Learn Aramaic

During the  reign of the Indian king Ashoka the Maurya Empire was vast.It stretched from Afghanistan and Pakistan ,covering almost all the Indian subcontinent and up to Bangladesh. One of his edicts was a bilingual inscription in Greek and Aramaic carved in stone,dated 3rd century B.C.The inscription was discovered at Kandahar and is now lying in the National Museum of Afghanistan. Greek text δέκα ἐτῶν πληρη[....]ων βασι[λ]εὺς Πιοδασσης εὐσέβεια[ν ἔδ]ε[ι]ξεν τοῖς ἀν-  θρώποις, καὶ ἀπὸ τούτου εὐσεβεστέρους  τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ἐποίησεν καὶ πάντα  εὐθηνεῖ κατὰ πᾶσαν γῆν• καὶ ἀπέχεται  βασιλεὺς τῶν ἐμψύχων καὶ οἱ λοιποὶ δὲ  εἲ τινες ἀκρατεῖς πέπαυνται τῆς ἀκρα-  σίας κατὰ δύναμιν, καὶ ἐνήκοοι πατρὶ  καὶ μητρὶ καὶ τῶν πρεσβυτέρων παρὰ  τὰ πρότερον καὶ τοῦ λοιποῦ λῶιον  καὶ ἄμεινον κατὰ πάντα ταῦτα  ποιοῦντες διάξουσιν. Aramaic text שנן 10 פתיתו עביד זי מראן פרידארש מלכא קשיטא מהק...

Not one language. One important thing you should know about Aramaic is that it was not uniform.It went through many different phases and developed into numerous dialects which were written in various versions of the Aramaic script. Biblical Some parts of the Bible were written in Aramaic-the books of Daniel and Ezra.The material there, is limited which means that it will take you less time to study it.Thus Biblical Aramaic is good start for you,but you will need to learn the Aramaic square script (Hebrew) to read it. Syriac On the other hand Classical Syriac Aramaic has a vast body of texts of all kinds written in it.Actually it is the third largest corpus,after Greek and Latin ,which survived from late antiquity.Syriac is written is the Syriac script ,the earliest version of it being the Estrangelo .The other two are Madnkhaya and Serto . In my opinion the Estrangelo is a very beautiful script and if you also like it,then Syriac is a good place to start your Aramaic. Neo-...

The Phoenician script was mainly a consonantal script marking only consonants and because of that many ambiguities arised.In a few cases consonant letters were used both for consonants and vowels to help clarify what is being written.Its descendant the Aramaic script used them widely.These letters are called matres lectionis and despite the wide use of this system it never developed into a full-fledged alphabetic script like Greek. The phrase matres lectionis comes from Latin and it means  'mothers of letters'.These letters indicate mostly long vowels.In Biblical Aramaic mainly four letters functioned as such while in Syriac three.  

By Tim Downling for The Guardian. Its alleged anti-semitism isn't the only problem with Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. There's also the small matter of it being in Aramaic. To help enrich your enjoyment, here is a handy glossary of useful terms. The Passion of the Christ... Mel Gibson's film has become a media punch bag B-kheeruut re'yaaneyh laa kaaley tsuuraathaa khteepaathaa, ellaa Zaynaa Mqatlaanaa Trayaanaa laytaw! It may be uncompromising in its liberal use of graphic violence, but Lethal Weapon II it ain't. Da'ek teleyfoon methta'naanaak, pquud. Guudaapaw! Please turn off your mobile phone. It is blasphemous. Shbuuq shuukhaaraa deel. Man ethnaggad udamshaa? Sorry I'm late. Have I missed any scourging? Aykaa beyt tadkeetha? Zaadeq lee d-asheeg eeday men perdey devshaanaayey haaleyn! Where is the loo? I need to wash my hands of this popcorn. Een, Yuudaayaa naa, ellaa b-haw yawmaa laa hweeth ba-mdeetaa. Yes,...

I have started studing Aramaic grammar and this is what I have learned so far.If you have knowledge of Aramaic grammar feel free to comment. Nouns in Aramaic decline according to gender,state and number.They come in two genders (masculine and feminine) two numbers (singular and plural) three states (absolute,construct and emphatic)  There are no case endings  but there is evidence that they did exist in very early Aramaic. Aramaic noun states absolute state -most common and basic form. E.g. nūn (fish),ketab (book) , malk (king) construct state -it mainly indicates possesion like genitive. Only difference is that the possessed changes in form not the possesor-The fish (possessed) of the queen (possessor).It often has the same form as the absolute Masculine often same as absolute .E.g.bar (son of)-Bar elaha is the Son of God . Feminine takes a suffix.(t).E.g.malkat (queen of) empthatic state -In early Aramaic it functioned like a definite ar...

Days of the week in Targumic Aramaic In the table below are the days of the week in Targumic Aramaic.In other dialects there might be some minor differences in the pronounciation. Day in Targumic Aramaic is yom ( יום ) ,the same as in Hebrew and Arabic  (يوم).Note that Saturday in Targumic Aramaic literally means the holy day (holiday)-shvat kudsha,shvat meaning holy.Week is shavya yomin. Sunday yom had יוםא חד Monday yom tinian יום תנן Tuesday yom tlitai יום תליתאי Wednesday yom revivai יום רביעאי Thursday yom hamishai יום הםישאי Friday yom shtitai יום שתיתאי Saturday shvat kudsha שבה כדשא Days of the Week in Syriac Aramaic The word for day in Syriac is yum instead of Targumic yom.The names of the days are formed by simp...

Aramaic was written mostly in consonants from right to left just like Phoenician from which it derived .It was originally used for the Aramaic language which was actually a whole group of  West Semitic languages. Later two great empires the Assyrian and Achaemenid adopted the language and its script as official (6-4 BC). It was the anscestor of many alphabets of the Middle East and most of Semitic alphabets such as Jas Samaritanewish, Palmyrene, Nabataean, Syrian, Palestinian, Mandaic and Manichaean. 9th century stele of king Kilamuwa,kingdom of Yadiya found in Turkish Zincirli (Sam'al) Parent alphabet of many others The Aramaic writing system was parent even to some Central Asian scripts such as Parthian, middle Persian, Sogdian, and Khorezmian. It also gave birth to Uighur, Mongolian, and the Orkhon-Yenisei alphabets through Sogdian. It has also being hypothesized that the Brahmi writing system and Kharosthi of the Indian subcontinent originated from the Aramaic s...

It is generally agreed that Jesus spoke Galilean Aramaic ,what scholars call Jewish Palestinian Aramaic.It is also hypothesized that he also spoke Hebrew and even some Greek and Latin. At the time Aramaic was a major language and a lingua franca among the population in the Near East.It was widely spoken in Palestine even among the Jews which had long become their primary language,the langauge of the people.By that time Hebrew was only the language of the elite mainly for religious purposes. In the New Testament ,the Greek original,there are some utterances of Jesus in Aramaic which is clear evidence  about his native tongue. Jesus grew up in Galilea,a region where  many cultures existed and many languages were spoken.But Aramaic and Hebrew were not the only ones spoken by the local population.Around Nazareth ,especially in the city of Sephoris lived the Greek-speaking Gentiles.So Jesus might have picked up some Greek.Latin was the official language of the region being u...

The sun in Syriac Aramaic is šemšā (ܫܡܫܐ) .The root of the word is šm(š).We have many Aramaic names with the šamaš element dating from the Neo-Assyrian,Neo-Babylonian and Achaemanid Empire periods.

The Lord's prayer in Galilean Aramaic,the native language of Jesus Christ himself does not exist as in an original form.There are, though, linguistic reconstructions of it since Galilean Aramaic remains to this day a very scarsely attested language. What it does exist is its version from Syriac Christianity and in various other Aramaic dialects from later times. This version is a translation from Koine Greek. Πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, Pater hemon ho en tois uranois Our Father ,Who art in heaven, ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου. Aghiasthēto  Hallowed be Thy Name. Ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου. Eltheto he vasileia su. Thy Kingdom come. ... Below you can read: The Lord's Prayer in Syriac Aramaic a linguistic reconstruction of The Lord's Prayer in Galilean Aramaic. The Lord's Prayer in Chaldean Aramaic (Sureth) Some branches of the Eastern Church still use in their liturgy the Syriac language,which is very close to the Aramaic spoken by Jesus." Our Lord's Prayer '...