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Jewish Babylonian Aramaic is the form of Middle Aramaic
Aramaic language

Aramaic is a Semitic languages with a 3,000-year history. It has been the language of administration of empires and the language of divine worship....
 employed by Jewish writers in Babylonia between the 4th century and the 11th century CE. It is most commonly identified with the language of the Babylonian Talmud
Talmud

The Talmud is a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Halakha, Jewish ethics, customs, and history. It is a central text of mainstream Judaism....
 (which was completed in the seventh century) and of post-Talmudic (Geonic
Geonim

Geonim were the presidents of the two great Talmudic Academies in Babylonia of Sura and Pumbedita, in Babylonia, and were the generally accepted spiritual leaders of the Jewish community world wide in the early medieval era, in contrast to the Resh Galuta who wielded secular authority over the Jews in Islamic lands....
) literature, which are the most important cultural products of Babylonian Jewry
History of the Jews in Iraq

Iraqi Jews are Jews born in Iraq or of Iraqi heritage. The history of the Jews in Iraq is documented from the time of the Babylonian captivity c....
. The most important epigraphic
Epigraphy

Epigraphy is the study of wikt:inscriptions or wikt:epigraphs engraved into stone or other durable materials, or cast in metal, the science of classifying them as to cultural context and date, elucidating them and assessing what conclusions can be deduced from them....
 sources for the dialect are the hundreds of Aramaic magic bowls written in the Jewish script.

The language is closely related to other Eastern Aramaic dialects such as Mandaic
Mandaic language

The Mandaic language is the liturgical language of the Mandaeism religion. Classical Mandaic is used by a section of the Mandaean community in liturgical rites....
 and the Eastern Syriac
Syriac language

Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from the 4th to the 8th centuries, the classical language of Edessa, Mesopotamia, preserved in a large body of Syriac literature....
 of the Assyrian Church
Assyrian Church of the East

The Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East , currently presided over by Mar Dinkha IV, is a Christian particular church and one of the earliest to separate itself from communion with the Catholic Church ....
.






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Jewish Babylonian Aramaic is the form of Middle Aramaic
Aramaic language

Aramaic is a Semitic languages with a 3,000-year history. It has been the language of administration of empires and the language of divine worship....
 employed by Jewish writers in Babylonia between the 4th century and the 11th century CE. It is most commonly identified with the language of the Babylonian Talmud
Talmud

The Talmud is a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Halakha, Jewish ethics, customs, and history. It is a central text of mainstream Judaism....
 (which was completed in the seventh century) and of post-Talmudic (Geonic
Geonim

Geonim were the presidents of the two great Talmudic Academies in Babylonia of Sura and Pumbedita, in Babylonia, and were the generally accepted spiritual leaders of the Jewish community world wide in the early medieval era, in contrast to the Resh Galuta who wielded secular authority over the Jews in Islamic lands....
) literature, which are the most important cultural products of Babylonian Jewry
History of the Jews in Iraq

Iraqi Jews are Jews born in Iraq or of Iraqi heritage. The history of the Jews in Iraq is documented from the time of the Babylonian captivity c....
. The most important epigraphic
Epigraphy

Epigraphy is the study of wikt:inscriptions or wikt:epigraphs engraved into stone or other durable materials, or cast in metal, the science of classifying them as to cultural context and date, elucidating them and assessing what conclusions can be deduced from them....
 sources for the dialect are the hundreds of Aramaic magic bowls written in the Jewish script.

The language is closely related to other Eastern Aramaic dialects such as Mandaic
Mandaic language

The Mandaic language is the liturgical language of the Mandaeism religion. Classical Mandaic is used by a section of the Mandaean community in liturgical rites....
 and the Eastern Syriac
Syriac language

Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from the 4th to the 8th centuries, the classical language of Edessa, Mesopotamia, preserved in a large body of Syriac literature....
 of the Assyrian Church
Assyrian Church of the East

The Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East , currently presided over by Mar Dinkha IV, is a Christian particular church and one of the earliest to separate itself from communion with the Catholic Church ....
. Its original pronunciation is uncertain, and has to be reconstructed with the help of these kindred dialects and of the reading tradition of the Yemenite Jews
Yemenite Jews

Yemenite Jews are those Jews who live, or whose recent ancestors lived, in Yemen , on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula. Virtually the entire Jewish population emigrated from Yemen between June 1949 and September 1950 in what was deemed Operation Magic Carpet ....
. (The vocalized Aramaic texts with which Jews are familiar, from the Bible
Tanakh

The Tanakh is the Bible used in Judaism. The name "Tanakh" is a Hebrew language Acronym and initialism formed from the initial Hebrew alphabet of the Tanakh's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim - hence TaNaKh....
 and the prayer book
Siddur

A siddur is a Judaism prayer book, containing a set order of List of Jewish prayers and blessings. This article discusses how some of these prayers evolved, and how the siddur, as we know it today has developed....
, are of limited usefulness for this purpose, as they are in a different dialect.)

Talmudic Aramaic bears all the marks of being a specialist language of study and legal argumentation, like Law French
Law French

Law French is an archaic language originally based on Old Norman and Anglo-Norman language, but increasingly influenced by Parisian French and, later, English....
, rather than a vernacular mother tongue, and continued in use for these purposes long after Arabic
Arabic language

Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages languages such as Hebrew language and Aramaic language....
 had become the language of daily life. It has developed a battery of technical logical terms, such as tiyuvta (conclusive refutation) and teyku (undecidable moot point), which are still used in Jewish legal writings, including those in other languages, and have influenced modern Hebrew.

The language has received considerable scholarly attention, as shown in the Bibliography below. However, the majority of those who are familiar with it, namely Orthodox Jewish
Orthodox Judaism

Orthodox Judaism is a Jewish denominations of Judaism that adheres to a relatively strict constructionist and application of the laws and ethics first canonized in the Talmudic texts and as subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and Acharonim....
 students of Talmud, are given no systematic instruction in the language, and are expected to "sink or swim" in the course of Talmudic studies, with the help of some informal pointers showing similarities and differences with Hebrew. For this reason, insights based on grammar or philology tend to be received with bewilderment in Orthodox Talmudic circles (see Chaim Potok
Chaim Potok

Chaim Potok was an American Jewish author and rabbi....
's novels The Chosen
The Chosen (Chaim Potok)

The Chosen is the bestselling book by Chaim Potok published in 1967. It is about two teenage Jewish boys who form a friendship, though they come from different worlds....
 and The Promise
The Promise (1969 novel)

The Promise is a novel written by Chaim Potok, published in 1969. It is a sequel to his previous novel The Chosen . Set in 1950s New York, it continues the saga of the two friends, Reuven Malter, an Orthodox Judaism studying to become a rabbi, and Danny Saunders, a genius Hasidic Judaism who has broken with his sect's tradition by re...
).

Bibliography

  • Frank, Yitzhak, Grammar for Gemara: An Introduction to Babylonian Aramaic: Jerusalem, Ariel Institute, 2000 ISBN 087306612X
  • Jastrow, Marcus
    Marcus Jastrow

    Marcus Mordechai Jastrow was a renowned Talmudic scholar, most famously known for his authorship of the popular and comprehensive A Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Babli, Talmud Yerushalmi and Midrashic Literature....
    , A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (reprinted many times) ISBN 1565638603
  • Klein, Hyman, An Introduction to the Aramaic of the Babylonian Talmud: London 1943
  • Kutscher, Eduard Yechezkel, Hebrew and Aramaic Studies, ed. Z. Ben-Hayyim, A. Dotan, and G. Sarfatti: Jerusalem, The Magnes Press / The Hebrew University, 1977
  • Levias, Caspar, A grammar of the Aramaic idiom contained in the Babylonian Talmud: 1900 (reprints available)
  • Marcus, David, A Manual of Babylonian Jewish Aramaic: University Press of America, Paperback ISBN 0819113638
  • Margolis, Max Leopold, A manual of the Aramaic language of the Babylonian Talmud; grammar chrestomathy & glossaries: Munich 1910 (reprints available)
  • Melamed, Ezra Zion, Dictionary of the Babylonian Talmud, Feldheim 2005 ISBN 1583307761
  • Morag, Shelomo, Babylonian Aramaic: The Yemenite Tradition - Historical Aspects and Transmission Phonology: the Verbal System : Jerusalem, Ben Zvi Institute, 1988 (in Hebrew)
  • Sokoloff, Michael, A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic of the Talmudic and Geonic Periods: Bar Ilan and Johns Hopkins University Press 2003, Hardcover ISBN 0801872332