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KAUFMAN
Aramaic is the best-attested and longest-attested
member of the NW Semitic subfamily of languages
(which also includes inter alia Hebrew, Phoenician,
Ugaritic, Moabite, Ammonite, and Edomite). The
relatively small proportion of the biblical text
preserved in an Aramaic original (Dan 2:47:28; Ezra
4:868 and 7:1226; Jeremiah 10:11; Gen 31:47 [two
words] as well as isolated words and phrases in
Christian Scriptures) belies the importance of this
language for biblical studies and for religious studies
in general, for Aramaic was the primary international
language of literature and communication throughout
the Near East from ca. 600 B.C.E. to ca. 700 C.E. and
was the major spoken language of Palestine, Syria,
and Mesopotamia in the formative periods of
Christianity and rabbinic Judaism.
Jesus and his disciples, according to the stories in
the Gospels, spoke Aramaic. Parts of the later books
of the Hebrew Bible, as well as portions of the
Gospels and Acts, are often thought to be translations
from Aramaic originals, but even if not they are
undoubtedly strongly Aramaized in their diction.
Late biblical Hebrew and rabbinic Hebrew were
heavily influenced by Aramaic in both grammar and
vocabulary. Two of the major translation traditions of
the Hebrew Biblethe Syriac Peshitta and the
Jewish Targumsare in Aramaic, as are substantial
portions of rabbinic literature, the entire literary
corpus of Syriac Christianity, and that of the
Mandaeans (a non-Christian gnostic sect of S
Mesopotamia). After the Moslem conquest, Arabic
gradually displaced Aramaic as the literary and
colloquial language of the Near East. Isolated pockets
of Modern Aramaic speech still remain to this day,
and the study and use of classical Syriac as a learned,
religious language has never stopped. Indeed, it has
witnessed somewhat of a revival in recent decades
(see EJ 3: 25987).
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A. The Periods and Sources of Aramaic
1. Old Aramaic
2. Imperial Aramaic
3. Middle Aramaic
4. Late Aramaic
5. Modern Aramaic
B. Linguistic Overview
1. Old Aramaic
2. Imperial Aramaic
3. Later Dialects
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local, highly idiosyncratic Aramaic dialect (the socalled Hadad and PNMW inscriptions), and, finally,
in standard, Syrian Old Aramaic (BR-RKB).
c. Fakhariyah. A bilingual, Neo-Assyrian and
Aramaic inscription on a statue. The script and
orthography of this inscription are of major
importance for the history of the alphabet (Kaufman
1986).
d. Mesopotamian. Primarily consists of brief
economic and legal texts and endorsements scratched
on clay tablets (Fales 1986; Kaufman 1989). Not
surprisingly, both the Fakhariyah and Mesopotamian
dialects evidence a substantial amount of Akkadian
influence.
e. Deir {Alla. This important but fragmentary text,
painted on the plaster walls of a cultic installation,
recounts a vision of Balaam, son of Beor, the
Transjordanian prophet known from Numbers 2224.
The fact that some scholars classify the language of
this text as a Canaanite, rather than an Aramaic,
dialect, illustrates that there is no demonstrable
dividing line (or, in linguistic terms, a bundle of
isoglosses) separating Canaanite and Aramaic at this
time. See DEIR {ALLA (TEXTS).
2. Imperial Aramaic (or Official Aramaic;
to ca. 200 B.C.E.). During this period Aramaic
spread far beyond the borders of its native lands over
the vast territories of the Neo-Babylonian and even
larger Persian empiresfrom Upper Egypt to Asia
Minor and eastward to the Indian subcontinent.
Unfortunately, only a remnant of the undoubtedly
once vast corpus of administrative documents,
records, and letters that held these empires together
has been preserved, for such texts were written in ink
on perishable materials, in sharp contrast to the more
durable cuneiform clay tablets of earlier W Asiatic
cultures. (A single syllabic cuneiform Aramaic text,
an incantation from Uruk, is known. Though from
Hellenistic times, its archaizing language may be
ascribed to this period.) Isolated monumental stone
inscriptions have been found in the various peripheral
regions (e.g., Sheik Fadl in Egypt, Teima in Arabia,
Daskyleion in Asia Minor), but none, surprisingly
enough, in the core regions of Syria and
Mesopotamia.
The bulk of the finds, however, is from Egypt,
where the dry climate led to the preservation of
papyrus and leather along with the expected ostraca
and stone inscriptions. The major Egyptian finds are
(1) papyrus archives of the Jewish military garrison
at Elephantine/Syene (including deeds of sale,
marriage contracts, formal letters to the authorities in
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B. Linguistic Overview
The following summary presupposes a basic
acquaintance with the structure of Aramaics better
known cognate language, Biblical Hebrew.
1. Old Aramaic. a. Phonology. In this period the
Proto-Semitic phonemic inventory survives virtually
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n
t n
y n
y n
imperfect ends in -h (presumably /e/), the jussive in y (probably, simply //). The two forms are also
distinct when they have pronominal suffixes, where
(as in Hebrew) the imperfect inserts the so-called
energic nun between the stem and the suffix, while
the jussive does not. Samalian uses jussive-like forms
for the imperfect as well (cf. Heb y k t b w ). In
Fakhariyah, Mesopotamian, and Samalian, the 3d
person jussive may take a lamed preformative instead
of a yod (cf. the Akkadian precative), a form that was
to be the ancestor of the later l-/n- preformative of the
E Aramaic dialects. It is now clear that the so-called
imperfect consecutive narrative tense was common
to Old Syrian Aramaic and Hebrew. Its former
designation converted imperfect is a misnomer. It
is a remnant of the archaic prefixing preterite tense
surviving from some earlier stage of the Semitic
languages and still to be found in Old Aramaic (in the
Zakkur inscription and at Deir {Alla, but not at
Samal). It is one of many grammatical and lexical
isoglosses in respect to which Hebrew groups with
Aramaic rather than Phoenician.
In its nominal forms, too, Old Aramaic now
appears to be much closer to Hebrew than previously
thought. In Syrian Old Aramaic a distinct infinitive
absolute is attested (cf. Sefire III:2 hskr thskrhm,
you shall certainly hand them over). The infinitive
absolute is formed without suffixes; in contrast, the
construct infinitives (verbal nouns) of the derived
stems have a feminine ending (hzyh, to see:
lhmtty, to kill me). Pronouns suffixed to these
construct infinitives are morphologically like affixes
to nouns rather than affixes to verbs. In the basic
stem, Fakhariyah has infinitives with the m e m
preformative (known from later Aramaic), whereas
the other dialects (again like Hebrew) have so far
yielded only forms without the mem. On the other
hand, at Fakhariyah the derived stem verbal noun
seems to be without feminine ending. The Pe{al
passive participle is Pe{l (cf. Heb Pa{ul).
c. Syntax. The various verbal forms are used in
constructions virtually identical to constructions
found in classical Hebrew prose, although the word
order is, perhaps, a bit more free. Except for the
Fakhariyah bilingual, the distinctive verb-final word
order of formal Imperial Aramaic has not yet made
its appearance. Only in Fakhariyah and
Mesopotamian do we encounter genitive
constructions using the old determinative pronoun
(later, the relative) zy (d > d > d-). C o m p l e x
definite direct objects may be introduced by the
particle }yt (}iyat > yt in later Western Aramaic; cf.
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