Early Mandaic and Neo-Mandaic: Some Points of Connection
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Aramaic Studies 16 (2018) 78–96 Aramaic Studies brill.com/arst Early Mandaic and Neo-Mandaic: Some Points of Connection Ohad Abudraham* The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel [email protected] Abstract The present article presents four new linguistic features that link Early-Mandaic and Neo-Mandaic: 1. Diphthongisation and fortition of long vowels ū/ī ( �� ṭbukta instead of ṭabuta “grace”, arbiktinkia instead of ) אידוהי arbitinkia “four of you [f.pl.]”); 2. Apheresis of y in the gentilic noun hudaiia “Jews”); 3. Assimilation of z in the root ʾzl ( tʿlun “you [m.pl.] will go”); and 4. Internal analogy in the system of cardinal numbers ( tarta “two”). The presence of these forms in the two extreme phases of the language as opposed to their almost total absence in the canonical collections of Mandaic scriptures prove not only the ancient origin of some Neo-Mandaic peculiarities but also the wide range of varieties of Mandaic that flourished in Mesopotamia in Late Antiquity. * I would like to thank Prof. Shaul Shaked, Dr. James Nathan Ford, and Prof. Matthew Mor- genstern for sharing with me their unpublished studies of Mandaic incantation bowls from the Schøyen Collection (Shaked, Ford, and Bhayro) and other private collections (Ford and Morgenstern = bowls labeled jnf, Davidovitz, Wolfe, PC), and for the permission to quote from them. I am also grateful to Dr. James Nathan Ford for reading and commenting on early drafts of this article. The following abbreviations have been used: cm = Classical Mandaic, dc = Drower Collection, em = Early Mandaic, e-nm = Early Neo-Mandaic, Gs = Ginza Smala, Gy = Ginza Yamina, jba = Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, ms = Bowls in the Schøyen Collection, nm = Neo-Mandaic, rom = Bowls in the Royal Ontario Museum, Syr. = Syriac. Written Man- daean forms are presented in Mandaic script, followed by a letter-for-letter transliteration into Roman script in bold characters according to the system developed by R. Macuch and E.S. Drower. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi: 10.1163/17455227-01601003Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 10:00:37PM via free access early mandaic and neo-mandaic: some points of connection 79 Keywords Mandaic – Early Mandaic – Classical Mandaic – Neo-Mandaic – Eastern Aramaic – incantation bowls – amulets 1 Introduction Mandaic, the language of the Mandaean community in Iraq and Iran, has a long and complicated history. From the early centuries of the first millennium ce Mandaic was the spoken language of the gnostic sect of the Mandaeans in Lower Mesopotamia.1 It later flourished as a literary language, possessing monumental sacred books as well as numerous magical and esoteric scrolls. Today, more than 1500 years after its emergence, Mandaic still survives as a vernacular language spoken by a few hundred adherents of Mandaeism in southwestern Iran and in the Mandaean diaspora and, in its classical form, as a liturgical language for members of the sect. In accordance with the latest research, it appears that Mandaic can be classified along the following five-fold chronological division.2 1. Early Mandaic (em) or Pre-Classical Mandaic (Pre-cm)—the language of the incantations inscribed in ink on clay bowls and incised with a sharp instrument on metal sheets. The archaeological evidence demonstrates that the epigraphic material, whose total number stands at present at around 360 bowls and 70 lead lamellas,3 dates back to the fifth to seventh centuries ce.4 1 For more on the early history of Mandaeism see K.T. van Bladel, From Sasanian Mandaeans to Ṣābians of the Marshes. (Leiden Studies in Islamic and Society, 6, Leiden: Brill, 2017). 2 M. Morgenstern, ‘The Present State of Mandaic Lexicography i: The Mandaic Dictionary’, arst 7 (2009), pp. 113–130 (124). 3 For a detailed account see O. Abudraham, A Grammar of Early Mandaic according to the Language of the Incantation Bowls and Amulets, PhD dissertation, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (Beer-Sheva, 2017), pp. 347–360 (Appendix). 4 These numbers include all the epigraphic material held in museums and private collections that has been published thus far or is due to be published in the near future by S. Shaked, J.N. Ford and S. Bhayro (139 bowls from the Schøyen Collection) and by J.N. Ford and M. Mor- genstern (56 bowls from various other private collections and 24 amulets from the Schøyen Collection [M. Morgenstern]). The extent of the areas in which Mandaic incantations and inscriptions were used in the late Sasanian period is vast. Earthenware bowls and metal sheets composed in the Mandaic script were discovered in several official excavation sites in central Aramaic Studies 16 (2018) 78–96 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 10:00:37PM via free access 80 abudraham 2. Classical Mandaic (cm)—the language of the great literary compositions, such as the GreatTreasure (Ginza Rabba), the Prayer Book (Qolasta) and to some extent the Book of John (Draša ḏ-Yahya). Even though these compo- sitions definitely contain ancient traditions from the oldest stage of the Mandaean community, most scholars have agreed that their final redac- tion was not carried out prior to the advent of Islam (mid-seventh century onwards). As Nöldeke stressed, cm is a uniform language that exhibits very little variation between or within sources.5 3. Post-Classical Mandaic (Post-cm)—the languages of the late literary compositions, which reveal the intrusion of Arabic elements and the gradual influence of the modern form of Mandaic, particularly regard- ing syntax. This phase is represented in the later parts of The Book of John (Draša ḏ-Yahya), The Book of the Zodiac (Aspar maluašia), The Marriage- Ceremony of the Great Šišlam (Šarh ḏ-qabin ḏ-Šišlam Rba), and other Diuan scrolls from the Drower Collection. 4. Early Neo-Mandaic (e-nm)—the language of the Leiden Glossarium: two hundred pages of a pentalingual glossary (Sabaico-Arabicum-Latinum- Turcum-Persicum) written by an Italian Carmelite missionary in the mid- seventeenth century.6 Additional information about the living speech of this period emerges sporadically from the colophons and the ritual instructions attached to the early-modern manuscripts.7 and southern Iraq: for example, the ancient cemetery of Khouabir, Ctesiphon, Kutha (Tell Ibrahim), Kish, Tell al-Ḏuwayḥī (Kīš-Babil province), Nippur, Bismaya (Adab), Al-Gharraf, Amarah, Tell Abu Shudhr, and Al-Teeb. See also the archaeological data in C. Häberl, ‘Man- daeism in Antiquity and the Antiquity of Mandaeism’, Religion Compass 6 (2012), pp. 262–276. 5 T. Nöldeke, Mandäische Grammatik (Halle:Verlag der Buchhandlung desWaisenhauses, 1875) pp. xxv–xxvi. Nöldeke marked the unusual demonstrative pronoun ʿlin ‘these’ as one of the rare dialectal forms in Mandaic literature text. It should be noted that this form also appears in the epigraphic corpus in a very similar phrase: gubria ʿlin tlata “these three men” (ms 1928/18:32; ms 2054/51:8; ms 2054/01:9 = Gy 252:23–24; Gy 253:1; Gy 255:13–14; Gy 260:13; Gy 261:23), dmuta ḏ-gubria ʿlian “the form of these men” (Davidovitz Amulet 1:36–37 = Gy 270:15 [but without middle-digraph]). In light of the new epigraphic attestations, it seems better to define the unique demonstrative pronoun ʿlin as an archaic form limited to a certain context. 6 For more information on the Glossarium see R. Borghero, ‘A 17th Century Glossary of Man- daic’, aram 11–12 (1999–2000), pp. 311–319; R. Borghero, ‘Some Phonetic Features of a Man- daean Manuscript from the 17th century’, aram 16 (2004), pp. 61–83. 7 On the nm character of the colophons and the ritual instructions see in particular M. Mor- genstern, ‘Neo-Mandaic in Mandaean Manuscript Sources’, in G. Khan and L. Napiorkowska (eds.), Neo-Aramaic and its Linguistic Context (Gorgias Neo-Aramaic Studies, 14, Piscataway, AramaicDownloaded Studies from 16Brill.com09/30/2021 (2018) 78–96 10:00:37PM via free access early mandaic and neo-mandaic: some points of connection 81 5. Neo-Mandaic (nm)—the spoken language of the Mandaeans in Ahwaz and Khorramshahr as recorded by R. Macuch, C. Häberl, and H. Mutzafi in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.8 nm is heavily influenced by local languages such as Persian and Arabic, but in contrast to other col- loquial forms of Neo-Aramaic (Jewish or Christian) nm is almost directly related to the classical phase of the language. As can be seen, em and cm overlap to a certain extent with respect to their date of origin but differ significantly with respect to the date of their documenta- tion.While the textual witnesses of cm are no older than five hundred years,9 all the epigraphic sources hark back to Late Antiquity. On comparing the grammar of em with the grammar of cm, numerous discrepancies can be found between the two phases. These discrepancies are revealed in all levels of the language (i.e., the orthography, morphology, phonology, syntax, and vocabulary) and are undoubtedly due to the fact that em represents the earliest sources of the lan- guage, which are dated to a period preceding the final standardisation of the orthography and morphology of cm. Regarding this crucial point, it is particularly important to note some specific archaic features typical of em that set it apart from cm. This phenomenon is illustrated in the following examples. – While cm displays a fixed system of plene orthography in all positions and environments, in em the appearance of matres lectionis depends largely on the quality or quantity of the vowels. In contrast to cm, in em the use of nj: Gorgias Press, 2015), pp. 379–408; M. Mutzafi, Comparative Lexical Studies in Neo- Mandaic (Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics, 73 Leiden-Boston: Brill 2014), pp.