Mandaic language

Spoken in

• Afro-Asiatic languages Semitic languages Aramaic language Mandaean

Myz (classic), mid ( modern)

The Mandaean language belongs to the Aramaic language within the Semitic languages ​​in the Afro-Asiatic language family, and has many similarities with the Syrian and the Jewish- Babylonian - Aramaic. Today it is still used by a majority of the Mandaeans, a religious group in the East.

It is divided into the classical Mandaean as the liturgical language in the temple, which is also used in religious education, and in the modern Mandaean, which since the mid-20th century as a vernacular almost entirely from the Arab or the language of the country in which the Mandaeans live in exile, was ousted. The Neumandäische language is less archaic and has taken some words from Arabic.

Mandaean is written in the Mandaean Scripture.

The ISO 639-3 code for classical Mandaean is myz for modern Mandaean mid.

Of the approximately 40,000 Mandaeans a fraction only speak the language outside of worship. Estimates from 2001 go from 500 speakers in Iran, the dialect Shustar and a small group of speakers in Iraq are believed to be extinct in 2005.