Learn Aramaic

In a few words ,because it is an obscure dialect, very poorly attested. People can be become obsessed these with 'the language of Jesus' . You can see that all over the web. There are articles,posts,videos all over the internet with pompous titles about 'the language of Jesus Christ' ,the ' Lord's Prayer in Galilean Aramaic '- the dialect Jesus spoke-,'Jesus Christ's Aramaic lives on'  and many other titles of the like. But such claims are an overstatement out of place and out of time. I will try to explain some facts about the Aramaic language and Jesus's native Galilean Aramaic dialect. Aramaic -not one but hundreds of dialects. First off Aramaic in not one monolithic language unchanged through time. Every language undergoes many  changes from the moment it appears. In time it changes in vocabulary,grammar, pronunciation ,it breaks up into dialects some of which evolve into new languages and so forth. The same goes for Aramaic. It has chan...

Assyrian Neo-Aramaic is the most spoken modern Aramaic dialect with about 9 hundred thousand speakers.It's most prestigious dialect is the Urmian dialect. It is traditionally spoken in Upper Mesopotamia, Northern Iraq, North-northeast Iran , Azerbaijan, North-northeast Turkey and Northern Syria. But due to continuous wars in the region and persecution from the 20th century and onwards the bulk of its speakers have immigrated abroad. Nowadays it is considered endangered because the second generation does not fully acquire the language being adapted in the language of the country they are living in. Akkadian Assyrian Neo-Aramaic is not to be confused with Assyrian , a dialect of the Ancient Akkadian ,another Semitic language,the language of the ancient Assyrians. The Akkadian at one time adopted Aramaic as their second official language along with Akkadian. Bilingualism was widespread and due to the fact that Aramaic and Akkadian had similar grammar and vocabulary,both being Semitic,...

Hebrew script for Aramaic. As I have explained many times the Hebrew alphabet known as ktav ashuri is often used to write Aramaic , Imperial Aramaic, Biblical Aramaic and Judeo-Aramaic dialects mainly. So,it would be necessary to learn the Hebrew alphabet. Fff Development of the Niqqud vowels. In late Antiquity ,early Medieval Age systems of diacritic dots were devised to denote vowels and teach the correct pronunciation, the so called Niqqud ( נִקּוּד ) -'diacritics' or Nikud for religious texts in Old Hebrew ,mainly for the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible. Due to phonological changes in Modern Hebrew  young Hebrews do not distinguish between the subtle differences that the various diacritics mark. Here is a table of the Niqqud vowels. Niqqud schools. Various dotting systems appeared during Late Antiquity with the most popular being the Tiberian dotting system from the school of Tiberias devised for the Masoretic texts to denote correct vocalization and accent.  Jewish scholars from...

  'Our father in Heaven' in Galilean Aramaic is: Hebrew letters אבנן דבשמייא transcription   ?bnn dbshmyy? phonetic ʔabənan dəvəšᵘmaya

  Print form א name Alef Pronunciation (?) ('a) (a) Handwritten form. Due to its close resemblance to the square Aramaic alphabet and for ease nowadays the Hebrew alphabet is used to write Imperial, Biblical and Judeo-Aramaic dialects. So,it would be very useful to learn it. The handwritten forms of the Hebrew letters differ from their printed variants. They are call ktav ( כתב ), 'writing' in Hebrew.

The sixth book of Ezra is written part in Aramaic (6:1-6:18) part in Hebrew  (6:19-6:22). 6:1 א בֵּאדַיִן דָּרְיָוֶשׁ מַלְכָּא, שָׂם טְעֵם; וּבַקַּרוּ בְּבֵית סִפְרַיָּא, דִּי גִנְזַיָּא מְהַחֲתִין תַּמָּה--בְּבָבֶל ʾ bēʾdayin dārǝyāweš malkāʾ, śām ṭǝʿēm; ûbaqqarû bǝbêt siprayyāʾ, dî ginzayyāʾ mǝhaḥătîn tammâ--bǝbābel  1 Then Darius the king made a decree, and search was made in the house of the scrolls, where the treasures were laid up, in Babylon. Vocabulary דָּרְיָוֶשׁ dārǝyāweš Darius מַלְכָּא malkāʾ the king סִפְרַיָּא bǝbābel in Babylon שָׂם טְעֵם śām ṭǝʿēm to issue a decree

There are many people who go about the internet sharing stuff,for example the Lord's Prayer in Aramaic  ,the Syriac version ,'in the language of Jesus Christ' as they say. This is utterly wrong and a common misconception among those who know very little about Aramaic if any. They just share links of what they think is in the language of Jesus Christ. First off Jesus did not speak Syriac but he spoke Galilean Aramaic. Syriac came later. It appeared at about 100 AD in Edessa and it became a major literary language of the Middle East for the Syriac Christianity from 4 to 7 AD. Furthermore Galilean and Syriac belong to different branches within the Aramaic language family. Galilean belonged to the Western branch of the Aramaic languages while Syriac to the Eastern.  Text in Galilean ,the Herodian script. Text in Syriac. Not only that but they are written in different alphabets ,too. Galilean is written in a square script, the so-called Herodian script is preferred which came fr...

  One of the lesser mysteries of Easter is  the language in which Jesus Christ and Pontius Pilate conversed during their famous confrontation as reported in the New Testament . It's an old question and there's an ample literature about it both in the form of publications and of blog comments -- and controversy (see Sources below). I was unaware of how much controversy until I came to do the research for this post. But let's take a quick look at it in the perspective of this blog. People assume that because Jesus was Jewish he must have known  Hebrew , and because Pilate was a Roman he must have spoken  Latin . That's no doubt true but it's a misleading simplification. Because  both of them were bilingual  (or multilingual) like most of the people in their respective communities. The problem is that on the face of it their languages didn't coincide. First Pilate. As a Roman 'equestrian' from Italy and prefect of the Roman province of Judea, he had to know...

 The Word of God comes in two meanings-the first being the Bible, the sacred writings of the Christian faith. That is the modern interpretation of the 'word of God'. But what did the ,let's say ,the Apostles mean when they spoke about the word of God? John 1:1 - ܒ݁ܪܺܫܺܝܬ݂ ܐܺܝܬ݂ܰܘܗ݈ܝ ܗ݈ܘܳܐ ܡܶܠܬ݂ܳܐ ܘܗܽܘ ܡܶܠܬ݂ܳܐ ܐܺܝܬ݂ܰܘܗ݈ܝ ܗ݈ܘܳܐ ܠܘܳܬ݂ ܐܰܠܳܗܳܐ ܘܰܐܠܳܗܳܐ ܐܺܝܬ݂ܰܘܗ݈ܝ ܗ݈ܘܳܐ ܗܽܘ ܡܶܠܬ݂ܳܐ ܀  b݁rishiyti ʾiytiawh݈y h݈woʾ meltioʾ whuw meltioʾ ʾiytiawh݈y h݈woʾ lwoti ʾalohoʾ waʾlohoʾ ʾiytiawh݈y h݈woʾ huw meltioʾ   ܀ John 1:1 - In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In a few words, they spoke about the manifestation and the mind of God. The word of God is mentioned forty one times in the New Testament alone. In the Peshitta ,the classical Syriac translation of the New Testament the word of God is meltiah daloho . ܡܶܠܬ݂ܶܗ ܕ݁ܰܐܠܳܗܳܐ