Aramaic Language

Aramaic is a member of the Semitic language family, with structural and lexical similarities to Hebrew. It is believed to have originated in the Middle East around 1200 B.C.E., with its earliest known written inscriptions dating to the tenth century B.C.E. Once a dominant regional language, Aramaic is now spoken only in isolated pockets, most of which are clustered in parts of Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Russia, Syria, and Turkey.

The Aramaic language remains of interest to scholars and historians due to the fact that it is believed to have been the primary tongue spoken by Jesus Christ during his lifetime. Along with Hebrew and Greek, Aramaic is also one of the three so-called "original languages" of the Christian Bible. For this reason, Aramaic is still used as a liturgical language in certain branches of Eastern Orthodox Christianity and continues to be studied by Christian scholars of numerous denominations.

History

Linguists have traditionally divided the history of the Aramaic language into five distinct phases: Ancient Aramaic, Official or Classical Aramaic, Middle Aramaic, Late Aramaic, and Modern Aramaic. Scholars do not entirely agree on when Ancient Aramaic, the oldest known form of the language, first appeared, but most estimates place its maturation into an identifiable tongue at around 1200 BCE. During this period, Aramaic consisted of numerous dialects, which slowly began to unify. Because the few surviving Aramaic texts from this period are in poor condition, scholars have not reached a consensus on when, exactly, Aramaic moved from its ancient to its classical form.

Official or Classical Aramaic is the Aramaic of the Christian Bible. During the language's classical phase, Aramaic rose from its initial status as a regional tongue to become the lingua franca, or the common language spoken among peoples of diverse speech, of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and the preferred language of commerce in many parts of the Middle East. This growth can be traced to the diaspora of Aramaic speakers at the hands of the Assyrians during the expansion of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which was a major Mesopotamian civilization of the Iron Age.

The dominance of Aramaic continued after the Neo-Assyrian Empire went into decline and the Achaemenid Persian Empire rose in its place, a process that began around 550 BCE. Aramaic was adopted as the official language of the Persian Empire and persisted as the region's most widely spoken tongue until about the fourth century CE, when it was supplanted by Greek. Scholars have likened the status of Classical Aramaic in the Middle East during this period to that of modern Arabic, in that it was the standard language of literature, commerce, and international communication.

Aramaic evolved past its classical phase, into what is now called Middle Aramaic. Contrasting the manner in which the variant forms of Ancient Aramaic merged into a standardized whole during the classical period, Middle Aramaic is marked by the reappearance of distinct and readily identifiable dialects. The Middle Aramaic period is traditionally dated from about 200 BCE to about 250 CE, and while the tongue came under increasing pressure from the continued spread of the Greek language, it continued to be widely spoken throughout the Middle East. Middle Aramaic is sometimes subdivided into two distinct subcategories: Western Middle Aramaic—consisting of the Christian, Jewish-Palestinian, Qumran, and Nabatean dialects—and Eastern Middle Aramaic, made up of the Syriac, Palmyrene, Arsacid, and Hatra dialects.

Late Aramaic can be similarly divided into eastern and western dialectic subcategories, with this linguistic phase beginning around 250 CE and extending until the thirteenth century CE. During the Late Aramaic phase, the language went into a steady period of decline. Its diminishing importance was largely due to the spread of the Islamic faith, which signaled the rise of Arabic as the dominant tongue of the Middle East. Some scholars alternately subclassify the Late Aramaic dialects as Palestinian, Syriac, and Babylonian, noting the specific regions in which Aramaic was still widely spoken.

In many circles, Aramaic is incorrectly perceived as a dead language that is known and spoken only by a small number of biblical scholars and academics specializing in the history of the Middle East. In actual fact, Modern Aramaic persists to this day as the mother tongue of hundreds of thousands of people, most of whom are Christians, though it is also the primary language of a small number of people of Jewish and Mandaean ancestry. While Modern Aramaic is largely centered in the scattered Christian-dominated pockets of the Middle East, Aramaic is also spoken by small communities of immigrants now living in North America, Europe, and Australia.

Following the end of the Second World War, practically all Aramaic-speaking people of Jewish descent relocated to Israel, where Hebrew is so ubiquitous that Aramaic is in danger of dying out among members of this cultural group. Similarly, Aramaic-speaking Christians have struggled to ensure the survival of their language, and it remains endangered due to the overwhelming regional dominance of Arabic.

Aramaic Alphabets, Sounds, and Pronunciation

The earliest system used to depict written Aramaic was derived from the Phoenician alphabet, which itself was the direct ancestor of the Greek alphabet, upon which all modern Western alphabets are based. During the Classical Aramaic period, a Hebrew-based writing system was adopted, giving Aramaic the form in which it appears in early biblical texts. Today, the Hebrew alphabet remains the standard of Modern Aramaic, though at least one dialect, known as Turoyo, has adopted a Latin alphabet.

From a phonological standpoint, Modern Aramaic has been influenced by Arabic, Kurdish, Persian, Turkish, and other regional tongues. However, it has retained many of its definitive sound and pronunciation features, which include the quintessentially Semitic open a, close front i, and close back u vowel sounds as well as an emphatic family of consonants. However, distinct and sometimes major pronunciation variations are seen in the surviving dialects of Modern Aramaic, practically all of which feature sounds borrowed from other, more widely spoken local languages.

Bibliography

Benor, Sarah Bunin, ed. "Jewish Aramaic." Jewish Language Research Website. Jewish Language Research Website. Web. 14 July 2015. http://www.jewish-languages.org/jewish-aramaic.html

Gottheil, Richard and Wilhelm Bacher. "Aramaic Language among the Jews." Jewish Encyclopedia. JewishEncyclopedia.com. Web. 14 July 2015. http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1707-aramaic-language-among-the-jews

Jackson, Wayne. "Languages of the Bible." Christian Courier. Christian Courier Publications. Web. 14 July 2015. https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/200-languages-of-the-bible

Shaviv, Miriam. "The Last of the Aramaic Speakers." The Times of Israel. The Times of Israel. 14 July 2013. Web. 14 July 2015. http://www.timesofisrael.com/the-last-of-the-aramaic-speakers/

Yildiz, Efrem. "The Aramaic Language and Its Classification." Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. Web. 14 July 2015. http://www.jaas.org/edocs/v14n1/e8.pdf