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AramaicAfter 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.
See F. Rosenthal, ed., An Aramaic Handbook (4 vol., 1967).
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- Syriac
Syriac, late dialect of Aramaic, which is a West Semitic language (see Afroasiatic languages). The early Christians of Mesopotamia and Syria gave the Greek name Syriac to the Aramaic dialect t...
- Targum
Targum [Aramaic,=translation], Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Bible. When Aramaic replaced the Hebrew tongue among the Jews of Palestine and Babylon, interpreters were called to translate an...
- Geshur
Geshur or Geshuri, in the Bible. 1 Small Aramaic kingdom that remained in the territory allotted to Manasseh. It occupied barren land NE of the Sea of Galilee. After the division of Israel, it...
- Cephas
Cephas, in the Gospels, Jesus' name for St. Peter. It is a transliteration of the Aramaic word for rock, and identical in meaning with Peter in Greek.
- mammon
Mammon, Aramaic term, meaning worldly riches, retained in the New Testament Greek. Ye cannot serve God and mammon is one of the most noted biblical strictures.
- Dorcas
Dorcas or Tabitha [Gr. Dorcas and Aramaic Tabitha=gazelle], in the Acts of the Apostles, Christian woman of Joppa whom St. Peter raised from the dead. She made clothes for the poor.
- Ephphatha
Ephphatha [Aramaic,=be opened], in the Gospel of St. Mark, words addressed by Jesus to a deaf-mute as Jesus made him hear and speak. As elsewhere in Mark, the Greek text retains and translates...
- Cleophas
Cleophas, in the New Testament, husband of one of the Marys who stood at the foot of the Cross. This is apparently Mary the mother of St. James the Less, but the father of James the Less is Al...
- Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin
Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin, in the Bible, the mysterious riddle written by a hand on the wall at Belshazzar's feast. These Aramaic words may be translated literally as, It has been counted an...
- Tannaim
Tannaim [plural of Aramaic tanna,=one who studies or teaches], Jewish sages of the period from Hillel to the compilation of the Mishna. They functioned as both scholars and teachers, educating...
