Biblical Aramaic
Encyclopedia
Biblical Aramaic is the form of the Aramaic language
Aramaic language
Aramaic is a group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic language phylum. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic family, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily,...

 that is used in the books of Daniel
Book of Daniel
The Book of Daniel is a book in the Hebrew Bible. The book tells of how Daniel, and his Judean companions, were inducted into Babylon during Jewish exile, and how their positions elevated in the court of Nebuchadnezzar. The court tales span events that occur during the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar,...

, Ezra
Book of Ezra
The Book of Ezra is a book of the Hebrew Bible. Originally combined with the Book of Nehemiah in a single book of Ezra-Nehemiah, the two became separated in the early centuries of the Christian era...

 and a few other places in the Hebrew Bible
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...

 and should not be confused with the Aramaic translations of the Hebrew Bible
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...

 known as targum
Targum
Taekwondo is a Korean martial art and the national sport of South Korea. In Korean, tae means "to strike or break with foot"; kwon means "to strike or break with fist"; and do means "way", "method", or "path"...

im
.

Biblical Aramaic and Imperial Aramaic

Biblical Aramaic's affinity to other types of Aramaic has been hotly debated largely due to its implications on dating the Book of Daniel
Book of Daniel
The Book of Daniel is a book in the Hebrew Bible. The book tells of how Daniel, and his Judean companions, were inducted into Babylon during Jewish exile, and how their positions elevated in the court of Nebuchadnezzar. The court tales span events that occur during the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar,...

. Scholars fall into three camps. In 1929, Rowley argued that Biblical Aramaic must come from later than the 6th century BCE and was more similar to the Targums than the imperial Aramaic documents available at his time. Conversely, others have argued that Biblical Aramaic most closely resembles the 5th Century Elephantine papyri
Elephantine papyri
The Elephantine Papyri are a collection of ancient Jewish manuscripts dating from the 5th century BC. They come from a Jewish community at Elephantine, then called Yeb, the island in the Nile at the border of Nubia, which was probably founded as a military installation in about 650 BC during...

 and is therefore a good representative of typical Imperial Aramaic.
K. A. Kitchen takes a middle position noting that Biblical Aramaic is most similar to Imperial Aramaic between 600-330BC but that in no way means it could not have been written as late as 170BC. Thus, Kitchen posits that the nature of Biblical Aramaic has no impact on dating.

Aramaic and Hebrew

Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

 is the main language of the Hebrew Bible. Aramaic only accounts for about 250 verses out of a total of over 23,000. Biblical Aramaic is closely related to Hebrew as both are in the Northwest Semitic
Northwest Semitic languages
The Northwest Semitic languages form a medium-level division of the Semitic language family. The languages of this group are spoken by approximately eight million people today. The group is generally divided into three branches: Ugaritic , Canaanite and Aramaic...

 language family. Some obvious similarities and differences are listed below.

Similarities

  • Same Aramaic square script
    Aramaic alphabet
    The Aramaic alphabet is adapted from the Phoenician alphabet and became distinctive from it by the 8th century BC. The letters all represent consonants, some of which are matres lectionis, which also indicate long vowels....

     (which was adopted to write Hebrew in place of the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet
    Paleo-Hebrew alphabet
    The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet , is an abjad offshoot of the ancient Semitic alphabet, identical to the Phoenician alphabet. At the very least it dates to the 10th century BCE...

    ).
  • Verb systems are based on triconsonantal roots.
  • Similar functions of the verbal conjugations.
  • Nouns have three states: the absolute, construct, and emphatic.

Differences

  • Aramaic attaches the definitive construct state at the end of a substantive.
  • Heh and Alef are interchangeable for the article.
  • Aramaic uses different letters to represent the same sounds.
  • Aramaic is not a Canaanite language
    Canaanite languages
    The Canaanite languages are a subfamily of the Semitic languages, which were spoken by the ancient peoples of the Canaan region, including Canaanites, Israelites and Phoenicians...

     and thus did not experience the Canaanite vowel shift from a to o.
  • The preposition Dalet functions as a conjunction and is often used instead of the construct to indicate the genitive/posessive relationship.

Phonology

Proto-Semitic Hebrew Aramaic
ð, δ
z
t
θ
ś
š
s
θ'
ð', δ' ,

History

During the 8th century BCE, Aramaic became the lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...

 of the Near East
Near East
The Near East is a geographical term that covers different countries for geographers, archeologists, and historians, on the one hand, and for political scientists, economists, and journalists, on the other...

. Before that period, it had been the native language of the Aramaean city-states to the east. In 701 BCE, King Hezekiah
Hezekiah
Hezekiah was the son of Ahaz and the 14th king of Judah. Edwin Thiele has concluded that his reign was between c. 715 and 686 BC. He is also one of the most prominent kings of Judah mentioned in the Hebrew Bible....

 of Judah negotiated with King Sennacherib
Sennacherib
Sennacherib |Sîn]] has replaced brothers for me"; Aramaic: ) was the son of Sargon II, whom he succeeded on the throne of Assyria .-Rise to power:...

 of Assyria, as his army besieged Jerusalem. The account in 2 Kings 18:26 sets the meeting of the ambassadors of both camps just outside the city walls. Hezekiah's envoys pleaded that the Assyrians make terms in Aramaic so that the people listening would not understand. Thus, Aramaic had become the language of international dialogue, but not of the common people. In 586 BCE, King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and exiled many of the people of Judah to the east. During the Babylonian exile, Aramaic became the language of necessity for the Jews and the Aramaic square script replaced the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet
Paleo-Hebrew alphabet
The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet , is an abjad offshoot of the ancient Semitic alphabet, identical to the Phoenician alphabet. At the very least it dates to the 10th century BCE...

. After the Persian Empire's capture of Babylon, it became the language of culture and learning. King Darius I declared that Aramaic was to be the official language of the western half of his empire in 500 BCE, and it is this Imperial Aramaic language that forms the basis of Biblical Aramaic.

Undisputed occurrences

  • Ezra
    Book of Ezra
    The Book of Ezra is a book of the Hebrew Bible. Originally combined with the Book of Nehemiah in a single book of Ezra-Nehemiah, the two became separated in the early centuries of the Christian era...

     4:8–6:18 and 7:12–26 quotations of documents from the 5th century BCE concerning the restoration of the temple in Jerusalem
    Temple in Jerusalem
    The Temple in Jerusalem or Holy Temple , refers to one of a series of structures which were historically located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, the current site of the Dome of the Rock. Historically, these successive temples stood at this location and functioned as the centre of...

    .
  • Daniel
    Book of Daniel
    The Book of Daniel is a book in the Hebrew Bible. The book tells of how Daniel, and his Judean companions, were inducted into Babylon during Jewish exile, and how their positions elevated in the court of Nebuchadnezzar. The court tales span events that occur during the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar,...

     2:4b–7:28 five tales about Daniel
    Daniel
    Daniel is the protagonist in the Book of Daniel of the Hebrew Bible. In the narrative, when Daniel was a young man, he was taken into Babylonian captivity where he was educated in Chaldean thought. However, he never converted to Neo-Babylonian ways...

     and his colleagues
    Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
    Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are characters in the biblical Hebrew book of Daniel Chapters 1 – 3, known for their exclusive devotion to God. In particular, they are known for being saved by divine intervention from the Babylonian execution of being burned alive in a fiery furnace...

    , and an apocalyptic vision.
  • Jeremiah
    Book of Jeremiah
    The Book of Jeremiah is the second of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, following the book of Isaiah and preceding Ezekiel and the Book of the Twelve....

     10:11 a single sentence denouncing idolatry
    Idolatry
    Idolatry is a pejorative term for the worship of an idol, a physical object such as a cult image, as a god, or practices believed to verge on worship, such as giving undue honour and regard to created forms other than God. In all the Abrahamic religions idolatry is strongly forbidden, although...

     occurs in the middle of a Hebrew text.
  • Genesis 31:47 translation of a Hebrew place-name.

Other suggested occurrences

  • Genesis 15:1 the word במחזה (, "in a vision"). According to the Zohar
    Zohar
    The Zohar is the foundational work in the literature of Jewish mystical thought known as Kabbalah. It is a group of books including commentary on the mystical aspects of the Torah and scriptural interpretations as well as material on Mysticism, mythical cosmogony, and mystical psychology...

     (I:88b), this word is Aramaic, as the usual Hebrew word would be במראה ().

  • Numbers
    Book of Numbers
    The Book of Numbers is the fourth book of the Hebrew Bible, and the fourth of five books of the Jewish Torah/Pentateuch....

     23:10 the word רבע (, usually translated as "stock" or "fourth part"). Rabbi J.H. Hertz
    Joseph H. Hertz
    ----Rabbi Joseph Herman Hertz, CH was a Jewish Hungarian-born Rabbi and Bible scholar. He is most notable for holding the position of Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom from 1913 until his death in 1946, in a period encompassing both world wars and The Holocaust.- Early life :Hertz was born in the...

    , in his commentary on this verse, cites an unnamed scholar's claim that this is an Aramaic word meaning "dust."

  • Job
    Book of Job
    The Book of Job , commonly referred to simply as Job, is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible. It relates the story of Job, his trials at the hands of Satan, his discussions with friends on the origins and nature of his suffering, his challenge to God, and finally a response from God. The book is a...

     36:2a Rashi
    Rashi
    Shlomo Yitzhaki , or in Latin Salomon Isaacides, and today generally known by the acronym Rashi , was a medieval French rabbi famed as the author of a comprehensive commentary on the Talmud, as well as a comprehensive commentary on the Tanakh...

    , in his commentary on this verse, states that this phrase is in Aramaic.
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