Aramaic

Aramaic, language belonging to the West Semitic subdivision of the Semitic subfamily of the Afroasiatic family of languages (see Afroasiatic languages). At some point during the second millenium B.C., the Aramaeans abandoned their desert existence and settled in Syria, bringing their language, Aramaic, with them. By the beginning of the 7th cent. B.C., Aramaic had spread throughout the Fertile Crescent as a lingua franca. Still later the Persians made Aramaic one of the official languages of their empire.

After the Jews were defeated by the Babylonians in 586 B.C., they began to speak Aramaic instead of Hebrew, although they retained Hebrew as the sacred language of their religion. Although Aramaic was displaced officially in the Middle East by Greek after the coming of Alexander the Great, it held its own under Greek domination and subsequent Roman rule. Aramaic was also the language of Jesus. Following the rise of Islam in the 7th cent. A.D., however, Aramaic began to yield to Arabic, by which eventually it was virtually replaced.

In the course of its long history the Aramaic language broke up into a number of dialects, one of the most important of which was Syriac. Parts of the books of Ezra and Daniel in the Bible were written in an Aramaic dialect, as were some notable Jewish prayers, such as the kaddish. Other important documents in Aramaic include portions of the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds and the Targum Onkelos, a commentary on the Pentateuch. Nabataean (the form of Aramaic current among the Nabataean Arabs), Samaritan, and Palmyrene were other significant ancient dialects of Aramaic. Modern forms of the language (including Syriac) are still spoken today, though not by more than a few hundred thousand people scattered in the Near and Middle East.

Grammatically, Aramaic is very close to Hebrew. The Aramaic alphabet is a North Semitic script that is first attested in the 9th cent. B.C. After c.500 B.C. its use became widespread in the Middle East. Descended from the Aramaic alphabet are the Square Hebrew alphabet, which is the ancestor of modern Hebrew writing; the Nabataean, Palmyrene, and Syriac scripts; and the Arabic alphabet, among others. It is believed that the alphabetic writing systems of India and Southeast Asia also have the Aramaic script as their source.

Chaldean Neo-Aramaic is a Northeastern Neo-Aramaic language. Chaldean Neo-Aramaic is spoken on the Plain of Mosul in northern Iraq, as well as by the Chaldean communities worldwide. Most speakers are Chaldeans adhering to the Chaldean Catholic Church.

Called Neo-Aramaic, it is not to be confused with the original "Chaldean language" referring to the late Old Aramaic dialect of the Chaldean Dynasty of Babylon (6th century BC).

Origin, history and use today

Chaldean Neo-Aramaic is one of a number of modern Eastern Aramaic languages spoken in the region between Lake Urmia in Iranian Azerbaijan and Mosul in northern Iraq. Jews and Christians speak different dialects of Aramaic that are often mutually unintelligible. The Christian dialects have been heavily influenced by the Syriac language, a dialect of Eastern Middle Aramaic, that became the literary and liturgical language of many churches in the Fertile Crescent. Therefore Christian Neo-Aramaic has a dual heritage: literary Syriac and colloquial Eastern Aramaic. The Christian dialects are often called Soureth, or Syriac. In Iraqi Arabic, Chaldean Neo-Aramaic is sometimes called فلّيحي, or Fallîħî.

Chaldean Neo-Aramaic is the Soureth language of the Plain of Mosul and Iraqi Kurdistan. It has a number of identifiable dialects, each corresponding to one of the villages where the language is spoken. The village/dialects are: Alqosh, Aqrah, Mangesh, Tel Keipeh, Baghdeda, Tisqopa, Baqqopa, Batnaya, Bartella, Sirnak-Cizre (Bohtan), Araden and Dahuk. Because of its historical importance, the dialect of Alqosh has become the basis for standardisation of Chaldean Neo-Aramaic. Before the 16th century, most Christians in this region were members of the Assyrian Church of the East. When schism split the church, most of the Christians of the region opted for communion with the Roman Catholic Church and became members of the Eastern Rite Chaldean Catholic Church. Despite having a different name, Chaldean has a good degree of inteligibility with the western dialect group of Assyrian Neo-Aramaic (spoken originally in Hakkâri Province, Turkey) and the Jewish language Lishana Deni (originally spoken in northwestern Iraq).

Chaldean is written in the Madenhaya version of the Syriac alphabet, which is also used for classical Syriac. The School of Alqosh produced religious poetry in the colloquial Chaldean rather than classical Syriac, in the 17th century, and the Dominican Press in Mosul has produced a number of books in the language.

References

• Heinrichs, Wolfhart (ed.) (1990). Studies in Neo-Aramaic. Scholars Press: Atlanta, Georgia. ISBN 1-55540-430-8.
• Maclean, Arthur John (1895). Grammar of the dialects of vernacular Syriac: as spoken by the Eastern Syrians of Kurdistan, north-west Persia, and the Plain of Mosul: with notices of the vernacular of the Jews of Azerbaijan and of Zakhu near Mosul. Cambridge University Press, London.

See also

• Aramaic language
• Assyrian Neo-Aramaic
• Chaldeans
• Chaldean Catholic Church
• Syriac alphabet
• Syriac language

External links

• Semitisches Tonarchiv: Dokumentgruppe "Aramäisch/Neuostaramäisch (christl.)" (text in German)