Alis bu Cëlmo dac Cojube w dat Tantelat
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in Ṣurayt

By Lewis Carroll, translated into Ṣurayt by Jan Beṯ-Ṣawoce

Click on the book cover on the right to order this book from Amazon.co.uk!

Or if you are in North America, order the book from Amazon.com!

I Qaṭën maclela iḏa du yamino laf xaṣra w mërla: “Tamëke kyotëw zlam Šafqaji. W tamo ste kyotëw ḥa Arnuwko.” Mdawamla w maclela han naqla iḏa i ḥreto. “Kibëx, cal ayna mënayye d ëbcët, d dorët šlomo. A tre xëd ḥḏoḏe daywonene.”		“In that direction,” the Cat said, waving its right paw around, “lives a Hatter: and in that direction,” waving the other paw, “lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.”
“Ašër lebo latli d lëqyono b daywone,” madcarla Alis.		“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Mëqšët! Bac man kibe dë mcawanlëx,” mjawabla acla i Qaṭën. “Ḥur kulan, hat ste acmayna, daywonena.”		“Oh, you ca’n’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“Mayko këḏcët ëno daywëniṯono?” mšayela Alis.		“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“Kobëc hawxa d howët w dlo harke šuǧlëx mënyo,” madcarla i Qaṭën.		“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn't have come here.”

Lewis Carroll is a pen-name: Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was the author's real name and he was lecturer in Mathematics in Christ Church, Oxford. Dodgson began the story on 4 July 1862, when he took a journey in a rowing boat on the river Thames in Oxford together with the Reverend Robinson Duckworth, with Alice Liddell (ten years of age) the daughter of the Dean of Christ Church, and with her two sisters, Lorina (thirteen years of age), and Edith (eight years of age). As is clear from the poem at the beginning of the book, the three girls asked Dodgson for a story and reluctantly at first he began to tell the first version of the story to them. There are many half-hidden references made to the five of them throughout the text of the book itself, which was published finally in 1865.
Ṣurayt (also called Ṭuroyo) is the Aramaic vernacular of Syriac Christians from Turabdin in south-eastern Turkey. Unlike the other Eastern Neo-Aramaic languages (e.g. Alqosh, Til-kepe, Nerwa (Jewish), and Urmia) Ṭuroyo had no writing tradition until recent times. It has been handed down from generation to generation only as a spoken language in Turabdin, while the writing and liturgical language is still Classical Syriac, the Edessean Aramaic language of Syriac Christianity. This translation of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" has been published on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the book.