Aramaic is a Semitic language belonging to the Afroasiatic language family. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic subfamily, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic group of languages, which also includes Canaanite languages such as Hebrew andPhoenician. Aramaic script was widely adopted for other languages and is ancestral to both theArabic and modern Hebrew alphabets.
During its 3,000-year written history, Aramaic has served variously as a language of administration of empires and as a language of divine worship. It was the day-to-day language ofIsrael in the Second Temple period (539 BCE – 70 CE), was the original language of large sections of the biblical books of Daniel and Ezra, was the language spoken by Jesus, and is the main language of the Talmud...
During the Neo-Assyrian and the Neo-Babylonian period, Aramaeans, the native speakers of Aramaic, began to settle in greater numbers in Upper Mesopotamia (modern-day northern Iraq, northeast Syria, northwest Iran, and south eastern Turkey). The influx eventually resulted in the Neo Assyrian Empire and Chaldean Dynasty of Babylonia becoming operationally bilingual in written sources, with Aramaic used alongside Akkadian. As these empires, and the Persian Empire that followed, extended their influence in the region, Aramaic gradually became the lingua franca of most of Western Asia and Egypt. From the late 7th century CE onwards, Aramaic was gradually replaced as the lingua franca of the Middle East by Arabic. However, Aramaic remains a spoken, literary and liturgical language among indigenousAssyrian Christians, Jews, Mandaeans and some Syriac/Aramean Christians, and is still spoken by small isolated communities throughout its original area of influence, predominantly in northwest Iraq, northeast Syria, southeast Turkey and northern Iran, with diaspora communities in Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and southern Russia. The turbulence of the last two centuries (particularly the Assyrian Genocide) has seen speakers of first-language and literary Aramaic dispersed throughout the world. However, there are a number of sizeable Assyrian towns in northern Iraq such as Alqosh, Bakhdida, Bartella, Tel Esqof and Tel Keppe, where Aramaic is still the main spoken language…..
Aramaic languages and dialects
Traditionally, Aramaic is considered a single language. However, it could equally well be considered a group of closely related languages, rather than a single monolithic language—something which it has never been. Its long history, extensive literature, and use by different religious communities are all factors in the diversification of the language. Some Aramaic dialects are mutually intelligible, whereas others are not. Some Aramaic languages are known under different names; for example, Syriac is particularly used to describe the Eastern Aramaic of Christian ethnic communities in Iraq, southeastern Turkey northern Syria and northwest Iran. Most dialects can be described as either “Eastern”‘ or “Western”, the dividing line being roughly the Euphrates, or slightly west of it. A kind of high Aramaic Standard Aramaic survived till the 9th century. It is also helpful to draw a distinction between those Aramaic languages that are modern living languages (often calledNeo-Aramaic), those that are still in use as literary languages, and those that are extinct and are only of interest to scholars. Although there are some exceptions to this rule, this classification gives “Modern”, “Middle” and “Old” periods, alongside “Eastern” and “Western” areas, to distinguish between the various languages and dialects that are Aramaic.
Leave a Reply