625 Aramaic Language 626 the famous Murashû archive illustrate (ibid.: 296– maic owned at least 29 consonantal phonems: , , 306). b, d, dß, dø, g, g˙, h, hø, h˚, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, sø, s´ , sˇ, t, øt, e) In Iran, hundreds of tablets from Persepolis ßt, w, y, z, zø. were found which are still to be edited. In addition, Other conservative features, which are some- there are administrative notations written with ink times blurred by the use of the Phoenician orthog- on 163 ritual vessels (ibid.: 337–57). raphy or lost in later dialects, are the preservation f) Finally, in Egypt hundreds of letters, eco- of n before a consonant which at least in some dia- nomic texts like accounts and lists, dedicatory, fu- lects was still realized phonetically as n or as an nerary, and others types of inscriptions were pre- nasalization of the following consonant, the dis- served which are written on ostraca and other tinction of roots III-w and III-y even in verbal forms objects (ibid.: 150–87). From these, the literary (yqth :: yqty), and the use of a Gt-stem (with infixed texts written on the walls of a burial cave near t) in opposite to tG (with prefixed t). Sheikh-Fadl deserve mentioning as a specimen of The features which distinguish Aramaic from an Aramaic adaption of Egyptian literature. Northwest Semitic languages and from most others After the end of the Persian Empire, Aramaic Central Semitic Languages like Arabic and Ugaritic was still used throughout the ancient Near East as are the use of a postponed article, in older texts a common language, although at this time the dif- written with , and the absence of a reflexive-pas- ferent local dialects began to influence heavily the sive stem built with n (cf. e.g., Heb. Niphal). written language. These later inscriptions, which Since all these features of Aramaic can be found are now found even in regions east of Iran (e.g., in Ancient South Arabic languages like Old Sabaic ibid.: Asok: 1–6), show different local dialects and which probably also belong to Central Semitic thus are taken to be inscriptions of the different (Voigt), the common presumed close connection of groups (cf. esp. “Haran,” “Nabateans,” “Palmy- Aramaic with the Northwest Semitic branch should rene Inscriptions”). be questioned. Aramaic should be deemed instead

Bibliography: ■ J. Dusˇek, Les manuscrits araméens du Wadi as an independent Central Semitic language with Daliyeh et la Samarie vers 450–332 av. J.-C. (CHANE 30; Leiden affinities to the southern branch of this group (or 2007). ■ J. C. L. Gibson, Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions South Semitic Languages based on areal influen- II (Oxford 1975). ■ W. W. Hallo (ed.), The Context of Scrip- ces). And since Aramaic shares the postponed arti- ture, 3 vols. (Leiden 1997/2000/2002). ■ J. A. Fitzmyer/S. A. cle and the missing of an N-stem with the southern Kaufman, Old, Official, and Biblical Aramaic, vol. 1 of id., An languages, these features do belong to a Proto Ara- ■ I. Aramaic Bibliography (Baltimore, Md./London 1992). maic stratum and are no later inner Aramaic devel- Kottsieper,“The Tel Dan Inscription (KAI 310) and the Po- opments, thus excluding the dialects of Samal/Ya- litical Relations between Aram-Damascus and Israel in the First Half of the First Millennium B.C.E.,” in Ahab Agonistes udi and of the Deir Alla Inscription from being (ed. L. L. Grabbe; LHB/OTS 421; London 2007) 104–34. ■ I. considered genuine Aramaic (Kottsieper 2009). Kottsieper, “Aramaic Literature,” in Literatures of the Ancient Beside the already mentioned features, the old- Near East (ed. C. S. Ehrlich; Lanham, Md. 2009) 393–444. est known Aramaic can be characterized by the fol- ■ D. Schwiderski, Texte und Bibliographie (FoSub 2; 2004), vol. lowing: 2 of id., Die alt- und reichsaramäischen Inschriften (FoSub 2 and a) There is no shift from a¯ < *a¯ to o¯ as, e.g., in He- 4; Berlin/New York 2004–8). ■ D. Schwiderski, Konkordanz (FoSub 4; 2008), vol. 1 of id., Die alt- und reichsaramäischen brew. Inschriften (FoSub 2 and 4; Berlin/New York 2004–8). ■ W. b) Aramaic contains three main stems (G *qatvl Röllig, “Aramäer und Assyrer,” in Essays on Syria in the Iron *yaqtvl[u], D *qattil *yaqattil[u], H *haqtil *y[a]haq- Age (ed. G. Bunnens; ANES.S 7; Louvain 2000) 177–86. ■ J. til[u]) of which the H-stem is always written Tropper, Die Inschriften von Zincirli (ALASP 6; Münster with h in the older texts. All three stems own a 1993). passive variant which is expressed only by Ingo Kottsieper changes of vocalization (Gp *qatı¯ l *yuqtal[u], Dp / See also Arameans *quttal *yuqattal[u], Hp *huqtal *y[a]huqtal[u]). Thus, Participle passive of the G-stem also fol- lows the qatı¯ l pattern and not, as in Hebrew, Aramaic Language qatu¯ l. Probably all three stems also had a t-vari- 1. Linguistic Characterization. Aramaic belongs ant with reflexive-passive meaning, but D and to the group of Central Semitic languages and is H obviously used a prefixed form (tD *atqattal commonly taken as a member of its Northwest Se- *yatqattal[u], tH *athaqtil *yathaqtil[u]) in con- mitic branch. This impression is fostered by the trast to G which originally had an infixed t (Gt fact that the Aramaic script is an offshoot of the *aqtatal *yaqtatal[u]). Phoenician script and thus includes only 22 graph- c) There is one suffix conjugation and two prefix emes, giving Aramaic texts the appearance of being conjugations: a short form (sg. *yáqtul, pl. *yaq- Northwest Semitic. But the phonetic developments túlu¯ ) originally used for acts which happened shown by orthographic changes and Aramaic texts or will/should happen in connection with the written in other scripts reveal that, initially, Ara- present situation of the speaker or of the told

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context, and a long form (sg. *yaqtúlu, pl. *yaq- rial Aramaic. Even on the language of the Targu- túlu¯ n) just describing an act (Kottsieper 1999). mim, which came into use after Hebrew had ceased d) Broken plurals are not common. as a common spoken language even in Judah, Im- e) The plural forms in the status absolutus ends on perial Aramaic influence is detectable. n:-ı¯ n (masculine), -a¯ n (feminine). The later Middle Aramaic texts of the Jewish f) *bar “son” and *tßir- “two” appear, as in Modern tradition, the Oriental churches and the Mandae- South Arabic dialects, with r as last consonant ans particularly show the dialectal diversity of Ara- and not with n as in other Semitic languages. maic, whose dialects can be assigned to two main 2. History of Aramaic. Aramaic was the language groups. To Western Aramaic, the dialects of the Jews of a semi-nomadic group which appears at the end and Christians in Palestine belong, together with of the 2nd millennium BCE in the vicinity of Gˇebel the dialect of the Samaritans. Even the inscriptions Bisˇri. Given that the linguistic connections to An- from the synagogue in Dura-Europos are influ- cient South Arabic are not by chance, this group enced by such a Western dialect, although in this probably came from an area south of the Syrian area an Eastern Aramaic dialect was commonly spo- Desert (Kottsieper 2009). ken, as it was throughout Syria and Mesopotamia. In the 1st half of the 1st millennium BCE, Ara- There, Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, Syriac, and maic spread throughout the whole Neo-Assyrian Mandaic are the main known Eastern Aramaic dia- Empire, its western neighbors, and Babylonia and lects for which we posses written sources. One gained the status of a lingua franca. Thus in Syria should not be misled by the traditional labeling of but also in eastern and northern territories outside those dialects according to religious groups. Espe- of Mesopotamia, it became a common language of cially non-standard texts like magical bowls reveal inscriptions (Old Aramaic; cf. Aramaic Inscrip- that regionalism was also an important aspect for tions). Though surely different local dialects did ex- the evolution of different dialects. ist, this lingua franca used as a kind of standard lit- Early forms of Eastern Aramaic can be found in erary Aramaic was based on a western dialect of the Palmyrene inscriptions, early Syriac inscrip- Aramaic which obviously was influenced by the tions and Aramaic inscriptions from eastern Meso- neighboring Northwest Semitic languages. Thus, potamia mainly discovered in Hatra and Asshur. Aramaic started to reduce its high number of pho- Aramaic is still spoken today. Western Aramaic nemes and also changed rapidly its verbal system is used in the dialects of Malu¯ la, Baxa und to the well known later one using the suffix conju- Gˇubbadı¯ n, three villages some 60 km northwest of gation for the past, the participle for the present, Damascus. Eastern Aramaic is still found in many and (finally) only one prefix conjugation for the fu- different dialects of non-Islamic groups from ture tense, as an extemporalis, or for modal express- south-eastern Turkey (esp. T u¯ ro¯ yo in the T u¯ r Ab- sions. dı¯ n), Iraq (beside others also Modern Mandaic) and After the decline of the Neo-Assyrian and the Iran. These modern dialects show a strong develop- Neo-Babylonian empires, the rising Persian Empire ment in contrast to the literary Aramaic dialects took over Aramaic as the official language used in still used in the religious literature of those groups. its western territories. Probably, this so-called Im- Especially the eastern dialects have undergone perial Aramaic was based on a late form of the older great changes under the influence of Arabic and/ standard literary Aramaic, although we do not pos- or non-semitic languages like Kurdish also used in ses enough information about its development in those regions. the 6th century BCE. As an official language of a 3. Aramaic and the Bible and Its Reception. single empire, written Imperial Aramaic shows Since Aramaic became a common literary and spo- only slight dialectal variants, though spoken Ara- ken language in Syria-Palestine, it is in several re- maic obviously owned a lot of dialects as any does spects relevant for the Bible and its reception: spoken language. At the end of the Persian era, Aramaic had be- a) The later texts of the OT were written and its come the common spoken language throughout final redaction took place in a linguistic envi- Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine and was also in ronment in which Aramaic was a common lan- use in neighboring areas in the north and east. guage and influenced Late Biblical Hebrew. Without the unifying pressure of a single empire, b) Since even in Judah Aramaic had become not local dialects of spoken Aramaic could now also in- only a common but probably even the common fluence written Aramaic. But biblical Aramaic in spoken language at the end of the Persian era particular (Ezra 4 : 9–6 : 18; 7 : 12–26; Dan 2 : 4b– and Hebrew was used mainly or even only as a 7 : 28; Jer 10 : 11) is still very close to Imperial Ara- kind of religious lingo at that time (Kottsieper maic as the language of the Nabatean and Arsacid 2007), common people needed to be educated, inscriptions. Also the Aramaic of the Qumran to be assisted by educated people, or to use scrolls written in the Hasmonean or early post-Has- translations to gain access to the Hebrew bibli- monean times is still strongly influenced by Impe- cal texts.

Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception vol. 2 Authenticated | [email protected] © Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/New York, 2009 Download Date | 12/4/18 12:52 AM Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception 2 (© Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/New York 2009) 629 Aramaisms in the Bible 630 c) Since Aramaic had been the native language of Aramaisms in the Bible the earliest Christians in Palestine and re- I. Hebrew Bible/Old Testament mained the language of most of the Oriental II. New Testament churches, it is one of the principle languages of the early reception of the Bible and its exegesis. “Aramaisms” means features of the Aramaic lan- guage that are still reflected in the syntax or vo- Bibliography: ■ W. Arnold, Das Neuwestaramäische 1–5 (Wiesbaden 1989–91). ■ K. Beyer, Die aramäischen Texte vom cabulary of Hebrew (which is closer to Aramaic) or Toten Meer, vol. 1 (Göttingen 1984). ■ K. Beyer, The Aramaic Greek (which belongs to a different language fam- Language (Göttingen 1986); trans. of id., Die aramäischen ily). Therefore the two fields, Hebrew Bible/Old Texte vom Toten Meer, vol. 1 (Göttingen 1984). ■ K. Beyer, Testament and New Testament, require individual Die aramäischen Inschriften aus Assur, Hatra und dem übrigen treatments as presented in the following two arti- ■ Ostmesopotamien (Göttingen 1998). K. Beyer, Die aramäi- cles. schen Texte vom Toten Meer , vol. 2 (Göttingen 2004). ■ J. Cantineau, Le Nabatéen 1–2 (Paris 1930–32). ■ G. Dalman, Grammatik des jüdisch-palästinischen Aramäisch (Leipzig I. Hebrew Bible/Old Testament 2 ■ 1905). R. Degen, Altaramäische Grammatik (AKM 38/3; 1. Definition and Background. An Aramaism is Wiesbaden 1969). ■ E. S. Drower/R. Macuch, A Mandaic Dictionary (Oxford 1963). ■ J. N. Epstein, A Grammar of Ba- any feature of language that appears to originate in bylonian Aramaic (Jerusalem 1960). [Heb.] ■ M. L. Folmer, Aramaic (for the problems of discerning Arama- The Aramaic Language in the Achaemenid Period (OLA 68; Leu- isms, see below). The Arameans are a people or peo- ven 1995). ■ J. Hoftijzer/K. Jongeling, Dictionary of the ples who occupied parts of northwest Mesopotamia North-West Semitic Inscriptions (HO 1/21.1–2; Leiden 1995). and Syria from no later than the 11th century BCE ■ V. Hug, Altaramäische Grammatik der Texte des 7. und 6. Jh.s. and possibly for several centuries before that. The v. Chr. (HSAO 4; Heidelberg 1993). ■ O. Jastrow, “The Neo- Aramaic Languages,” in The Semitic Languages (ed. R. Hetz- language spoken by them, Aramaic, is a branch of ron; London 1997) 334–77. ■ O. Jastrow, “Neo-Aramaic Northwest Semitic, differentiated from Canaanite Dialectology,” in: Semitic Linguistics (ed. S. Izreel; IOS 20; (e.g., Phoenician, Hebrew), comprising a variety of Winona Lake, Ind. 2002) 365–77. ■ S. A. Kaufman, “Ara- dialects, attested in inscriptions from northern maic,” in The Semitic Languages (ed. R. Hetzron; London Syria and the nearby region of Turkey from the 9th 1997) 114–30. ■ I. Kottsieper, Die Sprache der Ahøiqarsprüche century BCE on (see Huehnergard). Contact be- (BZAW 194; Berlin/New York 1990). ■ I. Kottsieper, “‘und mein Vater zog hinauf’,” in Tempus und Aspekt in den semiti- tween Arameans and Israelites is reported through- schen Sprachen (ed. N. Nebes; JBVO 1; Wiesbaden 1999) 55– out biblical literature, and familiarity with Aramaic 76. ■ I. Kottsieper, “‘And They Did not Care to Speak Ye- characterizes every period of Israelite history. hudit’,” in Judah and the Judeans in the Fourth Century B.C.E. The patriarch Jacob, who is said to have lived (eds. O. Lipschits et al.; Winona Lake, Ind. 2007) 95–124. in Aram-Naharaim for 20 years, is recalled as a ■ I. Kottsieper, “Aramaic Literature,” in Literatures of the An- cient Near East (ed. C. S. Ehrlich; Lanham, Md. 2009) 393– “wandering Aramean” (Deut 26 : 5), and his Syrian 444. ■ E. Y. Kutscher, Studies in Galilean Aramaic (Ramat- father-in-law Laban is quoted as speaking Aramaic Gan 1976). ■ R. Macuch, Grammatik des samaritanischen Ara- (yeˇgar s´ a¯ hadu¯ ta¯ ’ “mound of testimony,” Gen 31 : 47; mäisch (StSam 4; Berlin/New York 1982). ■ R. Macuch, all translations mine). During the late 8th-century Handbook of Classical and Modern Mandaic (Berlin 1965). ■ S. BCE siege of Jerusalem by the Assyrians, some Ju- Morag, Babylonian Aramaic (Jerusalem 1988). [Heb. with dean officials ask the Assyrian spokesman, the Rab- English abstract] ■ C. Müller-Kessler, Grammatik des Christ- lich-Palästinisch-Aramäischen (TSO 6/1; Hildesheim 1991). shakeh, to speak to them in Aramaic rather than ■ T. Muraoka/B. Porten, A Grammar of Egyptian Aramaic (HO Hebrew (“Judean”; 2 Kgs 18 : 26 = Isa 36 : 11). The I/32; Leiden 1998). ■ H. Odeberg, The Aramaic Portions of implication is that Aramaic was at this time under- Bereshit Rabba with Grammar of Galilean Aramaic II (LUÅ N.F. stood by the elite, but not by the ordinary Israelite. I/36/4; Lund/Leipzig 1939). ■ F. Rosenthal, Die aramais- In the 6th century BCE, Aramaic spreads through- tische Forschung seit Th. Nöldekes Veröffentlichungen (Leiden out the Neo-Babylonian and the succeeding Persian 1964). ■ F. Rosenthal, Die Sprache der palmyrenischen Inschrif- ten und ihre Stellung innerhalb des Aramäischen (MVÄG 41/1; empires, becoming the lingua franca of the Middle Leipzig 1936). ■ M. Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Jewish Babylo- East by the 5th century BCE. Half of two biblical nian Aramaic of the Talmudic and Geonic Periods (Ramat Gan et books from the Persian and Hellenistic periods are al. 2002). ■ M. Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian written in Aramaic (Ezra 4 : 8–6 : 18; 7 : 12–26; Dan 2 Aramaic of the Byzantine Period (Ramat Gan 2002). ■ M. So- 2 : 4–7 : 28), as is Jer 10 : 11. While Hebrew scribes koloff, A Dictionary of Judean Aramaic (Ramat Gan 2003). ■ A. Tal, A Dictionary of Samaritan Aramaic (HO I/50; Leiden from the earliest Israelite times made use of Ara- 2000). ■ R. Voigt, “The Classification of Central Semitic,” maic (see further below), beginning in the mid-6th JSSt 32 (1987) 1–21. century BCE the “official” or “imperial” Aramaic of Ingo Kottsieper the Persian Empire exerted a continuous influence See also /Arameans; /Hebrew Script on Hebrew, transforming the language irrevocably. Some scholars would distinguish the occasional Aramaisms of pre-exilic Hebrew literature from Aramaic Versions of the Bible those of the post-exilic (Persian period) literature, /Targum, Targumim; /Versions of the the latter of which occur mostly through perpetual Bible: Aramaic Versions influence (e.g., Rendsburg 2006a). However, this

Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception vol. 2 Authenticated | [email protected] © Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/New York, 2009 Download Date | 12/4/18 12:52 AM Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception 2 (© Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/New York 2009)