
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 h ...
containing many
varieties (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 s ...
.
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 immigrant ...
. 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, 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 preserve ...
,
Edomite,
Moabite, and
Phoenician, as well as
Amorite and
Ugaritic. Aramaic languages are written in the
Aramaic alphabet, a descendant of the
Phoenician alphabet, and the most prominent alphabet variant is the
Syriac alphabet. 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 and the
Arabic alphabet.
The Aramaic languages are now considered
endangered, 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 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 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 t ...
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 lie ...
,
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 Riv ...
, and the fringes of southern
Mesopotamia 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 ...
. 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 of the empire, and its use spread throughout
Mesopotamia, the
Levant 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 ...
. 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 the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf an ...
,
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 lie ...
,
Palestine,
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 Riv ...
,
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 nor ...
,
Eastern Arabia,
Bahrain,
Sinai, parts of southeast and south central
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...
, 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 Tur ...
.
According to the Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 38b), the language spoken by the Bible's first was Aramaic.
Aramaic was the
language of Jesus, who spoke the
Galilean dialect during his public ministry, as well as the language of several sections of the
Hebrew Bible, 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, Ἔσδρα ...
, and also the language of the
Targum, 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 and
Zohar.
The scribes of the Neo-Assyrian bureaucracy had also used Aramaic, and this practice was subsequently inherited by the succeeding
Neo-Babylonian Empire (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) progressively also become the ''
lingua franca'' of public life, trade and commerce throughout the Achaemenid territories. Wide use of ''written'' Aramaic subsequently led to the adoption of the
Aramaic alphabet 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, ...
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 b ...
,
Middle Persian,
Sogdian, and
Khwarazmian).
Some variants of Aramaic are also retained as
sacred languages by certain religious communities. Most notable among them is
Classical Syriac, the liturgical language of
Syriac Christianity. 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
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, the
Syriac Catholic Church, the
Maronite Church
The Maronite Church is an Eastern Catholic Churches, 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. Th ...
, and also the
Saint Thomas Christians (Native Christians) and
Syrian Christians (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 Can ...
,
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, which besides becoming a vernacular (
Neo-Mandaic) also remained the liturgical language of
Mandaeism. Syriac was also the liturgical language of several now-extinct
gnostic faiths, such as
Manichaeism.
Neo-Aramaic languages are still spoken in the 21st century as a
first language 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""T ...
(in particular, the
Jews of Kurdistan), and
Mandaeans of the
Near East, 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 ethn ...
(590,000 speakers),
Chaldean Neo-Aramaic (240,000 speakers) and
Turoyo (100,000 speakers); in addition to
Western Neo-Aramaic
Western Neo-Aramaic (), more commonly referred to as Siryon ( "Syrian"), is a modern Western Aramaic language. Today, it is only spoken in three villages – Maaloula, Bakhah and Jubb'adin – in the Anti-Lebanon Mountains of western Syria ...
(21,700) which persists in only three villages in the
Anti-Lebanon Mountains 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 shifts experienced throughout the
Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...
.
Name

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 ( ...
, 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 t ...
.
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 ...
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, Ποσειδώνιος , "of Poseidon") "of Apameia" (ὁ Ἀπαμεύς) or "of Rhodes" (ὁ Ῥόδιος) (), was a Greek politician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, historian, mathematician, and teacher nativ ...
) both stated that the "Syrians" called themselves "Arameans". The
Septuagint, 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.
This connection between the names Syrian and Aramaic was made in 1835 by
Étienne Marc Quatremère.
[
In historical sources, Aramaic language is designated by two distinctive groups of terms, first of them represented by endonymic (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 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 preserve ...
. 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 ...
(Hebrew Bible), "Aram" is used as a proper name of several people including descendants of Shem, Nahor, and Jacob. Ancient Aram, 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, 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 s ...
. Since the name of Syria 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 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""T ...
. 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.
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 Empires, 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 ( Upper Mesopotamia, 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 the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf an ...
, 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 Tur ...
, and southeastern Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...
(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, early writing system
* Akkadian my ...
-influenced Imperial Aramaic as the '' lingua franca'' of its empire. This policy was continued by the short-lived Neo-Babylonian Empire 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, t ...
, 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 of most of western Asia, the Arabian Peninsula, 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 ...
, the Caucasus, and Egypt.
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 of the Near East. 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""T ...
. 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 '' ...
, 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 th ...
, Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country, transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Wester ...
and southern Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eight ...
. The Mandaeans also continue to use Mandaic Aramaic as a liturgical language, although most now speak Arabic as their first language. 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, Bakhdida, Bartella, Tesqopa, and Tel Keppe, 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, 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.
...
, Kirkuk, 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, although the language is dying out. However, Aramaic is also experiencing a revival among Maronites in Israel 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 , ...
.
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 languages, I ...
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. Some Aramaic languages are known under different names; for example, Syriac 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 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. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers''). Originating in Turkey, the ...
, 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. In time, Aramaic developed its distinctive "square" style. The ancient Israelites and other peoples of Canaan adopted this alphabet for writing their own languages. Thus, it is better known as the Hebrew alphabet. 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. 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 dev ...
, is used by the Mandaeans.
In addition to these writing systems, certain derivatives of the Aramaic alphabet were used in ancient times by particular groups: the Nabataean alphabet in Petra 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 i ...
in Palmyra. In modern times, Turoyo (see below) 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 It ...
.
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 Anci ...
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 singl ...
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, from 1200 AD, up to the modern times
Periodization of Joseph Fitzmyer (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, from 700 BC, to 200 BC
* Middle Aramaic, from 200 BC, to 200 AD
* Late Aramaic, from 200 AD, to 700 AD
* Modern Aramaic, 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, 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 linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that is ...
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 ...
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 and Mandaic forms are largely restricted to Assyrian Christian and Mandean 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 the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf an ...
, 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 Tur ...
and southeastern Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...
, whilst the severely endangered Western Neo-Aramaic
Western Neo-Aramaic (), more commonly referred to as Siryon ( "Syrian"), is a modern Western Aramaic language. Today, it is only spoken in three villages – Maaloula, Bakhah and Jubb'adin – in the Anti-Lebanon Mountains of western Syria ...
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 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, the Levant and Egypt. After the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, local vernaculars became increasingly prominent, fanning the divergence of an Aramaic dialect continuum 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, State of Palestine, Palestine and Jordan, together with the northern region of Kuwait, sou ...
. 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 =
, a ...
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, 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. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers''). Originating in Turkey, the ...
, Tiglath-Pileser III 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 and Egypt. Around 600 BC, Adon, a Canaanite 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 th ...
.
Imperial Aramaic
Around 500 BC, following the Achaemenid
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 emp ...
(Persian) conquest of Mesopotamia under Darius I, 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, 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 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. 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, 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 UNESC ...
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 an ...
). Of them, the best known is the ''Story of Ahikar
The ''Story of Aḥiqar'', also known as the ''Words of Aḥiqar'', is a story first attested in Imperial Aramaic from the 5th century BCE on papyri from Elephantine, Egypt, that circulated widely in the Middle and the Near East.Christa Müller- ...
'', 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 differen ...
. 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, southw ...
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.
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:
* 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, Ἔσδρα ...
– 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 o ...
– 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 was misnamed as "Chaldean" (Chaldaic, Chaldee). That label remained common in early Aramaic 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 ...
. 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 3 ...
, 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 ...
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 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 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 preserve ...
which was the language preferred in religious and some other public uses (coinage). It influenced the Biblical Aramaic of the Qumran texts, and was the main language of non-biblical theological texts of that community. The major Targums, translations of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic, were originally composed in Hasmonaean Aramaic. It also appears in quotations in the Mishnah and Tosefta, 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 Targumic 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, 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. 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 lo ...
was the written language of the Arab kingdom of Nabataea, whose capital was Petra. 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 sout ...
, 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 Provi ...
, 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, 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 is the dialect that was in use in the Syriac city state of Palmyra 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 wit ...
. 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 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, ...
), 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 b ...
, 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, 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 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 (Urhay), the regional dialect became the official language: Edessan Aramaic (Urhaya), that later came to be known as Classical Syriac. 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 t ...
, 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 fortifi ...
(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 century ...
) and Assur ( Assurian Aramaic).
Tatian, 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 com ...
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, the language of the 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
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 preserve ...
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
Banias or Banyas ( ar, بانياس الحولة; he, בניאס, label=Modern Hebrew; Judeo-Aramaic, Medieval Hebrew: פמייס, etc.; grc, Πανεάς) is a site in the Golan Heights near a natural spring, once associated with the Greek ...
. 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. 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 ...
' 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
The Peshitta ( syc, ܦܫܺܝܛܬܳܐ ''or'' ') is the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition, including the Maronite Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, t ...
).
Languages during Jesus' lifetime
It is generally believed by Christian scholars that in the first century, Jews in 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 preserve ...
as their first language, though many learned Hebrew as a liturgical language. Additionally, Koine Greek 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
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of t ...
, 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 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
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
and Judaea. The region of Ein Gedi
Ein Gedi ( he, עֵין גֶּדִי, ), also spelled En Gedi, meaning "spring of the goat, kid", is an oasis, an Archaeological site, archeological site and a nature reserve in Israel, located west of the Dead Sea, near Masada and the Qu ...
spoke the Southeast Judaean dialect. Samaria had its distinctive Samaritan Aramaic, where the consonants " 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: diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...
s 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, Damascene Aramaic was spoken (deduced mostly from Modern Western Aramaic). Finally, as far north as Aleppo
)), is an adjective which means "white-colored mixed with black".
, motto =
, image_map =
, mapsize =
, map_caption =
, image_map1 =
...
, the western dialect of Orontes Aramaic was spoken.
The three languages, especially Hebrew and Aramaic, influenced one another through loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because the ...
s 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 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 '' ...
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 Tur ...
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. 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
The Peshitta ( syc, ܦܫܺܝܛܬܳܐ ''or'' ') is the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition, including the Maronite Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, t ...
, and the masterful prose and poetry of Ephrem the Syrian
Ephrem the Syrian ( syc, ܡܪܝ ܐܦܪܝܡ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ, Mār ʾAp̄rêm Sūryāyā, ; grc-koi, Ἐφραὶμ ὁ Σῦρος, Efrém o Sýros; la, Ephraem Syrus; am, ቅዱስ ኤፍሬም ሶርያዊ; ), also known as Saint Ephrem, Saint ...
. Classical Syriac became the language of the Church of the East, and the Syriac Orthodox Church. Missionary activity led to the spread of Syriac from Mesopotamia and Persia
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 ...
, into Central Asia
Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the former ...
, 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 ...
and China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
.
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 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 bowl
An incantation bowl, also known as a demon bowl, devil-trap bowl, or magic bowl, is a form of early protective magic found in what is now Iraq and Iran. Produced in the Middle East during late antiquity from the sixth to eighth centuries, parti ...
s written in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic.
Mandaic Aramaic
The Mandaic language
Mandaic is a southeastern Aramaic variety in use by the Mandaean community, traditionally based in southern parts of Iraq and southwest Iran, for their religious books. Classical Mandaic is still employed by Mandaean priests in liturgical ri ...
, spoken by the Mandaeans 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 the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf an ...
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 Tur ...
, 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 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 "square script"), Samaritan Aramaic (in the old Hebrew script) and Christian Palestinian (in cursive Syriac script
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 wi ...
). Of these three, only Jewish Middle Palestinian continued as a written language.
Samaritan Aramaic
The 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
The Bar Kokhba revolt ( he, , links=yes, ''Mereḏ Bar Kōḵḇāʾ''), or the 'Jewish Expedition' as the Romans named it ( la, Expeditio Judaica), was a rebellion by the Jews of the Roman province of Judea, led by Simon bar Kokhba, aga ...
, many Jewish leaders, expelled from Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
, moved to Galilee. 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 midrash
''Midrash'' (;["midrash"]
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. he, מִדְרָשׁ; ...
im (biblical commentaries and teaching). The standard vowel pointing for the Hebrew Bible, 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 Middle Syriac, and it was heavily influenced by Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
* Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancesto ...
. 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
The Western Aramaic languages represent a specific group of Aramaic languages once spoken widely throughout the ancient Levant, from ancient Nabatea and Judea, across Palestine and Samaria, further to Palmyra and Phoenicia, and into Syria prop ...
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 and Turoyo (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 shifts that saw the proliferation of other tongues among those who previously did not speak them, most recently the Arabization
Arabization or Arabisation ( ar, تعريب, ') describes both the process of growing Arabs, Arab influence on non-Arab populations, causing a language shift by the latter's gradual adoption of the Arabic, Arabic language and incorporation of Ar ...
of the Middle East and North Africa by Arabs
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
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
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 ...
. 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
Ephrem the Syrian ( syc, ܡܪܝ ܐܦܪܝܡ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ, Mār ʾAp̄rêm Sūryāyā, ; grc-koi, Ἐφραὶμ ὁ Σῦρος, Efrém o Sýros; la, Ephraem Syrus; am, ቅዱስ ኤፍሬም ሶርያዊ; ), also known as Saint Ephrem, Saint ...
. 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
Judaeo-Aramaic languages represent a group of Hebrew-influenced Aramaic and Neo-Aramaic languages.
Early use
Aramaic, like Hebrew, is a Northwest Semitic language, and the two share many features. From the 7th century BCE, Aramaic became the ...
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 are not all mutually intelligible. In some places, for example Urmia
Urmia or Orumiyeh ( fa, ارومیه, Variously transliterated as ''Oroumieh'', ''Oroumiyeh'', ''Orūmīyeh'' and ''Urūmiyeh''.) is the largest city in West Azerbaijan Province of Iran and the capital of Urmia County. It is situated at an al ...
, 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
Tur Abdin ( syr, ܛܽܘܪ ܥܰܒ݂ܕܺܝܢ or ܛܘܼܪ ܥܲܒ݂ܕܝܼܢ, Ṭūr ʿAḇdīn) is a hilly region situated in southeast Turkey, including the eastern half of the Mardin Province, and Şırnak Province west of the Tigris, on the borde ...
. A related language, Mlaḥsô, has recently become extinct.
Mandaeans living in the Khuzestan province
Khuzestan Province (also spelled Xuzestan; fa, استان خوزستان ''Ostān-e Xūzestān'') is one of the 31 provinces of Iran. It is in the southwest of the country, bordering Iraq and the Persian Gulf. Its capital is Ahvaz and it cover ...
of Iran and scattered throughout Iraq, speak Neo-Mandaic. 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 language. Today, it is only spoken in three villages – Maaloula, Bakhah and Jubb'adin – in the Anti-Lebanon Mountains of western Syria ...
, 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, 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, Azerbaijani, Kurdish, Persian and 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 diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...
s 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 and a fricative
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in ...
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
Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound.
IPA symbols
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, pharyngealization can be indicated b ...
and velarization
Velarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant.
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of four ...
. Using their alphabetic names, these emphatics are:
* ח Ḥêṯ, a voiceless pharyngeal fricative
The voiceless pharyngeal fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is an h-bar, , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is X\. In the tra ...
, ,
* ט Ṭêṯ, a pharyngealized ''t'', ,
* ע ʽAyin (or ʽE in some dialects), a pharyngealized glottal stop (sometimes considered to be a voiced pharyngeal approximant), or ,
* צ Ṣāḏê, a pharyngealized ''s'', ,
* ק Qôp, a voiceless uvular stop
The voiceless uvular plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. It is pronounced like a voiceless velar plosive , except that the tongue makes contact not on the soft palate but on the uvula. The symbol in ...
, .
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 consonant
In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast majori ...
s מ ''m'' and נ ''n'', and the approximants ר ''r'' (usually an 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 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 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 ethn ...
) 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 often have glottalized rather than pharyngealized emphatics.
* Guttural assimilation is the main distinctive feature of Samaritan pronunciation, also found in Samaritan Hebrew
Samaritan Hebrew () is a reading tradition used liturgically by the Samaritans for reading the Ancient Hebrew language of the Samaritan Pentateuch, in contrast to Tiberian Hebrew among the Jews.
For the Samaritans, Ancient Hebrew ceased to be ...
: 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 has been adapted for writing these new sounds.
Grammar
As with other Semitic languages, Aramaic morphology (the way words are formed) is based on the consonantal 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 Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, D ...
:
# 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 '' 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
In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive c ...
, which marks the possessor, the construct state is marked on the possessed. This is mainly due to Aramaic word order: possessed onst.possessor bs./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 definite article
An article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech.
In English, both "the" and "a(n)" ar ...
. 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
Northwest Semitic is a division of the Semitic languages comprising the indigenous languages of the Levant. It emerged from Proto-Semitic in the Early Bronze Age. It is first attested in proper names identified as Amorite in the Middle Bronze A ...
, like Hebrew, have the absolute and construct states, the emphatic/determined state is a unique feature to Aramaic. Case endings, as in 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 direct object
In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include but ...
is marked by a prefixed -ל ''l-'' (the 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 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 mph.good mph. In comparison, the predicative adjective, as in the phrase "the king is good", is written in the absolute state מלכא טב ''malkâ ṭāḇ''king mph.good bs.
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 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 diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...
ized to ''-ai''.
Possessive phrases in Aramaic can either be made with the construct state or by linking two nouns with the relative particle - [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_-_[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_ [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_-_[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_
A_person_(_:_people)_is_a_being_that_has_certain_capacities_or_attributes_such_as_reason,_morality,_consciousness_or_self-consciousness,_and_being_a_part_of_a_culturally_established_form_of_social_relations_such_as_kinship,_ownership_of_property,_...
''._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_-_