Aramaic Dialects Research Articles

The Distinct Linguistic Reality of the Jews in Late Antique Palestine and Babylonia as Reflected in the Lexicosyntax of ‮אפשר‬‎ ʾpšr

Abstract Aramaic influence on Hebrew among Jews in the Land of Israel is well established, especially from the Persian period (from the sixth century BCE) until it completely replaced Hebrew as the natively spoken vernacular sometime before the Arab conquest (seventh century CE). Scholars have paid little attention to the Jews of that period as a distinct speech community, the uniqueness of their dialect or dialects of Aramaic, and the possibility that their ancestral language, Hebrew, had influenced their unique dialects of Aramaic. The present article aims to illuminate these understudied questions by analyzing the syntax of the lexeme ‮אפשר‬‎ ʾpšr, unique to Rabbinic Hebrew and the Jewish dialects of Qumran, Targumic, and Talmudic Aramaic from Palestine and Babylonia. This lexeme, and its shared syntax among those languages and dialects, points to an early use of language to maintain ethnic and religious distinctness among Jews in antiquity.

Aramaic: A History of the First World Language by Holger Gzella

Reviewed by: Aramaic: A History of the First World Language by Holger Gzella Jessie Degrado holger gzella, Aramaic: A History of the First World Language (trans. Benjamin D. Suchard; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2021). Pp. xii + 359. $70. Aramaic: A History of the First World Language is the recent translation with updated bibliography of a volume first published in Dutch in 2017. In the work, Gzella sets himself a monumental task: to present the history of Aramaic over three thousand years without presuming prior knowledge of any Semitic language. Since the work is a popularization of G.'s A Cultural Atlas of Aramaic (HdO 111; Leiden: Brill, 2015), readers with a background in Semitic languages may prefer to consult that volume and, especially, important reviews by Charles Häberl (JAOS 139 [2019] 714–17) and Steven Kaufman ("Notes on A Cultural History of Aramaic" [Aramaic Studies Today, 2017, https://blog.huc.edu/cal/a-culturalhistory-of-aramaic/]). Given the popular focus of the work, this review will focus primarily on its conceptual and historical claims. In chap. 1, G. provides an overview of the history of academic Aramaic studies and some basic features of early Aramaic. In this section, the difficulty of writing a popular history of Aramaic becomes clear: readers with no background in Aramaic will likely struggle to parse the technical details. On the other hand, more experienced readers may be frustrated by the lack of support for several claims, such as the assertion that the lowering of the short vowel i to e obtains in all Aramaic dialects. In fact, the Aramaic name Māti'-'il is consistently written as {ma-ti-' -dingir} (with ti rather than te) in a ninth-century treaty (SAA 2 2), indicating that this phonological process likely postdates Old Aramaic. The next two chapters trace the development and uses of Aramaic in the first millennium b.c.e. Chapter 2 covers the initial phases of the written language, Old Aramaic (OA)—first attested in monumental inscriptions from Syrian kingdoms in the ninth and eighth centuries b.c.e. Chapter 3 outlines the use of Aramaic by first-millennium empires, from its role as a lingua franca in the Neo-Assyrian and Babylonian periods to the development of Imperial Aramaic, a standardized dialect with its own orthographic conventions, employed as the administrative language of the Achaemenid empire. These two chapters highlight an important trend in the history of Aramaic, namely, processes that lead to standardization of dialects in writing. G. gives the impression that this was a highly organized and agentive process, attributable to the reign of a single ruler or even a specific year. For OA, G.'s reconstruction requires sidelining texts that do not adhere to the alleged standardization (Neirab stelae, Deir Alla, and Tell Fekheriye). In addition, Sam'alian, a dialect from Zincirli, is not considered Aramaic (cf. the more recent treatment in Federico Giusfredi and Valerio Pisaniello, "The Population, the Language and the History of Yadiya/Sam'al," in Beyond All Boundaries: Anatolia in the 1st Millennium BC [OBO 295; Leuven: Peeters, 2021] 189–223). In other words, OA appears homogeneous only when all texts attesting to its heterogeneity have been dismissed as anomalous or reclassified as not Aramaic. The next two chapters on Aramaic in late antiquity illustrate the reverse process of linguistic standardization, that is, the movement toward recording the diversity of vernacular speech. G. covers the use of Aramaic in the southern Levant (biblical texts and Qumran), and the development of distinct dialects including Palmyrene, Hatran, and Arascid Aramaic. A substantial portion of chap. 4 is devoted to the assertion that Hebrew was no longer spoken as a vernacular after 400 b.c.e. and had lost all communicative function by the second [End Page 337] century c.e. This requires special pleading, given corpora such as the Bar Kokhba letters and tomb inscriptions from Bet Shearim and Jaffa, which indicate that Hebrew was likely spoken through the second century and used in inscriptions through the fourth century (see Y. Elitzur, "Epigraphic Hebrew: Roman and Byzantine Period," in Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics [ed. Geoffrey Khan; 4 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 2003] 1:843–51). More significantly...

An Aramaic Ritual for Burning Straw in Sefire IA:36–37

Abstract The Old Aramaic inscription Sefire I (KAI 222) includes, in a series of mimetic curses, a debated clause that has been read by most previous scholars to involve a mysterious {gnbʾ} gannābaʾ(?) ‘thief’, which (or who?) is symbolically burned (Sefire IA:36–37). The present article argues that there are lexicographic (cognates in later Aramaic dialects) and phonological (geminate prenasalization) grounds for understanding {gnbʾ} to encode instead ganbaʾ (< *gabbaʾ) ‘straw’. The burning of this straw to symbolize consequences should a treaty partner renege has clear parallels in Mesopotamian and Syro-Anatolian magical and ritual language, including treaty curses, and produces a more typical image in a list of mimetic curses involving materials (wax), objects (a bow and arrow), and animals (a calf).

Вопрос о становлении классической традиции иранской музыки в аспекте проблемы языка и мышления

The article examines the historical prerequisites for the formation of the classical tradition of Iranian music of the Achaemenid and Sassanid dynasties period (6th century BCE — the first third of the 7th century CE) in a linguistic environment with the dominant function of the Aramaic language (Old Aramaic, Imperial Koine, Syriac/ New Aramaic dialects) at the sites of the “royal way”, where the local musical heritage of Indo-Iranian tribes melted in the phonosphere of the cosmopolitan palace vocal and instrumental music-making of ancient civilizations. The author of the article formulates the hypothesis that (1) when working with the concepts “Indo-European language family” or “Semitic language family”, we describe the contrasting mechanisms of speech information processing and transmission that (2) appear universal for different spheres of intellectual activity, including music, where they (3) are expressed in two formulae of the musical process I -- m -- t (B. Asafyev) and I -- t = m—temporalityy (G. Shamilli) (3) that is sensitive to certain patterns of thinking and (4) is fixed in the gestalt. Therefore, to think of derivation mechanisms of verbal and musical speech as unified means to provide a gestalt morphosyntactic description of structures from an interdisciplinary perspective, relying on (1) the fact of the linguistic community of cultures over a long historical period and (2) the assumption about the ability of the oral musical tradition to retain one gestalt or another with a change of the language domain.

ʿAttīḏ-Compounds in Middle Aramaic: Discursive Functions and Tense-Aspect-Modal Characteristics

Abstract Despite the frequent use of ʿattīḏ-compounds in Middle Aramaic,1 their syntactic and discourse functions as well as the tense-aspect-modal (TAM) characteristics are represented in modern works on Aramaic grammar in a rather fragmentary fashion. On the whole, ʿattīḏ-compounds are considered as competing with yiqṭul-imperfect periphrastic verbal forms that function predominantly in prophetic discourse with the meaning of distant future. However, the range of the discourse functions of ʿattīḏ-compounds goes beyond the scope of prophecy and their TAM-characteristics need to be reconsidered. In this article, compounds with an ʿattīḏ-auxiliary are viewed as possessing the modal meaning of intention originally, and it is this distinctive seme that determines other specificities of their functions. This paper presents the results of cross-dialectical analysis of ʿattīḏ-compounds in Jewish Aramaic dialects, Samaritan Aramaic, Classical Syriac and Christian Palestinian Aramaic, and includes biblical texts translated from Hebrew as well as the original writings in these Middle Aramaic languages.

Review: The Rise of Coptic: Egyptian versus Greek in Late Antiquity, by Jean-Luc Fournet

Review: <i>The Rise of Coptic: Egyptian versus Greek in Late Antiquity</i>, by Jean-Luc Fournet

Jewish Babylonian Aramaic נוולא (B. Bava Meṣiʿa 67a, etc.)

&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; This article treats the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic (JBA) 3rd person singular pronoun נוולא nawla, attested four times in the vast rabbinic corpus: three times in the Babylonian Talmud and one time in Tractate Sofrim. First, it is shown that the form is epicene, as it can have both masculine and feminine antecedents. Second, the four attestations reveal a specialized meaning for the form, to wit, ‘this-one’ or ‘that-one’ (as opposed to the other one) when there are specifically two items under discussion. Which is to say, the form נוולא nawla is not used for simple ‘he’ or ‘she’ or ‘this’ or ‘that’, for which JBA and other Aramaic dialects have familiar and widely attested forms. Third, the article proposes that the form is borrowed from the Hurro-Urartian family, well known for its epicene pronouns. See, for example, Hurrian anni=lla, ani=lla, etc., Urartian i=ne=lə, ina=ne=lə, etc. Even though these forms are plural forms, while נוולא nawla is a singular form, comparative evidence demonstrates that when pronouns are borrowed from one language to another, they at times may jump person and number.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D;

Andy Hilkens, The Anonymous Syriac Chronicle of 1234 and Its Sources. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, 272. Leuven, Paris, and Bristol, CT: Peeters, 2018, XV, 335 pp.

Abstract The book under review draws on the author’s doctoral thesis submitted to Ghent University, Belgium. Its subject is the so-called Anonymous Syriac Chronicle of 1234, a universal chronicle which covers the history from Creation until its author’s lifetime. The author of the chronicle is unknown today. He belonged to the Syriac Orthodox tradition and lived probably in Northern Mesopotamia. He wrote in Syriac, the Aramaic dialect of the ancient city of Edessa (today’s Şanlıurfa in southeastern Turkey). At first, the chronicle was completed in 1204 C.E. It was subsequently continued until the campaign of Sultan Malik al-Kāmil against his brother Malik al-Ashraf in 1234 C.E. (17).

Aspects of the Ventive-Energic in Official Aramaic

Abstract The use of a linking element -n- between the verb stem of the imper- fective and an object pronoun suffix is a well-known feature of Western Aramaic languages and dialects. This linking element is traditionally thought to be formally related to the so-called energic suffixes in West Semitic, which in turn are assumed to be cognate with the ven- tive morpheme in Akkadian. It is argued that the formal identification of the energic with the ventive can explain the morphophonological distribution of the linking element -n- in Biblical Aramaic and that the functional identification of the energic with the ventive can explain the use of -n without an object pronoun suffix in the A$$hiqar proverbs as a reflexive-benefactive marker.1

The Morphosyntax of Embedded Clauses in Western Neo-Aramaic: Arabic Influence or Retention from Older Aramaic?

Abstract The article asks whether the morphosyntax of embedded direct object clauses and purpose clauses in Western Neo-Aramaic reflects retention from older stages of Aramaic, or innovation under the influence of contact Arabic. To this end, direct object clauses and purpose clauses are analysed in Western Neo-Aramaic, in older stages of Aramaic, namely, Old, Official, Biblical and Qumran Aramaic, as well as Syriac, the three Western Late Aramaic dialects (CPA, JPA, SA), and in contemporaneous Syrian Arabic. The analysis considers the embedded verb form, the formal means of linking the embedded clause to the matrix clause, and the co-referentiality of the matrix and embedded subjects, and relates these features to tense-aspect-mood. The article compares the constructions in the various sources of Aramaic and Syrian Arabic and finds features that Western Neo-Aramaic has retained from Late Aramaic, which differ from Syrian Arabic, despite the well documented influence of the latter.

Banned and Branded: The Mesopotamian Background of Šamata

Abstract The verb √šmt and noun šamata, attested in the dialects of Eastern Aramaic in the Sasanian period, would seem at first to be synonymous with the Palestinian term nidui, ‘excommunication’. However, a closer examination reveals that šamata has a different semantic value. It is not simply conceived as a social sanction of excommunication but is understood as a curse involving divine violence; is closely associated with binding; and is often perceived as the property of powerful agents. In this article I argue that √šmt is derived from the Akkadian šamātu, ‘to mark’, ‘to brand’, especially in its more restricted sense ‘to brand temple slaves’ and ‘to dedicate a person to a deity’. Understanding the Mesopotamian roots of šamata might help us better explain its unique regional features, shared by the Aramaic speaking groups in the Sasanian Empire.

Linguistic Dating of the Book of Qohelet: A New Angle

Abstract This paper proposes a new linguistic method for dating the Book of Qohelet. While linguistic methods employed in previous studies of Qohelet led to the conclusion that it is a post-exilic book, they could not yield a more accurate dating. The methodology proposed here identifies calques in Qohelet that reflect Aramaic phrases of uneven distribution—i.e., phrases that occur only in the Aramaic dialects of a specific period. Two Aramaic calques serve as test cases: בשל אשר and כצל אשר. Tracing the inner-Aramaic development and distribution of their Aramaic equivalents, I conclude that these phrases evolved in Aramaic in the Hellenistic period, thus excluding a Persian-period dating of the relevant calques. The paper then briefly refers to the implications of these findings for the contextualization and interpretation of the Book of Qohelet.

Description of the Syrian Civil War by a Resident of Maaloula

The publication presents a fragment of a story by Philip Šōʕra (Arabic: Aš-Šāʕir) in the Maʕ lūla dialect of Modern Western Aramaic. Maaloula is a dialect of the Syrian city of the same name, located 55 km northeast of Damascus. Maaloula is one of three settlements in which dialects of modern Western Aramaic continue to be used as a living language. The story focuses on the capture of Maaloula by radical Islamists during the Syrian Civil War and the killing of several local residents. The available corpus of field records of modern Western Aramaic is insufficient to fully describe the grammatical structure of the language. Morphological analysis of texts is the first step towards solving this problem. And it is doubly important, since some features of the morphology of modern Western Aramaic occupy an important place among other modern Aramaic languages. The recording took place on December 10, 2020, in the city of Maaloula, Syria. Informant – Philip Sho’ra, 83, worked as a baker in Lebanon and returned to Maaloula to become a farmer. Glossing method: interlinear morpheme-by-morpheme glosses. In addition to the standard designations given in the Leipzig Glossing Rules, some additional glosses have been used (See List of Additional Labels).

Image of the Dragon in RS 16.266 (= KTU1–3 1.83)

&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; The fragmentary Ugaritic text RS 16.266 (= KTU1–3 1.83) contains a number of lexical and other problems exacerbated by the state of the tablet and difficulties in defining the plot and characters involved in the text. One of these lexical issues involves the analysis of two verbs that appear to be from the root √trp. In the present paper, I survey previous hypotheses as to the etymology and semantics of this verb and contrast the deficiencies of these with the merits of identifying a thus far unrecognized cognate set in lexemes from the root √trp in later Aramaic dialects, i.e., Syriac, Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, and Mandaic. The verbs in this cognate set have the semantics ‘to strike (esp. of a snake)’, and thus clarify both the activity and morphology of the fearsome dragon described in RS 16.266.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D;

Uccellacci e uccellini

Abstract The topic of this article are terms for animals in the Old Aramaic inscriptions. The corpus is quite rich (ca. 50 terms), including both terms for particular mammals reconstructed for Proto-Semitic, and terms that are rarely attested in other Semitic languages. Two peculiar Aramaic forms are already evidenced in Old Aramaic: the word for “cow” created through morphological rather than semantic opposition to the word “bull”, and the word for “serpent” derived from the verb “to live”. The attestation of some terms in Old Aramaic that do not occur in later Aramaic dialects is possibly due, at least in some cases, to external influences (for example, Akkadian in the inscription of Sfiré). Other terms are known later in a slightly different form, maybe due to tabooisation processes. However, the stability of the lexicon in general is quite remarkable. As is usual in ethnobiological classification, the most common taxa by far are generic species.

Psalm 39 (LXX 38): A Retributive Psalm?

This paper is a contribution to the Festschrift for Prof. Phil Botha. As a teacher in Semitic Languages, he specialised in two corpora: poetry (Hebrew) and more specifically the Psalms, and Syriac, a prominent Aramaic dialect. He also demonstrated an interest in the Septuagint. It is an honour to dedicate this contribution to my colleague of many years, who has also had an impact on the international stage. In a recent international contribution, he argues that Ps 39 is effectively a song of retribution. This paper focuses on this Hebrew Psalm from the perspective of the Greek Psalms, as a pilot study, in order to test Botha’s assumption; in his own words the psalm is intended “to serve as a wisdom reflection on how to overcome theological frustration caused by delayed retribution.” https://doi.org/10.17159/2312-3621/2019/v32n2a3

The Ethical Dative in Aramaic

Abstract The ethical dative (dativus ethicus) has been attested without interruption in Aramaic dialects from the Official Aramaic period down through Neo-Aramaic. The extent and durability of this linguistic feature is discussed. Though its frequency differs from corpus to corpus, it is alive in some Neo-Aramaic dialects and its distribution in Modern Aramaic suggests that it was more widespread in pre-Modern Aramaic than the written texts show. It is most probably a colloquial feature that penetrated written texts to a limited extent. In the only real evidence we possess of spoken Aramaic, namely, Neo-Aramaic, it has, in different dialects, become an integral part of some verbal forms and does not express any identifiable nuance. Its precise meaning and use in pre-Modern Aramaic remain elusive.

Perspectives from comparisons of the Hebrew l-suffix with the Shona h-suffix features

The ethical dative or dativus ethicus is a feature used with certain verbs in Biblical Hebrew, which, however, has continued to pose difficulties to grammarians as to its syntactic and semantic references. The feature is also present in other Semitic languages, namely, Syriac and other Aramaic dialects including Persian. Although quite a common feature, the ethical dative is seemingly difficult to translate into English, while its identification as an ethical dative is a widely accepted misnomer. This study attempts to resolve the identification of the feature’s grammatical role by seeking to relate it with a similar grammatical feature from Shona, a language from the Central and Southern African group of languages. Although there are some differences between the compared features, the similarities will go a long way to clarify the nature of the Semitic enigma that is currently known as the ethical dative in Hebrew and in other related Semitic languages.

Marked Nominal Forms in Targum Malachi

The use of formally marked and unmarked nouns varies and has changed in Aramaic dialects throughout the course of history. Until recently, it was assumed that determination in nouns in Targum Prophets was no longer working properly since extant grammars do not point out specific rules of grammar and syntax in this regard. It has been argued that the marked form of the noun came to depose the unmarked form. However, a focused study on Targum Samuel by Renaud Kuty (2010) demonstrates that the retention or abandonment of determinate and indeterminate nominal forms functions according to two linguistic systems in this Targum. This contribution investigates the retention or abandonment of final long A in nominal forms in Targum Malachi by observing how marked and unmarked nominal forms appear in typical grammatical, syntactic, and semantic arrangements, and what the impact of discourse perspective is.

Flax and Linen Terminology in Talmudic Literature

Material culture data is mentioned in Talmudic (or ‘rabbinical’) literature when a relevant legal (‘halakhic’) or homiletic (‘midrashic’) context arises. Therefore, certain details may be lacking or ambiguously stated. This however is not presented in a systematic and detailed manner, such as in ‘Pliny’s Natural History’.2 Additional classical authors mention flax and linen. First and foremost: Diocletian3 in his edict of maximum prices. And in less scope and detail: Xenophon,4 Virgil,5 Strabo,6 Columella,7 Pausanias,8 and Theodosius II9 – in his codex. In some instances, these sources may be useful for comparison, contrast and clarification – to Talmudic sources. It is difficult to gauge the exact societal extent of the phenomena mentioned in this literature, however it may be assumed that they can be viewed as a representative sampling, or reliable cross-section of the material culture found in contemporaneous society in those periods (c. 2nd - 5th centuries AD) and regions (Land of Israel and Babylonia). This premise is unaffected by the academic disagreement which exists regarding the extent to which Talmudic laws were actually practiced by the general populace outside of the sphere of the Sages themselves. There is, however, academic consensus regarding those aspects of material culture which are described in this literature as reflecting Sitz im Leben. Historiography based upon Talmudic literature source material is a complex and challenging science. It will encompass aspects such as the use of various Aramaic dialects, the identities, backgrounds, times and locales of tradents10 and the legal and homiletic contexts in which the material culture data is presented. Nevertheless, these are outside of the scope of the current paper, which will focus strictly on material culture itself. The principal rabbinic works from which data is gleaned include: Mishna, Tosefta, Mekhilta, Sifra, Sifre,11 Jerusalem Talmud,12 Babylonian Talmud,13 Midrash Bereshit Rabba, Midrash Tanḥuma,14 and Aramaic ‘Targums’15 of the Pentateuch and Hebrew Bible. Each of these works embodies content originating in various periods, some of them long before the date of their respective final redactions. Pioneers in this field of Talmudic material culture research in general, and textiles specifically, were Gustav Dalman,16 R.J. Forbes,17 Abraham Herszberg,18 Samuel Krauss,19 and Saul Lieberman.20 Since then, our knowledge of Roman-era textiles has been greatly enhanced, due to research advances21 in the fields of archaeology, botany, iconography and philology. Notable among those whom have contributed to this field are Yehuda Feliks,22 John Peter Wild,23 Daniel Sperber, 24 Ze’ev Safrai,25 and Michael Sokoloff.26 All of the above will be accounted for in the current paper.