Learn Aramaic

Jesus Christ, also known as Jesus of Nazareth, is believed by many scholars to have spoken Aramaic as his native language. Aramaic was a common language in the region of Galilee where Jesus grew up, and it was also used as a lingua franca throughout the Near East during the time of Jesus. There are several Aramaic words and phrases that are attributed to Jesus in the New Testament, such as "Talitha koum" (which means "Little girl, I say to you, get up!") and "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" (which means "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"). These phrases are evidence of Jesus' use of Aramaic. Additionally, some scholars believe that certain sayings of Jesus in the New Testament may have been originally spoken in Aramaic and later translated into Greek. For example, the saying "You cannot serve both God and money" (Matthew 6:24) is thought by some scholars to have originally been spoken in Aramaic as "You cannot serve both...

leššānā Suryāyā Syriac language Syriac developed from Old Syriac,an Aramaic dialect spoken around the city of Edessa in Osroene.It rose to prominence during the first century century Ad. It came to be a major trade, literary, liturgical and a lingua franca of the Middle East,in the so-called fertile Crescent. The vast majority of the text corpus in Aramaic is in Classical Syriac. By the 8th century A.D. it was mostly replaced by Arabic and by 1200 AD ceased to be a spoken language,used only for liturgical purposes by Syriac Christians up to this day.In 1200 AD and onwards it started evolving into some Neo-Aramaic vernaculars. The Syriac alphabet . Syriac was written in Syriac Estrangelo script ,which was the classical script for the language.In 5 AD after the split of Syriac Church into Eastern and Western the Nestorian and Serto versions of Estrangelo evolved and they were both used for writting Syriac. In the 3rd century AD the translation of the New Testament was com...

After the dissolution of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great as a result Greek influence and culture spread all over the Middle East.It was then that Aramean scholars first became familiar with the Greek alphabet which already had a fully developed and quite accurate vowel system. On the other hand the Aramaic script indicated basically consonants and its weakness was thus exposed due to this contact.So Arameans thought they could use vowels to the benefit of their own script. The result was the development of two vowel systems the Eastern and Western after the split of the Syriac church into the Western branch under Byzantine rule and Eastern branch under Sassanid Persia. The Western borrowed directly the Greek vowels themselves which were written above the letter.The second used one or two dots above or below the letter to indicate vowels.Later appeared a combined system of the two. The Estrangela script originally made no use of vowels and these two systems initially dev...

The eastern Syriac script is called Madnkhaya or Nestorian, eastern, after Nestorus-founder of the Eastern Syriac Church.It was used in the eastern Syriac Church in Persia and it started developing after the split of the Syriac Church which resulted not only to two different Churches,but to the developed of different scripts as well. The Nestorian script came from the Estrangela and it is very similar to it with minor differences.Though an innnovation was introduced-dots above or below the letters to mark vowels.In the Estrangela vowel signs are not used at all.

There are various words for God in Aramaic Eli    or Elahi (Biblical Aramaic ) and alaha or   aloho   in Syriac depending on the dialect . The word sounds almost identical to the Arabic 'allah'. Alternatively Aramaic speakers referred to God as 'maran' our Lord hence the Aramaic phrase μαρανάθα ( maranatha ) -O Lord come! from the Greek New Testament. A handful of Aramaic phrases are included in the Greek New Testament amidst the Greek text. It's what Jesus said in Aramaic his native language.  Jesus spoke Galilean Aramaic a dialect spoken natively north of Judaea .There is evidence that this dialect sounded harsh and distorted to the ears of Jerusalem Aramaic speaker. The distinct accent would immediately give away a Galilean in Jerusalem. In the New Testament Jesus uses the following names when he refers to God. abba (αββα)-father Eli (ηλί) or Elohi (ελόΐ)- when being on the cross. And maranatha ,a phrase which contains the word mar (Lord). J...

'Mshiha qam' means 'The Messiah is risen' in Aramaic or you can just say qam!- He is risen!. The phrase in Syriac Aramaic. “ܡܫܝܚܐ ܩܡ! ܫܪܝܪܐܝܬ ܩܡ!‎   Mshiḥa qām! sharīrāīth qām!  OR Mshiḥo Qom! Shariroith Qom!) He is risen! He is risen indeed! Let's take a look at how the phrase is written in the Herodian version.Vowels are not written so we just write the consonats 'qm'.Don't forget that Aramaic is read form right to left as 'mq'. I have also prepared a short video.Take a look.