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chapter 6
Aramaic
stuart creason
1. HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS
1.1 Overview
Aramaic is a member of the Semitic language family and forms one of the two main branches
of the Northwest Semitic group within that family, the other being Canaanite (comprising
Hebrew, Phoenician, Moabite, etc.). The language most closely related to Aramaic is Hebrew.
More distantly related languages include Akkadian and Arabic. Of all the Semitic languages,
Aramaic is one of the most extensively attested, in both geographic and temporal terms.
Aramaic has been continuously spoken for approximately 3,500 years (c. 1500 BC to the
present) and is attested throughout the Near East and the Mediterranean world.
Aramaic was originally spoken by Aramean tribes who settled in portions of what is now
Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, and Iraq, a region bounded roughly by Damascus and its
environs on the south, Mt. Amanus on the northwest and the region between the Balikh and
the Khabur rivers on the northeast. The Arameans were a Semitic people, like their neigh-
bors the Hebrews, the Phoenicians, and the Assyrians; and unlike the Hittites, Hurrians,
and Urartians. Their economy was largely agricultural and pastoral, though villages and
towns as well as larger urban centers, such as Aleppo and Damascus, also existed. These
urban centers were usually independent political units, ruled by a king (Aramaic
mlk),
which exerted power over the surrounding agricultural and grazing regions and the nearby
towns and villages. In later times, the language itself was spoken and used as a lingua franca
throughout the Near East by both Arameans and non-Arameans until it was eclipsed by
Arabic beginning in the seventh century AD. Aramaic is still spoken today in communi-
ties of eastern Syria, northern Iraq, and southeastern Turkey, though these dialects have
been heavily influenced by Arabic and/or Kurdish. These communities became increas-
ingly smaller during the twentieth century and may cease to exist within the next few
generations.
1.2 Historical stages and dialects of Aramaic
The division of the extant materials into distinct Aramaic dialects is problematic due in
part to the nature of the writing system (see
§2)
and in part to the number, the kinds, and
the geographic extent of the extant materials. Possible dialectal differences cannot always
be detected in the extant texts, and, when differences can be detected, it is not always clear
whether the differences reflect synchronic or diachronic distinctions. With these caveats in
mind, the extant Aramaic texts can be divided into five historical stages to which a sixth
108
aramaic
109
stage may be added:
Proto-Aramaic,
a reconstructed stage of the language prior to any extant
texts.
1.2.1 Old Aramaic (950–600 BC)
Though Aramaic was spoken during the second millennium BC, the first extant texts appear
at the beginning of the first millennium. These texts are nearly all inscriptions on stone,
usually royal inscriptions connected with various Aramean city-states. The corpus of texts
is quite small, but minor dialect differences can be detected, corresponding roughly to
geographic regions. So, one dialect is attested in the core Aramean territory of Aleppo
and Damascus, another in the northwestern border region around the Aramean city-state
of Sam al and a third in the northeastern region around Tel Fekheriye. There are a few
other Aramaic texts, found outside these regions, most of which attest Aramaic dialects
mixed with features from other Semitic languages, for example, the texts found at Deir
Alla.
1.2.2 Imperial or Official Aramaic (600–200 BC)
This period begins with the adoption of Aramaic as a lingua franca by the Babylonian
Empire. However, few texts are attested until
c.
500 BC when the Persians established their
empire in the Near East. The texts from this period show a fairly uniform dialect which is
similar to the “Aleppo–Damascus” dialect of Old Aramaic. However, this uniformity is due
largely to the nature of the extant texts. Nearly all of the texts are official documents of the
Persian Empire or its subject kingdoms, and nearly all of the texts are from Egypt. It is likely
that numerous local dialects of Aramaic existed, but rarely are these dialects reflected in the
texts, one possible exception being the Hermopolis papyri (see Kutscher 1971).
1.2.3 Middle Aramaic (200 BC–AD 200)
This period is marked by the emergence of local Aramaic dialects within the textual record,
most notably Palmyrene, Hatran, Nabatean, and the dialect of the Aramaic texts found in
the caves near Qumran (the Dead Sea Scrolls). However, many texts still attest a dialect very
similar to Imperial Aramaic, but with some notable differences (sometimes called
Standard
Literary Aramaic;
see Greenfield 1978).
1.2.4 Late Aramaic (AD 200–700)
It is from this period that the overwhelming majority of Aramaic texts are attested, and,
because of the abundance of texts, clear and distinct dialects can be isolated. These dialects
can be divided into a western group and an eastern group. Major dialects in the west include
Samaritan Aramaic, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic (also called Galilean Aramaic) and Christian
Palestinian Aramaic. Major dialects in the east include Syriac, Jewish Babylonian Aramaic,
and Mandaic. This period ends shortly after the Arab conquest, but literary activity in some
of these dialects continues until the thirteenth century AD.
1.2.5 Modern Aramaic (AD 700 to the present)
This period is characterized by the gradual decline of Aramaic due to the increased use of
Arabic in the Near East. Numerous local dialects, such asTuroyo in southeastern Turkey and
.
110
The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia
Ma lulan in Syria, were attested in the nineteenth century, but by the end of the twentieth
century many of these dialects had ceased to exist.
2. WRITING SYSTEM
2.1 The alphabet
Aramaic is written in an alphabet which was originally borrowed from the Phoenicians
(c. 1100 BC). This alphabet represents consonantal phonemes only, though four of the
letters were also sometimes used to represent certain vowel phonemes (see
§2.2.1).
Also, be-
cause the Aramaic inventory of consonantal phonemes did not exactly match the Phoenician
inventory, some of the letters originally represented two (or more) phonemes (see
§3.2).
During the long history of Aramaic, these letters underwent various changes in form includ-
ing the development of alternate medial and final forms of some letters (see Naveh 1982).
By the Late Aramaic period, a number of distinct, though related, scripts are attested. Below
are represented two of the most common scripts from this period, the Aramaic square script
(which was also used to write Hebrew) and the Syriac Estrangelo script, along with the
standard transliteration of each letter. Final forms are listed to the right of medial forms.
In Christian Palestinian Aramaic an additional letter was developed to represent the Greek
Table 6.1 Aramaic consonantal scripts
Square script
Estrangelo
Transliteration
a
b
g
d
h
w
z
j
f
y
k
K
l
m!
n@
s
[
p#
x$
q
r
`
t
b
g
d
h
w
z
h
.
t
.
y
k
l
m
n
s
p
s
.
q (or k)
.
r
ˇ
s
t
aramaic
Table 6.2 Aramaic vowel diacritics
Tiberian
Transliteration
Jacobite
Transliteration
111
b
or
yb
.
.
=
or
y=
:
9
;
or
/b
?
or
Wb
bi or bˆ
ı
b¯ or bˆ
e
e
be
ba
b¯ or bo
a
b¯ or bˆ
o
o
ˆ
bu or bu
or
b¯ or bˆ
ı
ı
be
ba
b¯
a
or
ˆ
b¯ or bu
u
letter
p
in Greek loanwords. It had the same form as the letter
p
of the Estrangelo script, but
was written backwards.
2.2 Vowel representation
2.2.1 Matres lectionis
Prior to the seventh or eight century AD, vowels were not fully represented in the writing
of Aramaic. Instead, some vowels were represented more or less systematically by the four
letters ,
h, w,
and
y,
the
matres lectionis
(“mothers of reading”). The first two, and
h,
were
only used to represent word-final vowels. The last two,
w
and
y,
were used to represent both
medial and final vowels. The letter
w
was used to represent /u:/ and /o:/. The letter
y
was used
to represent /e:/ and /i:/. The letter was used to represent /a:/ and /e:/, although its use for
/a:/ was initially restricted to certain morphemes and its use for /e:/ did not develop until the
Middle or Late Aramaic period. The letter
h
was also used to represent /a:/ and /e:/. The use
of
h
to represent /e:/ was restricted to certain morphemes and eventually
h
was almost com-
pletely superseded by
y
in the texts of some dialects or by in others. The use of
h
to represent
/a:/ was retained throughout all periods, but was gradually decreased, and eliminated entirely
in the texts of some dialects, by the increased use of to represent /a:/. Originally,
matres lec-
tionis
were used to represent long vowels only. In the Middle Aramaic period,
matres lectionis
began to be used to represent short vowels and this use increased during the Late Aramaic
period, suggesting that vowel quantity was no longer phonemic (see
§3.3.2
and
§3.3.3).
2.2.2 Systems of diacritics
During the seventh to ninth centuries AD, at least four distinct systems of diacritics were
developed to represent vowels. These four systems were developed independently of one
another and differ with respect to the number of diacritics used, the form of the diacritics,
and the placement of the diacritics relative to the consonant. Two systems were developed
by Syriac Christians: the Nestorian in the east and the Jacobite in the west. Two systems
were developed by Jewish communities: the Tiberian in the west and the Babylonian in the
east. The symbols from two of these systems, as they would appear with the letter
b,
are
represented in Table 6.2 along with their standard transliteration.
The Tiberian system also contains four additional symbols for vowels, all of which repre-
sent “half-vowels.” The phonemic status of these vowels is uncertain (see
§3.3.3.1)
and one
of the symbols can also be used to indicate the absence of a vowel:
112
The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia
(1)
Symbol
Transliteration
ə
or no vowel
e
˘
a
˘
o
˘
2.3 Other diacritics
The Tiberian system and the two Syriac systems contain a variety of other diacritics in
addition to those used to indicate vowels. The Tiberian system marks two distinct pronun-
ciations of the letter
ˇ
by a dot either to the upper left or to the upper right of the letter, and it
s
indicates that a final
h
is not a
mater lectionis
by a dot (mappiq) in the center of the letter. The
Syriac systems indicate that a letter is not to be pronounced by a line (linea
occultans)
above
that letter. Both the Tiberian and the Syriac systems also contain diacritics that indicate the
alternate pronunciations of the letters
b, g, d, k, p,
and
t
(see
§3.2.3).
The pronunciation of
these letters as stops is indicated in the Tiberian system by a dot (daghesh) in the center of
the letter, and in the Syriac system by a dot (quˇ
ˇay¯
) above the letter. The pronunciation of
ss ¯ a
these letters as fricatives is indicated in the Tiberian system either by a line (raphe) above the
letter or by the absence of any diacritic, and in the Syriac system by a dot (rukk¯
k¯
) below
a a
the letter (see also Morag 1962 and Segal 1953).
3. PHONOLOGY
3.1 Overview
The reconstruction of the phonology of Aramaic at its various stages is complicated by
the paucity of direct evidence for the phonological system and by the ambiguous nature
of the evidence that does exist. The writing system itself provides little information about
the vowels, and its representation of some of the consonantal phonemes is ambiguous.
Transcriptions of Aramaic words in other writing systems (such as Akkadian, Greek, or
Demotic) exist, but this evidence is relatively fragmentary and difficult to interpret. The
phonology of the language of the transcriptions is not always fully understood and so the
effect of the transcriber’s phonological system on the transcription cannot be accurately
determined. Furthermore, no systematic grammatical description of Aramaic exists prior
to the beginning of the Modern Aramaic period. So, the presentation in this section is
based upon (i) changes in the spelling of Aramaic words over the course of time; (ii) the
information provided by the grammatical writings and the vocalized texts from the seventh
to ninth century AD; (iii) the standard reconstruction of the phonology of Proto-Aramaic;
and (iv) the generally accepted reconstruction of the changes that took place between Proto-
Aramaic and the Late Aramaic dialects.
3.2 Consonants
The relationship of Aramaic consonantal phonemes to Aramaic letters is a complex one
since the phonemic inventory underwent a number of changes in the history of Aramaic.
Some of these changes took place after the adoption of the alphabet by the Arameans and
produced systematic changes in the spelling of certain Aramaic words.

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