![Aramaic alphabet](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/Aramaic_alphabet.svg)
The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a
language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hist ...
containing many
varieties
Variety may refer to:
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* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
(languages and dialects) that originated in the ancient
region of Syria
Syria ( Hieroglyphic Luwian: 𔒂𔒠 ''Sura/i''; gr, Συρία) or Sham ( ar, ٱلشَّام, ash-Shām) is the name of a historical region located east of the Mediterranean Sea in Western Asia, broadly synonymous with the Levant. Other ...
.
For over three thousand years, It is a sub-group of the
Semitic languages
The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigra ...
. Aramaic varieties served as a language of public life and administration of ancient kingdoms and empires and also as a language of divine worship and religious study. Several modern varieties, namely the
Neo-Aramaic languages
The Neo-Aramaic or Modern Aramaic languages are variety (linguistics), varieties of Aramaic language, Aramaic that evolved during the late medieval and early modern periods, and continue to the present day as vernacular (spoken) languages of mode ...
, are still spoken in the present-day.
The Aramaic languages belong to the
Northwest group of the
Semitic language family, which also includes the
Canaanite languages
The Canaanite languages, or Canaanite dialects, are one of the three subgroups of the Northwest Semitic languages, the others being Aramaic and Ugaritic, all originating in the Levant and Mesopotamia. They are attested in Canaanite inscription ...
such as
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
,
Edomite
Edom (; Edomite: ; he, אֱדוֹם , lit.: "red"; Akkadian: , ; Ancient Egyptian: ) was an ancient kingdom in Transjordan, located between Moab to the northeast, the Arabah to the west, and the Arabian Desert to the south and east. ...
,
Moabite, and
Phoenician, as well as
Amorite
The Amorites (; sux, 𒈥𒌅, MAR.TU; Akkadian: 𒀀𒈬𒊒𒌝 or 𒋾𒀉𒉡𒌝/𒊎 ; he, אֱמוֹרִי, 'Ĕmōrī; grc, Ἀμορραῖοι) were an ancient Northwest Semitic-speaking people from the Levant who also occupied lar ...
and
Ugaritic
Ugaritic () is an extinct Northwest Semitic language, classified by some as a dialect of the Amorite language and so the only known Amorite dialect preserved in writing. It is known through the Ugaritic texts discovered by French archaeologis ...
. Aramaic languages are written in the
Aramaic alphabet
The ancient Aramaic alphabet was adapted by Arameans from the Phoenician alphabet and became a distinct script by the 8th century BC. It was used to write the Aramaic languages spoken by ancient Aramean pre-Christian tribes throughout the Fertil ...
, a descendant of the
Phoenician alphabet
The Phoenician alphabet is an alphabet (more specifically, an abjad) known in modern times from the Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean region. The name comes from the Phoenician civilization.
The Phoenician alpha ...
, and the most prominent alphabet variant is the
Syriac alphabet
The Syriac alphabet ( ) is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language since the 1st century AD. It is one of the Semitic abjads descending from the Aramaic alphabet through the Palmyrene alphabet, and shares similarities with ...
. The Aramaic alphabet also became a base for the creation and adaptation of specific writing systems in some other Semitic languages, such as the
Hebrew alphabet
The Hebrew alphabet ( he, wikt:אלפבית, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew languag ...
and the
Arabic alphabet.
The Aramaic languages are now considered
endangered
An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and inva ...
, since several varieties are used mainly by the older generations. Researchers are working to record and analyze all of the remaining varieties of Neo-Aramaic languages before they become extinct.
Early
Aramaic inscriptions date from 10th century BC, placing it among the
earliest languages to be written down. Aramaicist
Holger Gzella Holger may refer to:
People
* Holger (given name), includes name origin, plus people with the name
* Hilde Holger, stage name of dancer, choreographer and dance teacher Hilde Boman-Behram (née Hilde Sofer, 1905–2001)
Fictional characters
* Holg ...
notes, "The linguistic history of Aramaic prior to the appearance of the first textual sources in the ninth century BC remains unknown."
History
Historically and originally, Aramaic was the language of the
Arameans
The Arameans ( oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; syc, ܐܪ̈ܡܝܐ, Ārāmāyē) were an ancient Semitic-speaking people in the Near East, first recorded in historical sources from the late 12th century BCE. The Aramean ...
, a Semitic-speaking people of the region between the northern
Levant
The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...
and the northern
Tigris
The Tigris () is the easternmost of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian and Arabian Deserts, and empties into the ...
valley. By around 1000 BC, the Arameans had a string of kingdoms in what is now part of
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
,
Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...
,
Jordan
Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...
, and the fringes of southern
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...
and
Anatolia
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
. Aramaic rose to prominence under the
Neo-Assyrian Empire
The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history and the final and greatest phase of Assyria as an independent state. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew t ...
(911–605 BC), under whose influence Aramaic became a prestige language after being adopted as a
lingua franca
A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
of the empire, and its use spread throughout
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...
, the
Levant
The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...
and parts of
Asia Minor
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
. At its height, Aramaic, having gradually replaced earlier Semitic languages, was spoken in several variants all over historical territories of
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
,
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
,
Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...
,
Palestine
__NOTOC__
Palestine may refer to:
* State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia
* Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia
* Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...
,
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
,
Jordan
Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...
,
Kuwait
Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the nort ...
,
Eastern Arabia
Eastern Arabia, historically known as al-Baḥrayn ( ar, البحرين) until the 18th century, is a region stretched from Basra to Khasab along the Persian Gulf coast and included parts of modern-day Bahrain, Kuwait, Eastern Saudi Arabia, Unite ...
,
Bahrain
Bahrain ( ; ; ar, البحرين, al-Bahrayn, locally ), officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, ' is an island country in Western Asia. It is situated on the Persian Gulf, and comprises a small archipelago made up of 50 natural islands and an ...
,
Sinai
Sinai commonly refers to:
* Sinai Peninsula, Egypt
* Mount Sinai, a mountain in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt
* Biblical Mount Sinai, the site in the Bible where Moses received the Law of God
Sinai may also refer to:
* Sinai, South Dakota, a place ...
, parts of southeast and south central
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
, and parts of northwest
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
.
According to the Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 38b), the language spoken by the Bible's first was Aramaic.
Aramaic was the
language of Jesus
There exists a consensus among scholars that the language of Jesus and his disciples was Aramaic. This is generally agreed upon by historians. Aramaic was the common language of Judea in the first century AD. The villages of Nazareth and Capern ...
, who spoke the
Galilean dialect
The Galilean dialect was the form of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic spoken by people in Galilee during the late Second Temple period, for example at the time of Jesus and the disciples, as distinct from a Judean dialect spoken in Jerusalem.
The ...
during his public ministry, as well as the language of several sections of the
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;["Tanach"](_blank)
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...
, including parts of the books of
Daniel
Daniel is a masculine given name and a surname of Hebrew origin. It means "God is my judge"Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 68. (cf. Gabriel—"God is my strength" ...
and
Ezra
Ezra (; he, עֶזְרָא, '; fl. 480–440 BCE), also called Ezra the Scribe (, ') and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra, was a Jewish scribe (''sofer'') and priest (''kohen''). In Greco-Latin Ezra is called Esdras ( grc-gre, Ἔσδρας ...
, and also the language of the
Targum
A targum ( arc, תרגום 'interpretation, translation, version') was an originally spoken translation of the Hebrew Bible (also called the ''Tanakh'') that a professional translator ( ''mǝturgǝmān'') would give in the common language of the ...
, the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible. It is also the language of the
Jerusalem Talmud
The Jerusalem Talmud ( he, תַּלְמוּד יְרוּשַׁלְמִי, translit=Talmud Yerushalmi, often for short), also known as the Palestinian Talmud or Talmud of the Land of Israel, is a collection of rabbinic notes on the second-century ...
,
Babylonian Talmud
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cente ...
and
Zohar
The ''Zohar'' ( he, , ''Zōhar'', lit. "Splendor" or "Radiance") is a foundational work in the literature of Jewish mystical thought known as Kabbalah. It is a group of books including commentary on the mystical aspects of the Torah (the five ...
.
The scribes of the Neo-Assyrian bureaucracy had also used Aramaic, and this practice was subsequently inherited by the succeeding
Neo-Babylonian Empire
The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to Mesopotamia. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the List of kings of Babylon, King of B ...
(605–539 BC), and later by the
Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest em ...
(539–330 BC). Mediated by scribes that had been trained in the language, highly standardized ''written'' Aramaic (named by scholars as
Imperial Aramaic
Imperial Aramaic is a linguistic term, coined by modern scholars in order to designate a specific historical variety of Aramaic language. The term is polysemic, with two distinctive meanings, wider (sociolinguistic) and narrower (dialectological ...
) progressively also become the ''
lingua franca
A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
'' of public life, trade and commerce throughout the Achaemenid territories. Wide use of ''written'' Aramaic subsequently led to the adoption of the
Aramaic alphabet
The ancient Aramaic alphabet was adapted by Arameans from the Phoenician alphabet and became a distinct script by the 8th century BC. It was used to write the Aramaic languages spoken by ancient Aramean pre-Christian tribes throughout the Fertil ...
and (as
logogram
In a written language, a logogram, logograph, or lexigraph is a written character that represents a word or morpheme. Chinese characters (pronounced ''hanzi'' in Mandarin, ''kanji'' in Japanese, ''hanja'' in Korean) are generally logograms, as ...
s) some Aramaic vocabulary in the
Pahlavi scripts
Pahlavi is a particular, exclusively written form of various Middle Iranian languages. The essential characteristics of Pahlavi are:
*the use of a specific Aramaic-derived script;
*the incidence of Aramaic words used as heterograms (called '' ...
, which were used by several
Middle Iranian languages
The Iranian languages or Iranic languages are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau.
The Iranian languages are grouped ...
(including
Parthian Parthian may be:
Historical
* A demonym "of Parthia", a region of north-eastern of Greater Iran
* Parthian Empire (247 BC – 224 AD)
* Parthian language, a now-extinct Middle Iranian language
* Parthian shot, an archery skill famously employed by ...
,
Middle Persian
Middle Persian or Pahlavi, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg () in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasanian Empire. For some time after the Sasanian collapse, Middle Per ...
,
Sogdian, and
Khwarazmian).
Some variants of Aramaic are also retained as
sacred languages
A sacred language, holy language or liturgical language is any language that is literary language, cultivated and used primarily in church service or for other religion, religious reasons by people who speak another, primary language in their da ...
by certain religious communities. Most notable among them is
Classical Syriac
The Syriac language (; syc, / '), also known as Syriac Aramaic (''Syrian Aramaic'', ''Syro-Aramaic'') and Classical Syriac ܠܫܢܐ ܥܬܝܩܐ (in its literary and liturgical form), is an Aramaic dialect that emerged during the first century ...
, the liturgical language of
Syriac Christianity
Syriac Christianity ( syr, ܡܫܝܚܝܘܬܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܬܐ / ''Mšiḥoyuṯo Suryoyto'' or ''Mšiḥāyūṯā Suryāytā'') is a distinctive branch of Eastern Christianity, whose formative theological writings and traditional liturgies are expr ...
. It is used by several communities, including the
Assyrian Church of the East
The Assyrian Church of the East,, ar, كنيسة المشرق الآشورية sometimes called Church of the East, officially the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East,; ar, كنيسة المشرق الآشورية الرسول ...
, the
Ancient Church of the East
The Ancient Church of the East is an Eastern Christian denomination. It branched from the Assyrian Church of the East in 1964, under the leadership of Mar Thoma Darmo (d. 1969). It is one of three Assyrian Churches that claim continuity with the ...
, the
Chaldean Catholic Church
, native_name_lang = syc
, image = Assyrian Church.png
, imagewidth = 200px
, alt =
, caption = Cathedral of Our Lady of Sorrows Baghdad, Iraq
, abbreviation =
, type ...
, the
Syriac Orthodox Church
, native_name_lang = syc
, image = St_George_Syriac_orthodox_church_in_Damascus.jpg
, imagewidth = 250
, alt = Cathedral of Saint George
, caption = Cathedral of Saint George, Damascus ...
, the
Syriac Catholic Church
The Syriac Catholic Church ( syc, ܥܕܬܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܬܐ ܩܬܘܠܝܩܝܬܐ, ʿĪṯo Suryayṯo Qaṯolīqayṯo, ar, الكنيسة السريانية الكاثوليكية) is an Eastern Catholic Churches, Eastern Catholic Christianity ...
, the
Maronite Church
The Maronite Church is an Eastern Catholic ''sui iuris'' particular church in full communion with the pope and the worldwide Catholic Church, with self-governance under the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches. The current head of the Maro ...
, and also the
Saint Thomas Christians
The Saint Thomas Christians, also called Syrian Christians of India, ''Marthoma Suriyani Nasrani'', ''Malankara Nasrani'', or ''Nasrani Mappila'', are an ethno-religious
An ethnoreligious group (or an ethno-religious group) is a grouping of ...
(Native Christians) and
Syrian Christians Syrian or Syriac Christians may refer to
* Adherents of Christianity in Syria
* Adherents of Syriac Christianity, various Christian bodies of Syriac traditions, especially:
** Syriac/Assyrian/Aramean people, Christian neo-Aramaic speakers througho ...
(K
aya) of
Kerala
Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. One of Aramaic liturgical dialects was
Mandaic Mandaic may refer to:
* Mandaic language
* Mandaic alphabet
** Mandaic (Unicode block)
Mandaic is a Unicode block containing characters of the Mandaic script used for writing the historic Eastern Aramaic, also called Classical Mandaic, and the m ...
, which besides becoming a vernacular (
Neo-Mandaic
Neo-Mandaic, sometimes called the "''ratna''" ( ar, رطنة ''raṭna'' "jargon"), is the modern reflex of the Mandaic language, the liturgical language of the Mandaean religious community of Iraq and Iran. Although severely endangered, it sur ...
) also remained the liturgical language of
Mandaeism
Mandaeism (Classical Mandaic: ࡌࡀࡍࡃࡀࡉࡉࡀ ; Arabic: المندائيّة ), sometimes also known as Nasoraeanism or Sabianism, is a Gnostic, monotheistic and ethnic religion. Its adherents, the Mandaeans, revere Adam, Abel, S ...
. Syriac was also the liturgical language of several now-extinct
gnostic
Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...
faiths, such as
Manichaeism
Manichaeism (;
in New Persian ; ) is a former major religionR. van den Broek, Wouter J. Hanegraaff ''Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times''SUNY Press, 1998 p. 37 founded in the 3rd century AD by the Parthian Empire, Parthian ...
.
Neo-Aramaic languages
The Neo-Aramaic or Modern Aramaic languages are variety (linguistics), varieties of Aramaic language, Aramaic that evolved during the late medieval and early modern periods, and continue to the present day as vernacular (spoken) languages of mode ...
are still spoken in the 21st century as a
first language
A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...
by many communities of Syriac Christians,
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
(in particular, the
Jews of Kurdistan
, image = File:RABBI MOSHE GABAIL.jpg
, caption = Rabbi Moshe Gabai, head of the Jewish community of Zakho, with Israeli President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi in 1951
, pop = 200,000–300,000
, region1 =
, pop1 ...
), and
Mandaeans
Mandaeans ( ar, المندائيون ), also known as Mandaean Sabians ( ) or simply as Sabians ( ), are an ethnoreligious group who are followers of Mandaeism. They believe that John the Baptist was the final and most important prophet. They ...
of the
Near East
The ''Near East''; he, המזרח הקרוב; arc, ܕܢܚܐ ܩܪܒ; fa, خاور نزدیک, Xāvar-e nazdik; tr, Yakın Doğu is a geographical term which roughly encompasses a transcontinental region in Western Asia, that was once the hist ...
, most numerously by Christian Syriacs (Syriac-speakers: ethnic Arameans, Assyrians and Chaldeans), and with numbers of fluent speakers ranging approximately from 1 million to 2 million, with the main languages among Assyrians being
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic
Suret ( syr, ܣܘܪܝܬ) ( su:rɪtʰor su:rɪθ, also known as Assyrian or Chaldean, refers to the varieties of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) spoken by ethnic Assyrians, including those identifying as religious groups rather than eth ...
(590,000 speakers),
Chaldean Neo-Aramaic
Suret ( syr, ܣܘܪܝܬ) ( su:rɪtʰor su:rɪθ, also known as Assyrian or Chaldean, refers to the varieties of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) spoken by ethnic Assyrians, including those identifying as religious groups rather than eth ...
(240,000 speakers) and
Turoyo
Turoyo ( syr, ܛܘܪܝܐ) (''Ṭūr ‘Abdinian Aramaic''), also referred to as modern Surayt ( syr, ܣܘܪܝܬ), or modern Suryoyo ( syr, ܣܘܪܝܝܐ), is a Central Neo-Aramaic language traditionally spoken in the Tur Abdin region in southeas ...
(100,000 speakers); in addition to
Western Neo-Aramaic
Western Neo-Aramaic (), more commonly referred to as Siryon ( "Syrian"), is a modern Western Aramaic languages, Western Aramaic language. Today, it is only spoken in three villages – Maaloula, Al-Sarkha (Bakhah), Bakhah and Jubb'adin – in th ...
(21,700) which persists in only three villages in the
Anti-Lebanon Mountains
The Anti-Lebanon Mountains ( ar, جبال لبنان الشرقية, Jibāl Lubnān ash-Sharqiyyah, Eastern Mountains of Lebanon; Lebanese Arabic: , , "Eastern Mountains") are a southwest–northeast-trending mountain range that forms most of th ...
region in western
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
. They have retained use of the once dominant lingua franca despite subsequent
language shift
Language shift, also known as language transfer or language replacement or language assimilation, is the process whereby a speech community shifts to a different language, usually over an extended period of time. Often, languages that are perceiv ...
s experienced throughout the
Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...
.
Name
![Carpentras Stela, in CIS II 141 (cropped)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Carpentras_Stela%2C_in_CIS_II_141_%28cropped%29.jpg)
The connection between Chaldean, Syriac, and Samaritan as "Aramaic" was first identified in 1679 by German theologian
Johann Wilhelm Hilliger.
In 1819–21
Ulrich Friedrich Kopp published his ''Bilder und Schriften der Vorzeit'' ("Images and Inscriptions of the Past"), in which he established the basis of the
paleographical development of the Northwest Semitic scripts.
Kopp criticised
Jean-Jacques Barthélemy
Jean-Jacques Barthélemy (20 January 1716 – 30 April 1795) was a French scholar who became the first person to decipher an extinct language. He deciphered the Palmyrene alphabet in 1754 and the Phoenician alphabet in 1758.
Early years
Barth ...
and other scholars who had characterized all the
then-known inscriptions and coins as Phoenician, with "everything left to the Phoenicians and nothing to the Arameans, as if they could not have written at all". Kopp noted that some of the words on the
Carpentras Stele corresponded to the Aramaic in the
Book of Daniel
The Book of Daniel is a 2nd-century BC biblical apocalypse with a 6th century BC setting. Ostensibly "an account of the activities and visions of Daniel, a noble Jew exiled at Babylon", it combines a prophecy of history with an eschatology (a ...
, and in the
Book of Ruth
The Book of Ruth ( he, מגילת רות, ''Megilath Ruth'', "the Scroll of Ruth", one of the Five Megillot) is included in the third division, or the Writings (Ketuvim), of the Hebrew Bible. In most Christian canons it is treated as one of the ...
.
Josephus
Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for ''The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly d ...
and
Strabo
Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could see ...
(the latter citing
Posidonius
Posidonius (; grc-gre, wikt:Ποσειδώνιος, Ποσειδώνιος , "of Poseidon") "of Apamea (Syria), Apameia" (ὁ Ἀπαμεύς) or "of Rhodes" (ὁ Ῥόδιος) (), was a Greeks, Greek politician, astronomer, astrologer, geog ...
) both stated that the "Syrians" called themselves "Arameans". The
Septuagint
The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond th ...
, the earliest extant full copy of the Hebrew Bible, a Greek translation, used the terms ''Syria'' and ''Syrian'' where the
Masoretic Text
The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; he, נֻסָּח הַמָּסוֹרָה, Nūssāḥ Hammāsōrā, lit. 'Text of the Tradition') is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) in Rabbinic Judaism. ...
, the earliest extant Hebrew copy of the Bible, uses the terms ''Aramean'' and ''Aramaic''; numerous later bibles followed the Septuagint's usage, including the
King James Version
The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an Bible translations into English, English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and publis ...
.
This connection between the names Syrian and Aramaic was made in 1835 by
Étienne Marc Quatremère
Étienne Marc Quatremère (12 July 1782, Paris18 September 1857, Paris) was a French Orientalist.
Biography
Born into a Jansenist family, Étienne and his mother, who knew Latin, had to go into hiding in the countryside when his father, a cloth ...
.
[
In historical sources, Aramaic language is designated by two distinctive groups of terms, first of them represented by ]endonymic
An endonym (from Greek language, Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a Location, geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that p ...
(native) names, and the other one represented by various exonymic (foreign in origin) names. Native (endonymic) terms for Aramaic language were derived from the same word root
A root (or root word) is the core of a word that is irreducible into more meaningful elements. In morphology, a root is a morphologically simple unit which can be left bare or to which a prefix or a suffix can attach. The root word is the prima ...
as the name of its original speakers, the ancient Arameans
The Arameans ( oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; syc, ܐܪ̈ܡܝܐ, Ārāmāyē) were an ancient Semitic-speaking people in the Near East, first recorded in historical sources from the late 12th century BCE. The Aramean ...
. Endonymic forms were also adopted in some other languages, like ancient Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
. In the Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the s ...
(Hebrew Bible), "Aram" is used as a proper name of several people including descendants of Shem, Nahor, and Jacob. Ancient Aram
Aram may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Aram'' (film), 2002 French action drama
* Aram, a fictional character in Japanese manga series '' MeruPuri''
* Aram Quartet, an Italian music group
* ''Aram'' (Kural book), the first of the three ...
, bordering northern Israel and what is now called Syria, is considered the linguistic center of Aramaic, the language of the Arameans who settled the area during the Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
c. 3500 BC. The language is often mistakenly considered to have originated within Assyria (Iraq). In fact, Arameans carried their language and writing into Mesopotamia by voluntary migration, by forced exile of conquering armies, and by nomadic Chaldean invasions of Babylonia during the period from 1200 to 1000 BC.
Unlike in Hebrew, designations for Aramaic language in some other ancient languages were mostly exonymic. In ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
, Aramaic language was most commonly known as the "Syrian language",[Nöldeke, 1871, p. 115: "Die Griechen haben den Namen "Aramäer" nie eigentlich gekannt; ausser Posidonius (dem Strabo folgt) nennt ihn uns nur noch ein andrer Orientale, Josephus (Ant. 1, 6, 4). Dass Homer bei den 'Ερεμβοι oder in den Worten eiv 'Αρίμοις an sie dächte, ist sehr unwahrscheinlich. Die Griechen nannten das Volk "Syrer"".] in relation to the native (non-Greek) inhabitants of the historical region of Syria
Syria ( Hieroglyphic Luwian: 𔒂𔒠 ''Sura/i''; gr, Συρία) or Sham ( ar, ٱلشَّام, ash-Shām) is the name of a historical region located east of the Mediterranean Sea in Western Asia, broadly synonymous with the Levant. Other ...
. Since the name of Syria
The name ''Syria'' is latinized from the Greek (). In toponymic typology, the term Syria is classified among choronyms (proper names of regions and countries). The origin and usage of the term has been the subject of interest, both among ancien ...
itself emerged as a variant of Assyria, the biblical Ashur, and Akkadian Ashuru, a complex set of semantic
Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...
phenomena was created, becoming a subject of interest both among ancient writers and modern scholars.
The Koine Greek
Koine Greek (; Koine el, ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, hē koinè diálektos, the common dialect; ), also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-reg ...
word (''Hebraïstí'') has been translated as "Aramaic" in some versions of the Christian New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
, as Aramaic was at that time the language commonly spoken by the Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
. However, is consistently used in Koine Greek at this time to mean Hebrew and (''Syristi'') is used to mean Aramaic. In Biblical scholarship, the term "Chaldean" was for many years used as a synonym of Aramaic, due to its use in the book of Daniel and subsequent interpretation by Jerome
Jerome (; la, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian presbyter, priest, Confessor of the Faith, confessor, th ...
.
Geographic distribution
During the Neo-Assyrian
The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history and the final and greatest phase of Assyria as an independent state. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew t ...
and Neo-Babylonian Empire
The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to Mesopotamia. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the List of kings of Babylon, King of B ...
s, Arameans
The Arameans ( oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; syc, ܐܪ̈ܡܝܐ, Ārāmāyē) were an ancient Semitic-speaking people in the Near East, first recorded in historical sources from the late 12th century BCE. The Aramean ...
, the native speakers of Aramaic, began to settle in greater numbers, at first in Babylonia
Babylonia (; Akkadian: , ''māt Akkadī'') was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Syria). It emerged as an Amorite-ruled state c. ...
, and later in Assyria
Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the A ...
(Upper Mesopotamia
Upper Mesopotamia is the name used for the Upland and lowland, uplands and great outwash plain of northwestern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey, in the northern Middle East. Since the early Muslim conquests of the mid-7th century, ...
, modern-day northern Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
, northeast Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
, northwest Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
, and southeastern Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
(what was Armenia at the time). The influx eventually resulted in the Neo-Assyrian Empire
The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history and the final and greatest phase of Assyria as an independent state. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew t ...
(911–605 BC) adopting an Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to:
* Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire
* Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language
* Akkadian literature, literature in this language
* Akkadian cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo- syllabi ...
-influenced Imperial Aramaic
Imperial Aramaic is a linguistic term, coined by modern scholars in order to designate a specific historical variety of Aramaic language. The term is polysemic, with two distinctive meanings, wider (sociolinguistic) and narrower (dialectological ...
as the ''lingua franca
A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
'' of its empire. This policy was continued by the short-lived Neo-Babylonian Empire
The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to Mesopotamia. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the List of kings of Babylon, King of B ...
and Medes
The Medes (Old Persian: ; Akkadian: , ; Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) were an ancient Iranian people who spoke the Median language and who inhabited an area known as Media between western and northern Iran. Around the 11th century BC, the ...
, and all three empires became operationally bilingual in written sources, with Aramaic used alongside Akkadian. The Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest em ...
(539–323 BC) continued this tradition, and the extensive influence of these empires led to Aramaic gradually becoming the lingua franca
A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
of most of western Asia, the Arabian Peninsula
The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate ...
, Anatolia
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
, the Caucasus
The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically ...
, and Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
.
Beginning with the rise of the Rashidun Caliphate
The Rashidun Caliphate ( ar, اَلْخِلَافَةُ ٱلرَّاشِدَةُ, al-Khilāfah ar-Rāšidah) was the first caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was ruled by the first four successive caliphs of Muhammad after his ...
in the late 7th century, Arabic gradually replaced Aramaic as the lingua franca
A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
of the Near East
The ''Near East''; he, המזרח הקרוב; arc, ܕܢܚܐ ܩܪܒ; fa, خاور نزدیک, Xāvar-e nazdik; tr, Yakın Doğu is a geographical term which roughly encompasses a transcontinental region in Western Asia, that was once the hist ...
. However, Aramaic remains a spoken, literary, and liturgical language for local Christians and also some Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
. Aramaic also continues to be spoken by the Assyrians of Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and northwest Iran, with diaspora communities in Armenia
Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...
, Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
, Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...
and southern Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
. The Mandaeans
Mandaeans ( ar, المندائيون ), also known as Mandaean Sabians ( ) or simply as Sabians ( ), are an ethnoreligious group who are followers of Mandaeism. They believe that John the Baptist was the final and most important prophet. They ...
also continue to use Mandaic Aramaic as a liturgical language, although most now speak Arabic as their first language
A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...
. There are still also a small number of first-language speakers of Western Aramaic varieties in isolated villages in western Syria.
Being in contact with other regional languages, some Aramaic dialects were often engaged in mutual exchange of influences, particularly with Arabic, Iranian, and Kurdish.
The turbulence of the last two centuries (particularly the Assyrian genocide
The Sayfo or the Seyfo (; see below), also known as the Assyrian genocide, was the mass slaughter and deportation of Assyrian / Syriac Christians in southeastern Anatolia and Persia's Azerbaijan province by Ottoman forces and some Kurdish t ...
) has seen speakers of first-language and literary Aramaic dispersed throughout the world. However, there are a number of sizable Assyrian towns in northern Iraq such as Alqosh
Alqosh ( syr, ܐܲܠܩܘܿܫ, Judeo-Aramaic: אלקוש, ar, ألقوش, alternatively spelled Alkosh or Alqush) is a town in the Nineveh Plains of northern Iraq, a sub-district of the Tel Kaif District and is situated 45 km north of the ...
, Bakhdida
Qaraqosh, also known as Al-Hamdaniya or Bakhdida, is an Assyrian city in Iraq within the Nineveh Governorate, located about 32 km (20 mi) southeast of the city of Mosul and 60 km (37 mi) west of Erbil amid agricultural lands, close ...
, Bartella, Tesqopa
Tesqopa ( syr, ܬܠܐ ܙܩܝܦܐ, ar, تسقوبا) or Tel Skuf ( syr, ܬܠ ܣܩܘܦ, ar, تللسقف), also ''Tel Eskof'' or ''Tall Asqaf'' is a town in northern Iraq located approximately 19 miles (about 28 kilometres) north of Mosul. Th ...
, and Tel Keppe
Tel Keppe ( syr, ܬܸܠ ܟܹܐܦܹܐ ', ar, تل كيف ', alternatively spelled Tel Kaif or Telkef) is an Assyrian town in northern Iraq. It is located in the Nineveh Governorate, less than 8 mi (13 km) northeast of Mosul.Welcome to Te ...
, and numerous small villages, where Aramaic is still the main spoken language, and many large cities in this region also have Assyrian Aramaic-speaking communities, particularly Mosul
Mosul ( ar, الموصل, al-Mawṣil, ku, مووسڵ, translit=Mûsil, Turkish: ''Musul'', syr, ܡܘܨܠ, Māwṣil) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. The city is considered the second large ...
, Erbil
Erbil, also called Hawler (, ar, أربيل, Arbīl; syr, ܐܲܪܒܹܝܠ, Arbel), is the capital and most populated city in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It lies in the Erbil Governorate. It has an estimated population of around 1,600,000.
Hu ...
, Kirkuk
Kirkuk ( ar, كركوك, ku, کەرکووک, translit=Kerkûk, , tr, Kerkük) is a city in Iraq, serving as the capital of the Kirkuk Governorate, located north of Baghdad. The city is home to a diverse population of Turkmens, Arabs, Kurds, ...
, Dohuk
Duhok ( ku, دهۆک, translit=Dihok; ar, دهوك, Dahūk; syr, ܒܝܬ ܢܘܗܕܪܐ, Beth Nohadra) is a city in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It's the capital city of Duhok Governorate.
History
The city's origin dates back to the Ston ...
, and al-Hasakah
Al-Hasakah ( ar, ٱلْحَسَكَة, al-Ḥasaka; ku, Heseke/حەسەکە; syr, ܚܣܝܟܐ Hasake), is the capital city of the Al-Hasakah Governorate, in the northeastern corner of Syria. With a 2004 census population of 188,160, it is the e ...
. In Modern Israel, the only native Aramaic speaking population are the Jews of Kurdistan
, image = File:RABBI MOSHE GABAIL.jpg
, caption = Rabbi Moshe Gabai, head of the Jewish community of Zakho, with Israeli President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi in 1951
, pop = 200,000–300,000
, region1 =
, pop1 ...
, although the language is dying out. However, Aramaic is also experiencing a revival among Maronites in Israel
Maronites in Israel ( ar, الموارنة في إسرائيل, syr, ܒܝܫܪܐܠ ܡܖ̈ܘܢܝܐ) are an Arabic-speaking minority who belong to the Maronite Catholic Church, which has historically been tied with Lebanon. They derive their name fr ...
in Jish
Jish ( ar, الجش; he, גִ'שׁ, גּוּשׁ חָלָב, Jish, Gush Halav) is a local council in Upper Galilee, located on the northeastern slopes of Mount Meron, north of Safed, in Israel's Northern District. In it had a population of , w ...
.
Aramaic languages and dialects
Aramaic is often spoken of as a single language, but is in reality a group of related languages. Some Aramaic languages differ more from each other than the Romance languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language fam ...
do among themselves. Its long history, extensive literature, and use by different religious communities are all factors in the diversification of the language. Some Aramaic dialects are mutually intelligible, whereas others are not, not unlike the situation with modern varieties of Arabic
The varieties (or dialects or vernacular languages) of Arabic, a Semitic language within the Afroasiatic family originating in the Arabian Peninsula, are the linguistic systems that Arabic speakers speak natively. There are considerable variati ...
. Some Aramaic languages are known under different names; for example, Syriac Syriac may refer to:
*Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic
*Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region
* Syriac alphabet
** Syriac (Unicode block)
** Syriac Supplement
* Neo-Aramaic languages a ...
is particularly used to describe the Eastern Aramaic variety used in Christian ethnic communities in Iraq, southeastern Turkey, northeastern Syria, and northwestern Iran, and Saint Thomas Christians
The Saint Thomas Christians, also called Syrian Christians of India, ''Marthoma Suriyani Nasrani'', ''Malankara Nasrani'', or ''Nasrani Mappila'', are an ethno-religious
An ethnoreligious group (or an ethno-religious group) is a grouping of ...
in India. Most dialects can be described as either "Eastern" or "Western", the dividing line being roughly the Euphrates
The Euphrates () is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers'') ...
, or slightly west of it. It is also helpful to draw a distinction between those Aramaic languages that are modern living languages (often called "Neo-Aramaic"), those that are still in use as literary languages, and those that are extinct and are only of interest to scholars. Although there are some exceptions to this rule, this classification gives "Modern", "Middle", and "Old" periods, alongside "Eastern" and "Western" areas, to distinguish between the various languages and dialects that are Aramaic.
Writing system
The earliest Aramaic alphabet was based on the Phoenician alphabet
The Phoenician alphabet is an alphabet (more specifically, an abjad) known in modern times from the Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean region. The name comes from the Phoenician civilization.
The Phoenician alpha ...
. In time, Aramaic developed its distinctive "square" style. The ancient Israelites and other peoples of Canaan
Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...
adopted this alphabet for writing their own languages. Thus, it is better known as the Hebrew alphabet
The Hebrew alphabet ( he, wikt:אלפבית, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew languag ...
. This is the writing system used in Biblical Aramaic
Biblical Aramaic is the form of Aramaic that is used in the books of Daniel and Ezra in the Hebrew Bible. It should not be confused with the Targums – Aramaic paraphrases, explanations and expansions of the Hebrew scriptures.
History
During ...
and other Jewish writing in Aramaic. The other main writing system used for Aramaic was developed by Christian communities: a cursive form known as the Syriac alphabet
The Syriac alphabet ( ) is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language since the 1st century AD. It is one of the Semitic abjads descending from the Aramaic alphabet through the Palmyrene alphabet, and shares similarities with ...
. A highly modified form of the Aramaic alphabet, the Mandaic alphabet
The Mandaic alphabet is thought to have evolved between the 2nd and 7th century CE from either a cursive form of Aramaic (as did Syriac) or from the Parthian chancery script. The exact roots of the script are difficult to determine.
It was deve ...
, is used by the Mandaeans
Mandaeans ( ar, المندائيون ), also known as Mandaean Sabians ( ) or simply as Sabians ( ), are an ethnoreligious group who are followers of Mandaeism. They believe that John the Baptist was the final and most important prophet. They ...
.
In addition to these writing systems, certain derivatives of the Aramaic alphabet were used in ancient times by particular groups: the Nabataean alphabet
The Nabataean script is an abjad (consonantal alphabet) that was used to write Nabataean Aramaic and Nabataean Arabic from the second century BC onwards.[Petra
Petra ( ar, ٱلْبَتْرَاء, Al-Batrāʾ; grc, Πέτρα, "Rock", Nabataean Aramaic, Nabataean: ), originally known to its inhabitants as Raqmu or Raqēmō, is an historic and archaeological city in southern Jordan. It is adjacent to t ...](_blan ...<br></span></div> in <div class=)
and the Palmyrene alphabet
The Palmyrene alphabet was a historical Semitic alphabet used to write Palmyrene Aramaic.
It was used between 100 BCE and 300 CE in Palmyra in the Syrian desert.
The oldest surviving Palmyrene inscription dates to 44 BCE.
The last surviving in ...
in Palmyra
Palmyra (; Palmyrene: () ''Tadmor''; ar, تَدْمُر ''Tadmur'') is an ancient city in present-day Homs Governorate, Syria. Archaeological finds date back to the Neolithic period, and documents first mention the city in the early second ...
. In modern times, Turoyo
Turoyo ( syr, ܛܘܪܝܐ) (''Ṭūr ‘Abdinian Aramaic''), also referred to as modern Surayt ( syr, ܣܘܪܝܬ), or modern Suryoyo ( syr, ܣܘܪܝܝܐ), is a Central Neo-Aramaic language traditionally spoken in the Tur Abdin region in southeas ...
(see below
Below may refer to:
*Earth
*Ground (disambiguation)
*Soil
*Floor
*Bottom (disambiguation)
Bottom may refer to:
Anatomy and sex
* Bottom (BDSM), the partner in a BDSM who takes the passive, receiving, or obedient role, to that of the top or ...
) has sometimes been written in a Latin script
The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy ...
.
Periodization
Periodization
In historiography, periodization is the process or study of categorizing the past into discrete, quantified, and named blocks of time for the purpose of study or analysis.Adam Rabinowitz. It's about time: historical periodization and Linked Ancie ...
of historical development of Aramaic language has been the subject of particular interest for scholars, who proposed several types of periodization, based on linguistic, chronological and territorial criteria. Overlapping terminology, used in different periodizations, led to the creation of several polysemic
Polysemy ( or ; ) is the capacity for a sign (e.g. a symbol, a morpheme, a word, or a phrase) to have multiple related meanings. For example, a word can have several word senses. Polysemy is distinct from ''monosemy'', where a word has a single ...
terms, that are used differently among scholars. Terms like: Old Aramaic, Ancient Aramaic, Early Aramaic, Middle Aramaic, Late Aramaic (and some others, like Paleo-Aramaic), were used in various meanings, thus referring (in scope or substance) to different stages in historical development of Aramaic language.
Most commonly used types of periodization are those of Klaus Beyer and Joseph Fitzmyer.
Periodization of Klaus Beyer (1929–2014):
* Old Aramaic
Old Aramaic refers to the earliest stage of the Aramaic language, known from the Aramaic inscriptions discovered since the 19th century.
Emerging as the language of the city-states of the Arameans in the Levant in the Early Iron Age, Old Aramai ...
, from the earliest records, to 200 AD
* Middle Aramaic, from 200 AD, to 1200 AD
* Modern Aramaic
The Neo-Aramaic or Modern Aramaic languages are varieties of Aramaic that evolved during the late medieval and early modern periods, and continue to the present day as vernacular (spoken) languages of modern Aramaic-speaking communities. Within ...
, from 1200 AD, up to the modern times
Periodization of Joseph Fitzmyer
Joseph Augustine Fitzmyer (November 4, 1920 – December 24, 2016) was an American Catholic priest and scholar who taught at several American and British universities He was a member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits).
Fitzmyer was considered ...
(1920–2016):
* Old Aramaic
Old Aramaic refers to the earliest stage of the Aramaic language, known from the Aramaic inscriptions discovered since the 19th century.
Emerging as the language of the city-states of the Arameans in the Levant in the Early Iron Age, Old Aramai ...
, from the earliest records, to regional prominence 700 BC
* Official Aramaic
Imperial Aramaic is a linguistic term, coined by modern scholars in order to designate a specific historical variety of Aramaic language. The term is polysemic, with two distinctive meanings, wider (sociolinguistic) and narrower (dialectologica ...
, from 700 BC, to 200 BC
* Middle Aramaic, from 200 BC, to 200 AD
* Late Aramaic
The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...
, from 200 AD, to 700 AD
* Modern Aramaic
The Neo-Aramaic or Modern Aramaic languages are varieties of Aramaic that evolved during the late medieval and early modern periods, and continue to the present day as vernacular (spoken) languages of modern Aramaic-speaking communities. Within ...
, from 700 AD, up to the modern times
Recent periodization of Aaron Butts:
* Old Aramaic
Old Aramaic refers to the earliest stage of the Aramaic language, known from the Aramaic inscriptions discovered since the 19th century.
Emerging as the language of the city-states of the Arameans in the Levant in the Early Iron Age, Old Aramai ...
, from the earliest records, to 538 BC
* Achaemenid Aramaic, from 538 BC, to 333 BC
* Middle Aramaic, from 333 BC, to 200 AD
* Late Aramaic
The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...
, from 200 AD, to 1200 AD
* Neo-Aramaic, from 1200 AD, up to the modern times
Old Aramaic
Aramaic's long history and diverse and widespread use has led to the development of many divergent varieties, which are sometimes considered dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...
s, though they have become distinct enough over time that they are now sometimes considered separate language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
s. Therefore, there is not one singular, static Aramaic language; each time and place rather has had its own variation. The more widely spoken Eastern Aramaic
The Eastern Aramaic languages have developed from the varieties of Aramaic that developed in and around Mesopotamia (Iraq, southeast Turkey, northeast Syria and northwest and southwest Iran), as opposed to western varieties of the Levant (modern ...
and Mandaic Mandaic may refer to:
* Mandaic language
* Mandaic alphabet
** Mandaic (Unicode block)
Mandaic is a Unicode block containing characters of the Mandaic script used for writing the historic Eastern Aramaic, also called Classical Mandaic, and the m ...
forms are largely restricted to Assyrian
Assyrian may refer to:
* Assyrian people, the indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia.
* Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire.
** Early Assyrian Period
** Old Assyrian Period
** Middle Assyrian Empire
** Neo-Assyrian Empire
* Assyrian ...
Christian and Mandean
Mandaeism (Classical Mandaic: ࡌࡀࡍࡃࡀࡉࡉࡀ ; Arabic: المندائيّة ), sometimes also known as Nasoraeanism or Sabianism, is a Gnostic, monotheistic and ethnic religion. Its adherents, the Mandaeans, revere Adam, Abel, ...
gnostic communities in Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
, northeastern Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
, northwestern Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
and southeastern Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
, whilst the severely endangered Western Neo-Aramaic
Western Neo-Aramaic (), more commonly referred to as Siryon ( "Syrian"), is a modern Western Aramaic languages, Western Aramaic language. Today, it is only spoken in three villages – Maaloula, Al-Sarkha (Bakhah), Bakhah and Jubb'adin – in th ...
is spoken by small communities of Arameans
The Arameans ( oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; syc, ܐܪ̈ܡܝܐ, Ārāmāyē) were an ancient Semitic-speaking people in the Near East, first recorded in historical sources from the late 12th century BCE. The Aramean ...
in western Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
, and persisted in Mount Lebanon
Mount Lebanon ( ar, جَبَل لُبْنَان, ''jabal lubnān'', ; syr, ܛܘܪ ܠܒ݂ܢܢ, ', , ''ṭūr lewnōn'' french: Mont Liban) is a mountain range in Lebanon. It averages above in elevation, with its peak at .
Geography
The Mount Le ...
until as late as the 17th century.
The term "Old Aramaic" is used to describe the varieties of the language from its first known use, until the point roughly marked by the rise of the Sasanian Empire
The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the History of Iran, last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th cen ...
(224 AD), dominating the influential, eastern dialect region. As such, the term covers over thirteen centuries of the development of Aramaic. This vast time span includes all Aramaic that is now effectively extinct. Regarding the earliest forms, Beyer suggests that written Aramaic probably dates from the 11th century BCE, as it is established by the 10th century, to which he dates the oldest inscriptions of northern Syria. Heinrichs uses the less controversial date of the 9th century, for which there is clear and widespread attestation.
The central phase in the development of Old Aramaic was its official use by the Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest em ...
(500–330 BC). The period before this, dubbed "Ancient Aramaic", saw the development of the language from being spoken in Aramaean city-states to become a major means of communication in diplomacy and trade throughout Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...
, the Levant
The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...
and Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
. After the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, local vernaculars became increasingly prominent, fanning the divergence of an Aramaic dialect continuum
A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...
and the development of differing written standards.
Ancient Aramaic
"Ancient Aramaic" refers to the earliest known period of the language, from its origin until it becomes the lingua franca of the Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent ( ar, الهلال الخصيب) is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan, together with the northern region of Kuwait, southeastern region of ...
. It was the language of the Aramean city-states of Damascus
)), is an adjective which means "spacious".
, motto =
, image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg
, image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg
, seal_type = Seal
, map_caption =
, ...
, Hama
, timezone = EET
, utc_offset = +2
, timezone_DST = EEST
, utc_offset_DST = +3
, postal_code_type =
, postal_code =
, ar ...
th and Arpad.
There are inscriptions that evidence the earliest use of the language, dating from the 10th century BC. These inscriptions are mostly diplomatic documents between Aramaean city-states. The alphabet of Aramaic at this early period seems to be based on the Phoenician alphabet
The Phoenician alphabet is an alphabet (more specifically, an abjad) known in modern times from the Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean region. The name comes from the Phoenician civilization.
The Phoenician alpha ...
, and there is a unity in the written language. It seems that, in time, a more refined alphabet, suited to the needs of the language, began to develop from this in the eastern regions of Aram. Due to increasing Aramean migration eastward, the Western periphery of Assyria became bilingual in Akkadian and Aramean at least as early as the mid-9th century BC. As the Neo-Assyrian Empire
The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history and the final and greatest phase of Assyria as an independent state. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew t ...
conquered Aramean lands west of the Euphrates
The Euphrates () is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers'') ...
, Tiglath-Pileser III
Tiglath-Pileser III (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , meaning "my trust belongs to the son of Ešarra"), was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 745 BC to his death in 727. One of the most prominent and historically significant Assyrian kings, Tig ...
made Aramaic the Empire's second official language, and it eventually supplanted Akkadian completely.
From 700 BC, the language began to spread in all directions, but lost much of its unity. Different dialects emerged in Assyria, Babylonia, the Levant
The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...
and Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
. Around 600 BC, Adon, a Canaan
Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...
ite king, used Aramaic to write to an Egyptian Pharaoh
Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: ''pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until the an ...
.
Imperial Aramaic
Around 500 BC, following the Achaemenid
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, wikt:𐎧𐏁𐏂𐎶, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an History of Iran#Classical antiquity, ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Bas ...
(Persian) conquest of Mesopotamia under Darius I
Darius I ( peo, 𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐏁 ; grc-gre, Δαρεῖος ; – 486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was a Persian ruler who served as the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his ...
, Aramaic (as had been used in that region) was adopted by the conquerors as the "vehicle for written communication between the different regions of the vast empire with its different peoples and languages. The use of a single official language, which modern scholarship has dubbed Official Aramaic or Imperial Aramaic
Imperial Aramaic is a linguistic term, coined by modern scholars in order to designate a specific historical variety of Aramaic language. The term is polysemic, with two distinctive meanings, wider (sociolinguistic) and narrower (dialectological ...
, can be assumed to have greatly contributed to the astonishing success of the Achaemenids in holding their far-flung empire together for as long as they did". In 1955, Richard Frye questioned the classification of Imperial Aramaic as an "official language", noting that no surviving edict expressly and unambiguously accorded that status to any particular language. Frye reclassifies Imperial Aramaic as the lingua franca of the Achaemenid territories, suggesting then that the Achaemenid-era use of Aramaic was more pervasive than generally thought.
Imperial Aramaic was highly standardised; its orthography was based more on historical roots than any spoken dialect, and the inevitable influence of Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
gave the language a new clarity and robust flexibility. For centuries after the fall of the Achaemenid Empire (in 330 BC), Imperial Aramaic – or a version thereof near enough for it to be recognisable – would remain an influence on the various native Iranian languages
The Iranian languages or Iranic languages are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau.
The Iranian languages are grouped ...
. Aramaic script and – as ideograms – Aramaic vocabulary would survive as the essential characteristics of the Pahlavi scripts
Pahlavi is a particular, exclusively written form of various Middle Iranian languages. The essential characteristics of Pahlavi are:
*the use of a specific Aramaic-derived script;
*the incidence of Aramaic words used as heterograms (called '' ...
.
One of the largest collections of Imperial Aramaic texts is that of the Persepolis Administrative Archives
The Persepolis Fortification Archive and Persepolis Treasury Archive are two groups of clay administrative archives — sets of records physically stored together – found in Persepolis dating to the Achaemenid Persian Empire. The discover ...
, found at Persepolis
, native_name_lang =
, alternate_name =
, image = Gate of All Nations, Persepolis.jpg
, image_size =
, alt =
, caption = Ruins of the Gate of All Nations, Persepolis.
, map =
, map_type ...
, which number about five hundred. Many of the extant documents witnessing to this form of Aramaic come from Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
, and Elephantine
Elephantine ( ; ; arz, جزيرة الفنتين; el, Ἐλεφαντίνη ''Elephantíne''; , ) is an island on the Nile, forming part of the city of Aswan in Upper Egypt. The archaeological sites on the island were inscribed on the UNESCO ...
in particular (see Elephantine papyri
The Elephantine Papyri and Ostraca consist of thousands of documents from the Egyptian border fortresses of Elephantine and Aswan, which yielded hundreds of papyri and ostraca in hieratic and demotic Egyptian, Aramaic, Koine Greek, Latin and Co ...
). Of them, the best known is the '' Story of Ahikar'', a book of instructive aphorisms quite similar in style to the biblical Book of Proverbs
The Book of Proverbs ( he, מִשְלֵי, , "Proverbs (of Solomon)") is a book in the third section (called Ketuvim) of the Hebrew Bible and a book of the Christian Old Testament. When translated into Greek and Latin, the title took on different ...
. Consensus regards the Aramaic portion of the Biblical book of Daniel (i.e., 2:4b–7:28) as an example of Imperial (Official) Aramaic.
Achaemenid Aramaic is sufficiently uniform that it is often difficult to know where any particular example of the language was written. Only careful examination reveals the occasional loan word from a local language.
A group of thirty Aramaic documents from Bactria
Bactria (; Bactrian: , ), or Bactriana, was an ancient region in Central Asia in Amu Darya's middle stream, stretching north of the Hindu Kush, west of the Pamirs and south of the Gissar range, covering the northern part of Afghanistan, southwe ...
have been discovered, and an analysis was published in November 2006. The texts, which were rendered on leather, reflect the use of Aramaic in the 4th century BC Achaemenid administration of Bactria and Sogdia
Sogdia (Sogdian language, Sogdian: ) or Sogdiana was an ancient Iranian peoples, Iranian civilization between the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, and in present-day Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Sogdiana was also ...
.
Biblical Aramaic
Biblical Aramaic
Biblical Aramaic is the form of Aramaic that is used in the books of Daniel and Ezra in the Hebrew Bible. It should not be confused with the Targums – Aramaic paraphrases, explanations and expansions of the Hebrew scriptures.
History
During ...
is the Aramaic found in four discrete sections of the Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;["Tanach"](_blank)
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...
:
* Ezra
Ezra (; he, עֶזְרָא, '; fl. 480–440 BCE), also called Ezra the Scribe (, ') and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra, was a Jewish scribe (''sofer'') and priest (''kohen''). In Greco-Latin Ezra is called Esdras ( grc-gre, Ἔσδρας ...
– documents from the Achaemenid period (5th century BC) concerning the restoration of the temple in Jerusalem.
* Daniel
Daniel is a masculine given name and a surname of Hebrew origin. It means "God is my judge"Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 68. (cf. Gabriel—"God is my strength" ...
– five subversive tales and an apocalyptic vision.
* Jeremiah 10:11 – a single sentence in the middle of a Hebrew text denouncing idolatry.
* Genesis
Genesis may refer to:
Bible
* Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind
* Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book of ...
– translation of a Hebrew place-name.
Biblical Aramaic is a somewhat hybrid dialect. It is theorized that some Biblical Aramaic material originated in both Babylonia and Judaea before the fall of the Achaemenid dynasty.
Biblical Aramaic presented various challenges for writers who were engaged in early Biblical studies
Biblical studies is the academic application of a set of diverse disciplines to the study of the Bible (the Old Testament and New Testament).''Introduction to Biblical Studies, Second Edition'' by Steve Moyise (Oct 27, 2004) pages 11–12 Fo ...
. Since the time of Jerome of Stridon (d. 420), Aramaic of the Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;["Tanach"](_blank)
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...
was misnamed as "Chaldean" (Chaldaic, Chaldee). That label remained common in early Aramaic studies
Aramaic studies are scientific studies of the Aramaic languages and cultural history of Arameans. As a specific field within Semitic studies, Aramaic studies are closely related to similar disciplines, like Hebraic studies and Arabic studies.
...
, and persisted up into the nineteenth century. The "'' Chaldean misnomer''" was eventually abandoned, when modern scholarly analyses showed that Aramaic dialect used in Hebrew Bible was not related to ancient Chaldeans
Chaldea () was a small country that existed between the late 10th or early 9th and mid-6th centuries BCE, after which the country and its people were absorbed and assimilated into the indigenous population of Babylonia. Semitic-speaking, it was ...
and their language.
Post-Achaemenid Aramaic
The fall of the Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest em ...
( 334–330 BC), and its replacement with the newly created political order, imposed by Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, wikt:Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Maced ...
(d. 323 BC) and his Hellenistic
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...
successors, marked an important turning point in the history of Aramaic language. During the early stages of the post-Achaemenid era, public use of Aramaic language was continued, but shared with the newly introduced Greek language
Greek ( el, label=Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy (Calabria and Salento), southern Al ...
. By the year 300 BC, all of the main Aramaic-speaking regions came under political rule of the newly created Seleucid Empire
The Seleucid Empire (; grc, Βασιλεία τῶν Σελευκιδῶν, ''Basileía tōn Seleukidōn'') was a Greek state in West Asia that existed during the Hellenistic period from 312 BC to 63 BC. The Seleucid Empire was founded by the ...
that promoted Hellenistic culture
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...
, and favored Greek language
Greek ( el, label=Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy (Calabria and Salento), southern Al ...
as the main language of public life and administration. During the 3rd century BCE, Greek overtook Aramaic in many spheres of public communication, particularly in highly Hellenized
Hellenization (other British spelling Hellenisation) or Hellenism is the adoption of Greek culture, religion, language and identity by non-Greeks. In the ancient period, colonization often led to the Hellenization of indigenous peoples; in th ...
cities throughout the Seleucid domains. However, Aramaic continued to be used, in its post-Achaemenid form, among upper and literate classes of native Aramaic-speaking communities, and also by local authorities (along with the newly introduced Greek). Post-Achaemenid Aramaic, that bears a relatively close resemblance to that of the Achaemenid period, continued to be used up to the 2nd century BCE.
By the end of the 2nd century BC, several variants of Post-Achaemenid Aramaic emerged, bearing regional characteristics. One of them was Hasmonaean Aramaic, the official administrative language of Hasmonaean
The Hasmonean dynasty (; he, ''Ḥašmōnaʾīm'') was a ruling dynasty of Judea and surrounding regions during classical antiquity, from BCE to 37 BCE. Between and BCE the dynasty ruled Judea semi-autonomously in the Seleucid Empire, and ...
Judaea (142–37 BC), alongside Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
which was the language preferred in religious and some other public uses (coinage). It influenced the Biblical Aramaic of the Qumran
Qumran ( he, קומראן; ar, خربة قمران ') is an archaeological site in the West Bank managed by Israel's Qumran National Park. It is located on a dry marl plateau about from the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, near the Israeli ...
texts, and was the main language of non-biblical theological texts of that community. The major Targum
A targum ( arc, תרגום 'interpretation, translation, version') was an originally spoken translation of the Hebrew Bible (also called the ''Tanakh'') that a professional translator ( ''mǝturgǝmān'') would give in the common language of the ...
s, translations of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic, were originally composed in Hasmonaean Aramaic. It also appears in quotations in the Mishnah
The Mishnah or the Mishna (; he, מִשְׁנָה, "study by repetition", from the verb ''shanah'' , or "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first major written collection of the Jewish oral traditions which is known as the Oral Torah ...
and Tosefta
The Tosefta (Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: תוספתא "supplement, addition") is a compilation of the Jewish oral law from the late 2nd century, the period of the Mishnah.
Overview
In many ways, the Tosefta acts as a supplement to the Mishnah ( ...
, although smoothed into its later context. It is written quite differently from Achaemenid Aramaic; there is an emphasis on writing as words are pronounced rather than using etymological forms.
Babylonian Targum
A targum ( arc, תרגום 'interpretation, translation, version') was an originally spoken translation of the Hebrew Bible (also called the ''Tanakh'') that a professional translator ( ''mǝturgǝmān'') would give in the common language of the ...
ic is the later post-Achaemenid dialect found in the Targum Onqelos
Interlinear text of Hebrew Numbers 6.3–10 with British_Library.html"_;"title="Aramaic_Targum_Onkelos_from_the_British_Library">Aramaic_Targum_Onkelos_from_the_British_Library.
Targum_Onkelos_(or_Onqelos;_Hebrew_language.html" "title="B ...
and Targum Jonathan
Targum Jonathan (), otherwise referred to as Targum Yonasan/Yonatan, is the official eastern (Babylonian) targum (Aramaic translation) to the Nevi'im ("prophets").
It is not to be confused with "Targum Pseudo-Jonathan", an Aramaic translation of ...
, the "official" targums. The original, Hasmonaean targums had reached Babylon sometime in the 2nd or 3rd century AD. They were then reworked according to the contemporary dialect of Babylon to create the language of the standard targums. This combination formed the basis of Babylonian Jewish literature for centuries to follow.
Galilean Targumic is similar to Babylonian Targumic. It is the mixing of literary Hasmonaean with the dialect of Galilee
Galilee (; he, הַגָּלִיל, hagGālīl; ar, الجليل, al-jalīl) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon. Galilee traditionally refers to the mountainous part, divided into Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and Lower Galil ...
. The Hasmonaean targums reached Galilee in the 2nd century AD, and were reworked into this Galilean dialect for local use. The Galilean Targum was not considered an authoritative work by other communities, and documentary evidence shows that its text was amended. From the 11th century AD onwards, once the Babylonian Targum had become normative, the Galilean version became heavily influenced by it.
Babylonian Documentary Aramaic is a dialect in use from the 3rd century AD onwards. It is the dialect of Babylonian private documents, and, from the 12th century, all Jewish private documents are in Aramaic. It is based on Hasmonaean with very few changes. This was perhaps because many of the documents in BDA are legal documents, the language in them had to be sensible throughout the Jewish community from the start, and Hasmonaean was the old standard.
Nabataean Aramaic
Nabataean Aramaic is the Aramaic variety used in inscriptions by the Nabataeans of the East Bank of the Jordan River, the Negev, and the Sinai Peninsula. Compared to other varieties of Aramaic, it is notable for the occurrence of a number of loa ...
was the written language of the Arab kingdom of Nabataea, whose capital was Petra
Petra ( ar, ٱلْبَتْرَاء, Al-Batrāʾ; grc, Πέτρα, "Rock", Nabataean Aramaic, Nabataean: ), originally known to its inhabitants as Raqmu or Raqēmō, is an historic and archaeological city in southern Jordan. It is adjacent to t ...
. The kingdom (''c.'' 200 BC – 106 AD) controlled the region to the east of the Jordan River
The Jordan River or River Jordan ( ar, نَهْر الْأُرْدُنّ, ''Nahr al-ʾUrdunn'', he, נְהַר הַיַּרְדֵּן, ''Nəhar hayYardēn''; syc, ܢܗܪܐ ܕܝܘܪܕܢܢ ''Nahrāʾ Yurdnan''), also known as ''Nahr Al-Shariea ...
, the Negev
The Negev or Negeb (; he, הַנֶּגֶב, hanNegév; ar, ٱلنَّقَب, an-Naqab) is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. ), in the north. At its southe ...
, the Sinai Peninsula
The Sinai Peninsula, or simply Sinai (now usually ) (, , cop, Ⲥⲓⲛⲁ), is a peninsula in Egypt, and the only part of the country located in Asia. It is between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, and is a l ...
and the northern Hijaz
The Hejaz (, also ; ar, ٱلْحِجَاز, al-Ḥijāz, lit=the Barrier, ) is a region in the west of Saudi Arabia. It includes the cities of Mecca, Medina, Jeddah, Tabuk, Yanbu, Taif, and Baljurashi. It is also known as the "Western Provinc ...
, and supported a wide-ranging trade network. The Nabataeans used imperial Aramaic for written communications, rather than their native Arabic. Nabataean Aramaic developed from Imperial Aramaic
Imperial Aramaic is a linguistic term, coined by modern scholars in order to designate a specific historical variety of Aramaic language. The term is polysemic, with two distinctive meanings, wider (sociolinguistic) and narrower (dialectological ...
, with some influence from Arabic: "l" is often turned into "n", and there are some Arabic loanwords. Arabic influence on Nabataean Aramaic increased over time. Some Nabataean Aramaic inscriptions date from the early days of the kingdom, but most datable inscriptions are from the first four centuries AD. The language is written in a cursive
Cursive (also known as script, among other names) is any style of penmanship in which characters are written joined in a flowing manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster, in contrast to block letters. It varies in functionalit ...
script which was the precursor to the Arabic alphabet. After annexation by the Romans in 106 AD, most of Nabataea was subsumed into the province of Arabia Petraea, the Nabataeans turned to Greek for written communications, and the use of Aramaic declined.
Palmyrene Aramaic
Palmyrene Aramaic was a Western Aramaic dialect spoken in the city of Palmyra, Syria, in the early centuries AD. It is solely known from inscriptions dating from the 1st century BC to 273.
The dual had disappeared from it.
The development of c ...
is the dialect that was in use in the Syriac Syriac may refer to:
*Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic
*Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region
* Syriac alphabet
** Syriac (Unicode block)
** Syriac Supplement
* Neo-Aramaic languages a ...
city state of Palmyra
Palmyra (; Palmyrene: () ''Tadmor''; ar, تَدْمُر ''Tadmur'') is an ancient city in present-day Homs Governorate, Syria. Archaeological finds date back to the Neolithic period, and documents first mention the city in the early second ...
in the Syrian Desert from 44 BC to 274 AD. It was written in a rounded script, which later gave way to cursive Estrangela
The Syriac alphabet ( ) is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language since the 1st century AD. It is one of the Semitic abjads descending from the Aramaic alphabet through the Palmyrene alphabet, and shares similarities with ...
. Like Nabataean, Palmyrene was influenced by Arabic, but to a much lesser degree.
The use of ''written'' Aramaic in the Achaemenid bureaucracy also precipitated the adoption of Aramaic(-derived) scripts to render a number of Middle Iranian
The Iranian languages or Iranic languages are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau.
The Iranian languages are groupe ...
languages. Moreover, many common words, including even pronouns, particles, numerals, and auxiliaries, continued to written as Aramaic "words" even when writing Middle Iranian languages. In time, in Iranian usage, these Aramaic "words" became disassociated from the Aramaic language and came to be understood as ''signs'' (i.e. logograms
In a written language, a logogram, logograph, or lexigraph is a written character that represents a word or morpheme. Chinese characters (pronounced ''hanzi'' in Mandarin, ''kanji'' in Japanese, ''hanja'' in Korean) are generally logograms, as ...
), much like the symbol '&' is read as "and" in English and the original Latin ''et'' is now no longer obvious. Under the early 3rd-century BC Parthians Arsacids, whose government used Greek but whose native language was Parthian Parthian may be:
Historical
* A demonym "of Parthia", a region of north-eastern of Greater Iran
* Parthian Empire (247 BC – 224 AD)
* Parthian language, a now-extinct Middle Iranian language
* Parthian shot, an archery skill famously employed by ...
, the Parthian language and its Aramaic-derived writing system both gained prestige. This in turn also led to the adoption of the name ' pahlavi' (< ''parthawi'', "of the Parthians") for that writing system. The Persian Sassanids, who succeeded the Parthian Arsacids in the mid-3rd century AD, subsequently inherited/adopted the Parthian-mediated Aramaic-derived writing system for their own Middle Iranian ethnolect as well. That particular Middle Iranian dialect, Middle Persian
Middle Persian or Pahlavi, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg () in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasanian Empire. For some time after the Sasanian collapse, Middle Per ...
, i.e. the language of Persia proper, subsequently also became a prestige language. Following the conquest of the Sassanids by the Arabs in the 7th-century, the Aramaic-derived writing system was replaced by Arabic script in all but Zoroastrian usage, which continued to use the name 'pahlavi' for the Aramaic-derived writing system and went on to create the bulk of all Middle Iranian literature in that writing system.
Other dialects of the Post-Achaemenid period
The dialects mentioned in the previous section were all descended from Achaemenid Aramaic. However, some other regional dialects also continued to exist alongside these, often as simple, spoken variants of Aramaic. Early evidence for these vernacular
A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...
dialects is known only through their influence on words and names in a more standard dialect. However, some of those regional dialects became written languages by the 2nd century BC. These dialects reflect a stream of Aramaic that is not directly dependent on Achaemenid Aramaic, and they also show a clear linguistic diversity between eastern and western regions.
Eastern dialects of the Post-Achaemenid period
In the eastern regions (from Mesopotamia to Persia), dialects like Palmyrene Aramaic and Arsacid Aramaic gradually merged with the regional vernacular dialects, thus creating languages with a foot in Achaemenid and a foot in regional Aramaic.
In the Kingdom of Osroene
Osroene or Osrhoene (; grc-gre, Ὀσροηνή) was an ancient region and state in Upper Mesopotamia. The ''Kingdom of Osroene'', also known as the "Kingdom of Edessa" ( syc, ܡܠܟܘܬܐ ܕܒܝܬ ܐܘܪܗܝ / "Kingdom of Urhay"), according to ...
, founded in 132 BCE and centred in Edessa
Edessa (; grc, Ἔδεσσα, Édessa) was an ancient city (''polis'') in Upper Mesopotamia, founded during the Hellenistic period by King Seleucus I Nicator (), founder of the Seleucid Empire. It later became capital of the Kingdom of Osroene ...
(Urhay), the regional dialect became the official language: Edessan Aramaic (Urhaya), that later came to be known as Classical Syriac
The Syriac language (; syc, / '), also known as Syriac Aramaic (''Syrian Aramaic'', ''Syro-Aramaic'') and Classical Syriac ܠܫܢܐ ܥܬܝܩܐ (in its literary and liturgical form), is an Aramaic dialect that emerged during the first century ...
. On the upper reaches of the Tigris
The Tigris () is the easternmost of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian and Arabian Deserts, and empties into the ...
, East Mesopotamian Aramaic flourished, with evidence from the regions of Hatra
Hatra ( ar, الحضر; syr, ܚܛܪܐ) was an ancient city in Upper Mesopotamia located in present-day eastern Nineveh Governorate in northern Iraq. The city lies northwest of Baghdad and southwest of Mosul.
Hatra was a strongly fortified ...
(Hatran Aramaic
Aramaic of Hatra, Hatran Aramaic or Ashurian ( ') designates a Middle Aramaic dialect, that was used in the region of Hatra and Assur in northeastern parts of Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), approximately from the 3rd century BC to the 3rd cent ...
) and Assur
Aššur (; Sumerian: AN.ŠAR2KI, Assyrian cuneiform: ''Aš-šurKI'', "City of God Aššur"; syr, ܐܫܘܪ ''Āšūr''; Old Persian ''Aθur'', fa, آشور: ''Āšūr''; he, אַשּׁוּר, ', ar, اشور), also known as Ashur and Qal'a ...
( Assurian Aramaic).
Tatian
Tatian of Adiabene, or Tatian the Syrian or Tatian the Assyrian, (; la, Tatianus; grc, Τατιανός; syc, ܛܛܝܢܘܣ; c. 120 – c. 180 AD) was an Assyrian Christian writer and theologian of the 2nd century.
Tatian's most influential wor ...
, the author of the gospel harmony the Diatessaron
The ''Diatessaron'' ( syr, ܐܘܢܓܠܝܘܢ ܕܡܚܠܛܐ, Ewangeliyôn Damhalltê; c. 160–175 AD) is the most prominent early gospel harmony, and was created by Tatian, an Assyrian early Christian apologist and ascetic. Tatian sought to comb ...
came from Assyria, and perhaps wrote his work (172 AD) in East Mesopotamian rather than Syriac or Greek. In Babylonia, the regional dialect was used by the Jewish community, Jewish Old Babylonian (from c. 70 AD). This everyday language increasingly came under the influence of Biblical Aramaic and Babylonian Targumic.
The written form of Mandaic Mandaic may refer to:
* Mandaic language
* Mandaic alphabet
** Mandaic (Unicode block)
Mandaic is a Unicode block containing characters of the Mandaic script used for writing the historic Eastern Aramaic, also called Classical Mandaic, and the m ...
, the language of the Mandaeism, Mandaean religion, was descended from the Arsacid chancery script.
Western dialects of the Post-Achaemenid period
The western regional dialects of Aramaic followed a similar course to those of the east. They are quite distinct from the eastern dialects and Imperial Aramaic. Aramaic came to coexist with Canaanite dialects, eventually completely displacing Phoenician in the first century BC and Hebrew language#Displacement by Aramaic, Hebrew around the turn of the fourth century AD.
The form of Late Old Western Aramaic used by the Jewish community is best attested, and is usually referred to as Jewish Old Palestinian. Its oldest form is Old East Jordanian, which probably comes from the region of Caesarea Philippi. This is the dialect of the oldest manuscript of the Book of Enoch (''c.'' 170 BC). The next distinct phase of the language is called Old Judaean lasting into the second century AD. Old Judean literature can be found in various inscriptions and personal letters, preserved quotations in the Talmud and receipts from Qumran
Qumran ( he, קומראן; ar, خربة قمران ') is an archaeological site in the West Bank managed by Israel's Qumran National Park. It is located on a dry marl plateau about from the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, near the Israeli ...
. Josephus
Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for ''The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly d ...
' first, non-extant edition of his ''The Jewish War'' was written in Old Judean.
The Old East Jordanian dialect continued to be used into the first century AD by pagan communities living to the east of the Jordan. Their dialect is often then called Pagan Old Palestinian, and it was written in a cursive script somewhat similar to that used for Old Syriac. A Christian Old Palestinian dialect may have arisen from the pagan one, and this dialect may be behind some of the Western Aramaic tendencies found in the otherwise eastern Old Syriac gospels (see Peshitta).
Languages during Jesus' lifetime
It is generally believed by Christian scholars that in the first century, Jews in Judea (Roman province), Judea primarily spoke Aramaic with a decreasing number using Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
as their first language, though many learned Hebrew as a liturgical language. Additionally, Koine Greek
Koine Greek (; Koine el, ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, hē koinè diálektos, the common dialect; ), also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-reg ...
was the lingua franca of the Near East in trade, among the Hellenized classes (much like French in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries in Europe), and in the Roman administration. Latin, the language of the Roman army and higher levels of administration, had almost no impact on the linguistic landscape.
In addition to the formal, literary dialects of Aramaic based on Hasmonean dynasty, Hasmonean and Babylonian, there were a number of colloquial Aramaic dialects. Seven Western Aramaic varieties were spoken in the vicinity of Judea in Jesus' time. They were probably distinctive yet mutually intelligible. Old Judean was the prominent dialect of Jerusalem and Judaea. The region of Ein Gedi spoke the Southeast Judaean dialect. Samaria had its distinctive Samaritan Aramaic language, Samaritan Aramaic, where the consonants "he (letter), he", "" and "'ayin" all became pronounced as "aleph". Galilean Aramaic, the dialect of Jesus' home region, is only known from a few place names, the influences on Galilean Targumic, some rabbinic literature and a few private letters. It seems to have a number of distinctive features: diphthongs are never simplified into monophthongs. East of the Jordan, the various dialects of East Jordanian were spoken. In the region of Damascus
)), is an adjective which means "spacious".
, motto =
, image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg
, image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg
, seal_type = Seal
, map_caption =
, ...
and the Anti-Lebanon Mountains
The Anti-Lebanon Mountains ( ar, جبال لبنان الشرقية, Jibāl Lubnān ash-Sharqiyyah, Eastern Mountains of Lebanon; Lebanese Arabic: , , "Eastern Mountains") are a southwest–northeast-trending mountain range that forms most of th ...
, Damascene Aramaic was spoken (deduced mostly from Modern Western Aramaic). Finally, as far north as Aleppo, the western dialect of Orontes Aramaic was spoken.
The three languages, especially Hebrew and Aramaic, influenced one another through loanwords and semantic loans. Hebrew words entered Jewish Aramaic. Most were mostly technical religious words, but a few were everyday words like עץ ' "wood". Conversely, Aramaic words, such as ''māmmôn'' "wealth", were borrowed into Hebrew, and Hebrew words acquired additional senses from Aramaic. For instance, Hebrew ראוי ''rā'ûi'' "seen" borrowed the sense "worthy, seemly" from the Aramaic ' meaning "seen" and "worthy".
The Greek of the New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
preserves some semiticisms, including transliterations of Semitic languages, Semitic words. Some are Aramaic, like ''talitha'' (ταλιθα), which represents the noun טליתא ', and others may be either Hebrew or Aramaic like רבוני ''Rabbounei'' (Ραββουνει), which means "my master/great one/teacher" in both languages. Other examples:
* "Talitha kumi" (טליתא קומי)
* "Ephphatha" (אתפתח)
* "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" (אלי, אלי, למה שבקתני?)
The 2004 film ''The Passion of the Christ'' used Aramaic for much of its dialogue, specially reconstructed by a scholar, William Fulco, S.J. Where the appropriate words (in first-century Aramaic) were no longer known, he used the Aramaic of Daniel and fourth-century Syriac and Hebrew as the basis for his work.
Middle Aramaic
The 3rd century AD is taken as the threshold between Old and Middle Aramaic. During that century, the nature of the various Aramaic languages and dialects began to change. The descendants of Imperial Aramaic ceased to be living languages, and the eastern and western regional languages began to develop vital new literatures. Unlike many of the dialects of Old Aramaic, much is known about the vocabulary and grammar of Middle Aramaic.
Eastern Middle Aramaic
The dialects of Old Eastern Aramaic continued in Armenia
Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...
and Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
as a written language using the Estragela Edessa script. Eastern Aramaic comprises Mandean, Babylonian Jewish Aramaic dialects, and Syriac (what emerged as the classical literary dialect of Syriac differs in some small details from the Syriac of the earlier pagan inscriptions from the Edessa area).
Syriac Aramaic
Syriac Aramaic (also "Classical Syriac") is the literary, liturgical and often spoken language of Syriac Christianity
Syriac Christianity ( syr, ܡܫܝܚܝܘܬܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܬܐ / ''Mšiḥoyuṯo Suryoyto'' or ''Mšiḥāyūṯā Suryāytā'') is a distinctive branch of Eastern Christianity, whose formative theological writings and traditional liturgies are expr ...
. It originated by the first century AD in the region of Osroene, centered in Edessa, but its golden age was the fourth to eight centuries. This period began with the translation of the Bible into the language: the Peshitta, and the masterful prose and poetry of Ephrem the Syrian. Classical Syriac became the language of the Church of the East, and the Syriac Orthodox Church
, native_name_lang = syc
, image = St_George_Syriac_orthodox_church_in_Damascus.jpg
, imagewidth = 250
, alt = Cathedral of Saint George
, caption = Cathedral of Saint George, Damascus ...
. Missionary activity led to the spread of Syriac from Mesopotamia and Iran, Persia, into Central Asia, Indian subcontinent, India and China.
Jewish Babylonian Aramaic
Jewish Middle Babylonian is the language employed by Jewish writers in Babylonia between the fourth and the eleventh century. It is most commonly identified with the language of the Babylonian Talmud (which was completed in the seventh century) and of post-Talmudic Geonim, Geonic literature, which are the most important cultural products of Babylonian Judaism. The most important epigraphic sources for the dialect are the hundreds of incantation bowls written in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic.
Mandaic Aramaic
The Mandaic language, spoken by the Mandaeans
Mandaeans ( ar, المندائيون ), also known as Mandaean Sabians ( ) or simply as Sabians ( ), are an ethnoreligious group who are followers of Mandaeism. They believe that John the Baptist was the final and most important prophet. They ...
of Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
and Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
, is a sister dialect to Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, though it is both linguistically and culturally distinct. Classical Mandaic is the language in which the Mandaeans' gnostic
Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...
religious literature was composed. It is characterized by a highly phonetic orthography.
Western Middle Aramaic
The dialects of Old Western Aramaic continued with Jewish Middle Palestinian (in Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew "square script"), Samaritan Aramaic (in the Phoenician alphabet, old Hebrew script) and Christian Palestinian (in cursive Syriac alphabet, Syriac script). Of these three, only Jewish Middle Palestinian continued as a written language.
Samaritan Aramaic
The Samaritan Aramaic language, Samaritan Aramaic is earliest attested by the documentary tradition of the Samaritans that can be dated back to the fourth century. Its modern pronunciation is based on the form used in the tenth century.
Jewish Palestinian Aramaic
In 135, after the Bar Kokhba revolt, many Jewish leaders, expelled from Jerusalem, moved to Galilee
Galilee (; he, הַגָּלִיל, hagGālīl; ar, الجليل, al-jalīl) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon. Galilee traditionally refers to the mountainous part, divided into Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and Lower Galil ...
. The Galilean dialect thus rose from obscurity to become the standard among Jews in the west. This dialect was spoken not only in Galilee, but also in the surrounding parts. It is the linguistic setting for the Jerusalem Talmud
The Jerusalem Talmud ( he, תַּלְמוּד יְרוּשַׁלְמִי, translit=Talmud Yerushalmi, often for short), also known as the Palestinian Talmud or Talmud of the Land of Israel, is a collection of rabbinic notes on the second-century ...
(completed in the 5th century), Palestinian targumim (Jewish Aramaic versions of scripture), and midrashim (biblical commentaries and teaching). The standard niqqud, vowel pointing for the Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;["Tanach"](_blank)
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...
, the Tiberian system (7th century), was developed by speakers of the Galilean dialect of Jewish Middle Palestinian. Classical Hebrew vocalisation, therefore, in representing the Hebrew of this period, probably reflects the contemporary pronunciation of this Aramaic dialect.
Middle Judaean Aramaic, the descendant of Old Judaean Aramaic, was no longer the dominant dialect, and was used only in southern Judaea (the variant Engedi dialect continued throughout this period). Likewise, Middle East Jordanian Aramaic continued as a minor dialect from Old East Jordanian Aramaic. The inscriptions in the synagogue at Dura-Europos are either in Middle East Jordanian or Middle Judaean.
Christian Palestinian Aramaic
This was the language of the Christian Melkite (Chalcedonian) community from the 5th to the 8th century. As a liturgical language, it was used up to the 13th century. It is also been called "Melkite Aramaic" and "Palestinian Syriac". The language itself comes from Old Christian Palestinian Aramaic, but its writing conventions were based on early Syriac language, Middle Syriac, and it was heavily influenced by Greek language, Greek. For example, the name Jesus, Syriac ''īšū‘'', is written ''īsūs'', a transliteration of the Greek form, in Christian Palestinian.
Modern Aramaic
As the Western Aramaic languages of the Levant and Lebanon have become nearly extinct in non-liturgical usage, the most prolific speakers of Aramaic dialects in the 21st century are Sureth Eastern Neo-Aramaic speakers, the most numerous being the Northeastern Neo-Aramaic speakers of Mesopotamia. This includes speakers the Assyrian (235,000 speakers) and Chaldean (216,000 speakers) varieties of Suret language, Suret and Turoyo
Turoyo ( syr, ܛܘܪܝܐ) (''Ṭūr ‘Abdinian Aramaic''), also referred to as modern Surayt ( syr, ܣܘܪܝܬ), or modern Suryoyo ( syr, ܣܘܪܝܝܐ), is a Central Neo-Aramaic language traditionally spoken in the Tur Abdin region in southeas ...
(112,000 to 450,000 speakers). Having largely lived in remote areas as insulated communities for over a millennium, the remaining speakers of modern Aramaic dialects, such as the Assyrians, and the Arameans
The Arameans ( oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; syc, ܐܪ̈ܡܝܐ, Ārāmāyē) were an ancient Semitic-speaking people in the Near East, first recorded in historical sources from the late 12th century BCE. The Aramean ...
, escaped the linguistic pressures experienced by others during the large-scale language shift
Language shift, also known as language transfer or language replacement or language assimilation, is the process whereby a speech community shifts to a different language, usually over an extended period of time. Often, languages that are perceiv ...
s that saw the proliferation of other tongues among those who previously did not speak them, most recently the Arabization of the Middle East and North Africa by Arabs beginning with the early Muslim conquests of the seventh century.
Modern Eastern Aramaic
Modern Eastern Aramaic exists in a wide variety of dialects and languages. There is significant difference between the Aramaic spoken by Christians, Jews, and Mandaeans.
The Christian varieties are often called Modern Syriac or Neo-Syriac, particularly when referring to their literature, being deeply influenced by the old literary and liturgical language, the Syriac language. However, they also have roots in numerous, previously unwritten, local Aramaic varieties, and are not purely the direct descendants of the language of Ephrem the Syrian. The varieties are not all mutually intelligible. The principal Christian varieties are Suret, both belonging to the Northeastern Neo-Aramaic languages.
The Judeo-Aramaic languages are now mostly spoken in Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
, and most are facing extinction. The Jewish varieties that have come from communities that once lived between Lake Urmia and Mosul
Mosul ( ar, الموصل, al-Mawṣil, ku, مووسڵ, translit=Mûsil, Turkish: ''Musul'', syr, ܡܘܨܠ, Māwṣil) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. The city is considered the second large ...
are not all mutually intelligible. In some places, for example Urmia, Assyrian Christians and Jews speak mutually unintelligible varieties of Modern Eastern Aramaic in the same place. In others, the Nineveh Plains around Mosul for example, the varieties of these two ethnic communities are similar enough to allow conversation.
Modern Central Neo-Aramaic, being in between Western Neo-Aramaic and Eastern Neo-Aramaic) is generally represented by Turoyo, the language of the Assyrians of Tur Abdin. A related language, Mlaḥsô language, Mlaḥsô, has recently become extinct.
Mandaeans living in the Khuzestan province of Iran and scattered throughout Iraq, speak Neo-Mandaic
Neo-Mandaic, sometimes called the "''ratna''" ( ar, رطنة ''raṭna'' "jargon"), is the modern reflex of the Mandaic language, the liturgical language of the Mandaean religious community of Iraq and Iran. Although severely endangered, it sur ...
. It is quite distinct from any other Aramaic variety. Mandaeans number some 50,000–75,000 people, but it is believed Neo-Mandaic may now be spoken fluently by as few as 5000 people, with other Mandaeans having varying degrees of knowledge.
Modern Western Aramaic
Very little remains of Western Aramaic. Its only remaining vernacular is the Western Neo-Aramaic
Western Neo-Aramaic (), more commonly referred to as Siryon ( "Syrian"), is a modern Western Aramaic languages, Western Aramaic language. Today, it is only spoken in three villages – Maaloula, Al-Sarkha (Bakhah), Bakhah and Jubb'adin – in th ...
, which is still spoken in the villages of Maaloula, al-Sarkha (Bakhah), and Jubb'adin on Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
's side of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains
The Anti-Lebanon Mountains ( ar, جبال لبنان الشرقية, Jibāl Lubnān ash-Sharqiyyah, Eastern Mountains of Lebanon; Lebanese Arabic: , , "Eastern Mountains") are a southwest–northeast-trending mountain range that forms most of th ...
, as well as by some people who migrated from these villages, to Damascus
)), is an adjective which means "spacious".
, motto =
, image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg
, image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg
, seal_type = Seal
, map_caption =
, ...
and other larger towns of Syria. All these speakers of Modern Western Aramaic are fluent in Arabic as well.
Other Western Aramaic languages, like Jewish Palestinian Aramaic and Samaritan Aramaic, are preserved only in liturgical and literary usage.
Phonology
Each dialect of Aramaic has its own distinctive pronunciation, and it would not be feasible here to go into all these properties. Aramaic has a phonological palette of 25 to 40 distinct phonemes. Some modern Aramaic pronunciations lack the series of "emphatic" consonants, and some have borrowed from the inventories of surrounding languages, particularly Arabic language, Arabic, Azerbaijani language, Azerbaijani, Kurdish languages, Kurdish, Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
and Turkish language, Turkish.
Vowels
As with most Semitic languages, Aramaic can be thought of as having three basic sets of vowels:
* Open ''a''-vowels
* Close front ''i''-vowels
* Close back ''u''-vowels
These vowel groups are relatively stable, but the exact articulation of any individual is most dependent on its consonantal setting.
The open vowel is an open near-front unrounded vowel ("short" ''a'', somewhat like the first vowel in the English "batter", ). It usually has a back counterpart ("long" ''a'', like the ''a'' in "father", , or even tending to the vowel in "caught", ), and a front counterpart ("short" ''e'', like the vowel in "head", ). There is much correspondence between these vowels between dialects. There is some evidence that Middle Babylonian dialects did not distinguish between the short ''a'' and short ''e''. In West Syriac dialects, and possibly Middle Galilean, the long ''a'' became the ''o'' sound. The open ''e'' and back ''a'' are often indicated in writing by the use of the letters א "alaph" (a glottal stop) or ה "he" (like the English ''h'').
The close front vowel is the "long" ''i'' (like the vowel in "need", ). It has a slightly more open counterpart, the "long" ''e'', as in the final vowel of "café" (). Both of these have shorter counterparts, which tend to be pronounced slightly more open. Thus, the short close ''e'' corresponds with the open ''e'' in some dialects. The close front vowels usually use the consonant י ''y'' as a mater lectionis.
The close back vowel is the "long" ''u'' (like the vowel in "school", ). It has a more open counterpart, the "long" ''o'', like the vowel in "show" (). There are shorter, and thus more open, counterparts to each of these, with the short close ''o'' sometimes corresponding with the long open ''a''. The close back vowels often use the consonant ו ''w'' to indicate their quality.
Two basic diphthongs exist: an open vowel followed by י ''y'' (''ay''), and an open vowel followed by ו ''w'' (''aw''). These were originally full diphthongs, but many dialects have converted them to ''e'' and ''o'' respectively.
The so-called "emphatic" consonants (see the next section) cause all vowels to become mid-centralised.
Consonants
The various alphabets used for writing Aramaic languages have twenty-two letters (all of which are consonants). Some of these letters, though, can stand for two or three different sounds (usually a stop consonant, stop and a fricative consonant, fricative at the same point of articulation). Aramaic classically uses a series of lightly contrasted plosives and fricatives:
* Labial set: פּ\פ ''p''/''f'' and בּ\ב ''b''/''v'',
* Dental set: תּ\ת ''t''/''θ'' and דּ\ד ''d''/''ð'',
* Velar set: כּ\כ ''k''/''x'' and גּ\ג ''g''/''ɣ''.
Each member of a certain pair is written with the same letter of the alphabet in most writing systems (that is, ''p'' and ''f'' are written with the same letter), and are near allophones.
A distinguishing feature of Aramaic phonology (and that of Semitic languages in general) is the presence of "emphatic" consonants. These are consonants that are pronounced with the root of the tongue retracted, with varying degrees of pharyngealization and Velar consonant, velarization. Using their alphabetic names, these emphatics are:
* ח Ḥêṯ, a voiceless pharyngeal fricative, ,
* ט Ṭêṯ, a pharyngealized ''t'', ,
* ע ʽAyin (or ʽE in some dialects), a pharyngealized glottal stop (sometimes considered to be a Voiced pharyngeal fricative, voiced pharyngeal approximant), or ,
* צ Ṣāḏê, a pharyngealized ''s'', ,
* ק Qôp, a voiceless uvular stop, .
Ancient Aramaic may have had a larger series of emphatics, and some Neo-Aramaic languages definitely do. Not all dialects of Aramaic give these consonants their historic values.
Overlapping with the set of emphatics are the "guttural" consonants. They include ח Ḥêṯ and ע ʽAyn from the emphatic set, and add א ʼĀlap̄ (a glottal stop) and ה Hê (as the English "h").
Aramaic classically has a set of four sibilants (ancient Aramaic may have had six):
* ס, שׂ (as in English "sea"),
* ז (as in English "zero"),
* שׁ (as in English "ship"),
* צ (the emphatic Ṣāḏê listed above).
In addition to these sets, Aramaic has the nasal consonants מ ''m'' and נ ''n'', and the approximant consonant, approximants ר ''r'' (usually an Dental, alveolar and postalveolar trills, alveolar trill), ל ''l'', י ''y'' and ו ''w''.
Historical sound changes
Six broad features of sound change can be seen as dialect differentials:
* Vowel change occurs almost too frequently to document fully, but is a major distinctive feature of different dialects.
* Plosive/fricative pair reduction. Originally, Aramaic, like Tiberian vocalization, Tiberian Hebrew, had fricatives as conditioned allophones for each plosive. In the wake of vowel changes, the distinction eventually became phonemic; still later, it was often lost in certain dialects. For example, Turoyo
Turoyo ( syr, ܛܘܪܝܐ) (''Ṭūr ‘Abdinian Aramaic''), also referred to as modern Surayt ( syr, ܣܘܪܝܬ), or modern Suryoyo ( syr, ܣܘܪܝܝܐ), is a Central Neo-Aramaic language traditionally spoken in the Tur Abdin region in southeas ...
has mostly lost , using instead, like Arabic; other dialects (for instance, standard Assyrian Neo-Aramaic
Suret ( syr, ܣܘܪܝܬ) ( su:rɪtʰor su:rɪθ, also known as Assyrian or Chaldean, refers to the varieties of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) spoken by ethnic Assyrians, including those identifying as religious groups rather than eth ...
) have lost and and replaced them with and , as with Modern Hebrew. In most dialects of Modern Syriac, and are realized as after a vowel.
* Loss of emphatics. Some dialects have replaced emphatic consonants with non-emphatic counterparts, while those spoken in the Caucasus
The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically ...
often have Ejective consonant, glottalized rather than pharyngealization, pharyngealized emphatics.
* Guttural assimilation is the main distinctive feature of Samaritan pronunciation, also found in Samaritan Hebrew: all the gutturals are reduced to a simple glottal stop. Some Modern Aramaic dialects do not pronounce ''h'' in all words (the third person masculine pronoun ''hu'' becomes ''ow'').
* Proto-Semitic */θ/ */ð/ are reflected in Aramaic as */t/, */d/, whereas they became sibilants in Hebrew (the number three is שלוש ''šālôš'' in Hebrew but תלת ''tlāṯ'' in Aramaic, the word gold is זהב zahav in Hebrew but דהב dehav in Aramaic). Dental/sibilant shifts are still happening in the modern dialects.
* New phonetic inventory. Modern dialects have borrowed sounds from the dominant surrounding languages. The most frequent borrowings are (as the first consonant in "azure"), (as in "jam") and (as in "church"). The Syriac alphabet
The Syriac alphabet ( ) is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language since the 1st century AD. It is one of the Semitic abjads descending from the Aramaic alphabet through the Palmyrene alphabet, and shares similarities with ...
has been adapted for writing these new sounds.
Grammar
As with other Semitic languages, Aramaic morphology (linguistics), morphology (the way words are formed) is based on the consonantal Semitic root, root. The root generally consists of two or three consonants and has a basic meaning, for example, כת״ב ''k-t-b'' has the meaning of 'writing'. This is then modified by the addition of vowels and other consonants to create different nuances of the basic meaning:
* כתבה ''kṯāḇâ'', handwriting, inscription, script, book.
* כתבי ''kṯāḇê'', books, the Scriptures.
* כתובה ''kāṯûḇâ'', secretary, scribe.
* כתבת ''kiṯḇeṯ'', I wrote.
* אכתב eḵtûḇ'', I shall write.
Nouns and adjectives
Aramaic nouns and adjectives are inflected to show ''gender'', ''number'' and ''state''.
Aramaic has two grammatical genders: masculine and feminine. The feminine absolute singular is often marked by the ending ה- ''-â''.
Nouns can be either singular or plural, but an additional "dual" number exists for nouns that usually come in pairs. The dual number gradually disappeared from Aramaic over time and has little influence in Middle and Modern Aramaic.
Aramaic nouns and adjectives can exist in one of three states. To a certain extent, these states correspond to the role of articles and cases in the Indo-European languages:
# The ''absolute'' state is the basic form of a noun. In early forms of Aramaic, the absolute state expresses indefiniteness, comparable to the English indefinite article a(n) (for example, כתבה ''kṯāḇâ'', "a handwriting"), and can be used in most syntactic roles. However, by the Middle Aramaic period, its use for nouns (but not adjectives) had been widely replaced by the emphatic state.
# The ''Status constructus, construct'' state is a form of the noun used to make possessive constructions (for example, כתבת מלכתא ''kṯāḇat malkṯâ'', "the handwriting of the queen"). In the masculine singular, the form of the construct is often the same as the absolute, but it may undergo vowel reduction in longer words. The feminine construct and masculine construct plural are marked by suffixes. Unlike a genitive case, which marks the possessor, the construct state is marked on the possessed. This is mainly due to Aramaic word order: possessed[const.] possessor[abs./emph.] are treated as a speech unit, with the first unit (possessed) employing the construct state to link it to the following word. In Middle Aramaic, the use of the construct state for all but stock phrases (like בר נשא ''bar nāšâ'', "son of man") begins to disappear.
# The ''emphatic'' or ''determined'' state is an extended form of the noun that functions similarly to the Article (grammar), definite article. It is marked with a suffix (for example, כתבתא ''kṯāḇtâ'', "the handwriting"). Although its original grammatical function seems to have been to mark definiteness, it is used already in Imperial Aramaic to mark all important nouns, even if they should be considered technically indefinite. This practice developed to the extent that the absolute state became extraordinarily rare in later varieties of Aramaic.
Whereas other Northwest Semitic languages, like Hebrew, have the absolute and construct states, the emphatic/determined state is a unique feature to Aramaic. Inflection, Case endings, as in Ugaritic grammar#Case, Ugaritic, probably existed in a very early stage of the language, and glimpses of them can be seen in a few compound proper names. However, as most of those cases were expressed by short final vowels, they were never written, and the few characteristic long vowels of the masculine plural accusative and genitive are not clearly evidenced in inscriptions. Often, the Object (grammar), direct object is marked by a prefixed -ל ''l-'' (the preposition and postposition, preposition "to") if it is definite.
Adjectives agree with their nouns in number and gender but agree in state only if used attributively. Predicative adjectives are in the absolute state regardless of the state of their noun (a copula (linguistics), copula may or may not be written). Thus, an attributive adjective to an emphatic noun, as in the phrase "the good king", is written also in the emphatic state מלכא טבא ''malkâ ṭāḇâ''king[emph.] good[emph.]. In comparison, the predicative adjective, as in the phrase "the king is good", is written in the absolute state מלכא טב ''malkâ ṭāḇ''king[emph.] good[abs.].
The final א- ''-â'' in a number of these suffixes is written with the letter aleph. However, some Jewish Aramaic texts employ the letter he (letter), he for the feminine absolute singular. Likewise, some Jewish Aramaic texts employ the Hebrew masculine absolute singular suffix ים- ''-îm'' instead of ין- ''-în''. The masculine determined plural suffix, יא- ''-ayyâ'', has an alternative version, ''-ê''. The alternative is sometimes called the "gentilic plural" for its prominent use in ethnonyms (יהודיא ''yəhûḏāyê'', 'the Jews', for example). This alternative plural is written with the letter aleph, and came to be the only plural for nouns and adjectives of this type in Syriac and some other varieties of Aramaic. The masculine construct plural, ''-ê'', is written with yodh. In Syriac and some other variants this ending is diphthongized to ''-ai''.
Possessive phrases in Aramaic can either be made with the construct state or by linking two nouns with the relative particle -[ד[י ''d[î]-''. As the use of the construct state almost disappears from the Middle Aramaic period on, the latter method became the main way of making possessive phrases.
For example, the various forms of possessive phrases (for "the handwriting of the queen") are:
# כתבת מלכתא kṯāḇaṯ malkṯâ – the oldest construction, also known as סמיכות səmîḵûṯ : the possessed object (כתבה kṯābâ, "handwriting") is in the construct state (כתבת kṯāḇaṯ); the possessor (מלכה malkâ, "queen") is in the emphatic state (מלכתא malkṯâ)
# כתבתא דמלכתא kṯāḇtâ d(î)-malkṯâ – both words are in the emphatic state and the relative particle -[ד[י ''d[î]-'' is used to mark the relationship
# כתבתה דמלכתא kṯāḇtāh d(î)-malkṯâ – both words are in the emphatic state, and the relative particle is used, but the possessed is given an anticipatory, pronominal ending (כתבתה kṯāḇtā-h, "handwriting-her"; literally, "her writing, that (of) the queen").
In Modern Aramaic, the last form is by far the most common. In Biblical Aramaic, the last form is virtually absent.
Verbs
The Aramaic verb has gradually evolved in time and place, varying between varieties of the language. Verb forms are marked for grammatical person, person (first, second or third), grammatical number, number (singular or plural), grammatical gender, gender (masculine or feminine), grammatical tense, tense (perfect or imperfect), grammatical mood, mood (indicative, imperative, jussive or infinitive) and voice (grammar), voice (active, reflexive or passive). Aramaic also employs a system of grammatical conjugation, conjugations, or verbal stems, to mark intensive and extensive developments in the lexical meaning of verbs.
Aspectual tense
Aramaic has two proper grammatical tense, tenses: perfective aspect, perfect and imperfective aspect, imperfect. These were originally grammatical aspect, aspectual, but developed into something more like a preterite and future tense, future. The perfect is Markedness, unmarked, while the imperfect uses various prefix, preformatives that vary according to person, number and gender. In both tenses the third-person singular masculine is the unmarked form from which others are derived by addition of Suffix, afformatives (and preformatives in the imperfect). In the chart below (on the root כת״ב K-T-B, meaning "to write"), the first form given is the usual form in Imperial Aramaic, while the second is Syriac language, Classical Syriac.
Conjugations or verbal stems
Like other Semitic languages, Aramaic employs a number of Derived stem, derived verb stems, to extend the lexical coverage of verbs. The basic form of the verb is called the ''ground stem'', or ''G-stem''. Following the tradition of mediaeval Arabic grammarians, it is more often called the Pə‘al פעל (also written Pe‘al), using the form of the Semitic root פע״ל P-‘-L, meaning "to do". This stem carries the basic lexical meaning of the verb.
By doubling of the second radical, or root letter, the D-stem or פעל Pa‘‘el is formed. This is often an intensive development of the basic lexical meaning. For example, ''qəṭal'' means "he killed", whereas ''qaṭṭel'' means "he slew". The precise relationship in meaning between the two stems differs for every verb.
A preformative, which can be -ה ''ha-'', -א ''a-'' or -ש ''ša-'', creates the C-stem or variously the Hap̄‘el, Ap̄‘el or Šap̄‘el (also spelt הפעל Haph‘el, אפעל Aph‘el and שפעל Shaph‘el). This is often an extensive or causative development of the basic lexical meaning. For example, טעה ''ṭə‘â'' means "he went astray", whereas אטעי ''aṭ‘î'' means "he deceived". The Šap̄‘el שפעל is the least common variant of the C-stem. Because this variant is standard in Akkadian, it is possible that its use in Aramaic represents loanwords from that language. The difference between the variants הפעל Hap̄‘el and אפעל Ap̄‘el appears to be the gradual dropping of the initial ה ''h'' sound in later Old Aramaic. This is noted by the respelling of the older he (letter), he preformative with א aleph.
These three conjugations are supplemented with three further derived stems, produced by the preformative -הת ''hiṯ-'' or -את ''eṯ-''. The loss of the initial ה ''h'' sound occurs similarly to that in the form above. These three derived stems are the Gt-stem, התפעל Hiṯpə‘el or אתפעל Eṯpə‘el (also written Hithpe‘el or Ethpe‘el), the Dt-stem, התפעּל Hiṯpa‘‘al or אתפעּל Eṯpa‘‘al (also written Hithpa‘‘al or Ethpa‘‘al), and the Ct-stem, התהפעל Hiṯhap̄‘al, אתּפעל Ettap̄‘al, השתפעל Hištap̄‘al or אשתפעל Eštap̄‘al (also written Hithhaph‘al, Ettaph‘al, Hishtaph‘al or Eshtaph‘al). Their meaning is usually reflexive verb, reflexive, but later became passive voice, passive. However, as with other stems, actual meaning differs from verb to verb.
Not all verbs use all of these conjugations, and, in some, the G-stem is not used. In the chart below (on the root כת״ב K-T-B, meaning "to write"), the first form given is the usual form in Imperial Aramaic, while the second is Syriac language, Classical Syriac.
In Imperial Aramaic, the participle began to be used for a historical present. Perhaps under influence from other languages, Middle Aramaic developed a system of composite tenses (combinations of forms of the verb with pronouns or an auxiliary verb), allowing for narrative that is more vivid. The syntax of Aramaic (the way sentences are put together) usually follows the order verb–subject–object (VSO). Imperial (Persian) Aramaic, however, tended to follow a S-O-V pattern (similar to Akkadian), which was the result of Persian syntactic influence.
See also
References
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External links
Ancient Aramaic Audio Files
Contains audio recordings of scripture.
The Aramaic Language and Its Classification – Efrem Yildiz, Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies
(including editions of Targum
A targum ( arc, תרגום 'interpretation, translation, version') was an originally spoken translation of the Hebrew Bible (also called the ''Tanakh'') that a professional translator ( ''mǝturgǝmān'') would give in the common language of the ...
s) at the Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati
Dictionary of Judeo-Aramaic
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aramaic Language
Aramaic languages,
Languages attested from the 10th century BC