Elena Shvedova, Elizaveta Zabelina, Yuri Koryakov (HSE University) Quantifying lexical distances among Nudiz, Mahmudi, and Verin Dvin Urmi (North-Еastern Neo-Aramaic)

Our study documents and analyzes lexical data from four Christian North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic varieties: Mahmudi, Nudiz, Verin Dvin Urmi, and Urmia Urmi, focusing on the previously undescribed Mahmudi and Nudiz. We provide correspondences from these lects for an extended 226-item basic vocabulary list collected for this study with etymologies, cognates from earlier Aramaic, and loanword sources. Cognate share calculations reveal that all four varieties belong to a single language. Notably, Mahmudi and Verin Dvin Urmi—spoken in the same village for 67 years—exhibit stronger convergence than with their genealogical relatives (Nudiz and Urmia Urmi respectively), highlighting contact-driven divergence from inherited patterns.