As for Assyrian, it's a bit more confusing. On the one hand, Assyrian can refer to one variety of Akkadian, another ancient Semitic language family, spoken in Mesopotamia think cuneiform. These modern varieties persisted in rural areas of Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and parts of the former Soviet Union, spoken mostly by Jewish and Christian groups.
Within the past century, many speakers of these languages, some of which are referred to as Assyrian, have relocated, to Jerusalem, Chicago, Detroit, and, probably, other places in the West. The linguistic differences among these varieties of Aramaic are at least as extensive as those among the various Germanic languages English, Dutch, German, Swedish, Yiddish, etc. As for the modern geo-political use of the term ''Palestine'', I'll leave that to somebody else!
His Syriac Aramaic is an abstraction from all other concrete spoken manifestations. Barhebraeus seems to re-introduce some geographical criteria, with his distinction between western Mesopotamian Syriac, Palestinian and Oriental dialects.
The latter are teased, being associated with the pagan Chaldeans. The predominance of a cultural perspective on all linguistic or geographic considerations is most evident in the opposition between Chaldaic and Syriac Aramaic. Chaldaic then becomes its name par excellence, because it corresponds to the cradle of civilizations, the first place inhabited by humankind.
Only two labels escape from this system: Hebrew when the term designates a kind of Chaldaic spoken by the Jews at a given time and Christian, defining Chaldaic as the language of Jesus.
This is another story…. The Semitic languages an international handbook. Dialect Geography of Syria — Palestine, B. Reprint ed. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns. Piscataway NJ : Gorgias Press, p.
Syrische Grammatik des Mar Elias von Tirhan. Paris: Maisonneuve. Le livre des splendeurs. Lund: Gleerup. German translation: Moberg, Axel. Leipzig: Harassowitz. Firenze: Olschki. Souvenirs de Babel. This dialect is written in an alphabet that is not too different from the Syriac one, which could be one of the reasons why Barhebraeus has included it in his classification, together with the fact that it was a Christian dialect. Farina, Margherita. What is Syriac and what is Aramaic according to Syriac grammarians 8thth cent.
History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences. You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Google account.
You are commenting using your Twitter account. You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. Aramaic has a long and diverse history — A major problem with reporting about Aramaic is that it is often treated as a monolithic language. However, no language stands still: we can see how English has changed from Shakespeare to hip-hop, let alone going back as far as Beowulf. Aramaic has a recorded history that is more than twice as long as that of English.
Although, I would reckon that Aramaic has resisted change far better than English has, in different times and places people have spoken and written different Aramaics.
Geographically, varieties of Aramaic tend to fall into two branches: the more vigorous Eastern Aramaic in Mesopotamia, and the near extinct Western Aramaic in the Levant. The earliest Aramaic inscriptions come from the tenth century BC. The standard Aramaic practised by Achaemenid scribes is known as Official Aramaic. After the conquest of Alexander the Great and the rise of the Seleucid Empire, Greek became the language of power and high society in much of the Levant, while Aramaic continued as a rural language, remaining strong in its Mesopotamian heartland.
Thus, most post-Achaemenid Aramaic is written in Mesopotamian dialects. Greek and Aramaic coexisted for over a millennium, until Arabic gradually became the dominant language of the Middle East. However, a few parts of the Old Testament were originally written in Aramaic.
The largest portion of Aramaic is Daniel 2. Daniel 2. Portions of the Book of Ezra are also in Aramaic, as is one sentence in the Prophet Jeremiah, and one word in Genesis. Jesus spoke Aramaic — This is one of the big selling-points of Aramaic for many, and almost every journalist who mentions Aramaic has to make the connection with Jesus.
I would too! However, we obviously have no sound recordings of Jesus speaking Aramaic, nor is he alleged to written anything down, except in the dust John 8. Firstly, we know that Aramaic was widely spoken by Jews and their neighbours, particularly among the lower classes. Hebrew and Greek were also important languages, and Jesus would probably have been able to speak them too. Secondly, the Greek New Testament records quite a few Aramaic words and phrases, names and places in transliteration with no spoken Hebrew.
So, we are pretty sure Jesus spoke Aramaic. However, the Aramaic he would have spoken is clearly different from any Aramaic spoken today. We Christians who speak Aramaic like to say that we speak the language of Jesus , but in practice we all speak slightly different varieties of Aramaic to that spoken by Jesus.
It is just not quite so glamourous to admit that we speak a language that is as close as you can get to that spoken by Jesus. No gospels were first written in Aramaic — There are people around in the Internet sense rather than around universities who will go to great lengths to prove that some of the New Testament was written in Aramaic, and then later translated into Greek.
They are wrong. People of different religions speak Aramaic — Religion is a big deal, and Aramaic is the language of worship and theology for Christians, Jews and Mandeans. Christians make up the largest religious group among fluent Aramaic speakers. Aramaic as a learned language is used in prayer and study by many more Christians, Jews and Mandeans who do not speak it fluently. As well as liturgical texts in Aramaic for all three religions, a little less than a fifth of the Dead Sea Scrolls are in Aramaic, and the base language of the Talmud is also Aramaic.
There are a few million Aramaic-speakers today — It is often stated that Aramaic is an extinct language, or that some small group is the last few speakers of Aramaic in the world.
However, the various modern Aramaics are endangered. Chronic turmoil in Aramaic-speaking homelands is a major factor. The erosion of Jewish modern Aramaics is the most acute — each variety spoken by a small cluster of families from a Mesopotamian village, they have low intelligibility with each other, and most speakers are now in Israel and are giving way to Hebrew.
Mandaic in both its classical and modern varieties is severely threatened, as is the Mandean way of life in Iraq and Iran. Mlahso, a Christian Aramaic from southeast Turkey, became extinct upon the death of Ibrahim Hanna in Turmoil and diaspora has created a koine , or amalgam, language of the previously diverse spectrum of Christian Aramaic tribal dialects spoken from the mountains of southeast Turkey to the plains of northern Iraq.
On the more hopeful side, young people are using music Aramaic hip-hop is pretty good! Aramaic is written in a number of different scripts — It is not straightforward to answer the question which script Aramaic is written in. The earliest inscriptions use a modified Phoenician script, which was used by many Northwest Semitic languages. Official Aramaic developed a formal, chancery script that was adopted by Jews for writing both Aramaic and Hebrew.
In Daniel 2. Other cursive Aramaic scripts were developed for Mandaic, Nabatean and Palmyrene. When Robert Fisk asks about Aramaic being the forerunner of Hebrew and Arabic, he is clearly confusing the history of development of writing systems with the languages themselves, which, to be fair, is not an uncommon mistake.
How do Syriac, Chaldean and Assyrian fit in with Aramaic? The Syriac identity is almost synonymous with Christian speakers of Aramaic. Modern Christian Aramaic varieties called Assyrian should not be confused with the ancient variety of Akkadian known as Assyrian, which is a very different Semitic language.
This identity continues to be used by East Syriac-rite Catholics, and is occasionally used to refer to their dialects of Aramaic. Any other questions? Share this:. Like this: Like Loading
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