian language readers to
the article by Mr. Odisho Malko in the Assyrian section of this issue (pages 17
– 45).
The book review section includes
three recent publications. The first is "Assyrian-Chaldean Christians in
Eastern Turkey and Iran: Their Last Homeland Re-charted," by Dr. J.C.J.
Sanders. The second , "Iraqi Assyrian Christians in London: The
Construction of Ethnicity," by Madawi Al-Rasheed, is the subject
of two separate reviews. This interesting approach provides the reader with
somewhat different perspectives on the same book. The third is
The reviewers are also familiar to the subscribers of JAAS.
Mr. Francis Sarguis is the editor of the book review section of this journal.
Ms. Gladys Warda, is an instructor in mathematics at the University of Uruguay,
who has contributed to the book review section in prior issues of this journal.
She is the daughter of an Assyrian father from the Tiari tribe and an American
mother. Her father, who passed away last year, was the last survivor of five
thousand Assyrian refugees who migrated to Uruguay after the persecution of
Assyrians during World War I. Though she has not lived among Assyrians, she has
faithfully maintained her interest in our cultural heritage and ethnic Assyrian
background.
