Old Aramaic refers to the earliest stage of the Aramaic language , known from the Aramaic inscriptions discovered since the 19th century.
122-735: Emerging as the language of the city-states of the Arameans in the Fertile Crescent in the Early Iron Age , Old Aramaic was adopted as a lingua franca , and in this role was inherited for official use by the Achaemenid Empire during classical antiquity . After the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, local vernaculars became increasingly prominent, fanning the divergence of an Aramaic dialect continuum and
244-473: A tribal Semitic people in the ancient Near East , first documented in historical sources from the late 12th century BC. Their homeland, often referred to as the land of Aram , originally covered central regions of modern Syria . The Arameans were not a single nation or group; rather, Aram was a region with local centers of power spread throughout the Levant . That makes it almost impossible to establish
366-421: A "pre-Middle Persian," or "post-Old Persian." Old Persian subsequently evolved into Middle Persian , which is in turn the ancestor of New Persian . Professor Gilbert Lazard , a famous Iranologist and the author of the book Persian Grammar , states: The language known as New Persian, which usually is called at this period (early Islamic times) by the name of Parsi-Dari, can be classified linguistically as
488-524: A coherent ethnic category of "Aramean" based on extra-linguistic identity markers such as material culture, lifestyle or religion. The people of Aram were called “Arameans” in Assyrian texts and in the Hebrew Bible , but the terms “Aramean” and “Aram” were never used by later Aramean dynasts to refer to themselves or their country, with the exception of the king of Aram-Damascus since his kingdom
610-617: A continuation of Middle Persian, the official religious and literary language of Sassanian Iran, itself a continuation of Old Persian, the language of the Achaemenids. Unlike the other languages and dialects, ancient and modern, of the Iranian group such as Avestan , Parthian , Soghdian , Kurdish , Pashto , etc., Old, Middle and New Persian represent one and the same language at three states of its history. It had its origin in Fars and
732-496: A distinctive variant of Old Aramaic, by others as an independent but closely related Samalian language . There are inscriptions that evidence the earliest use of the language, dating from the 10th century BCE. The inscriptions are mostly diplomatic documents between Aramaean city-states. The alphabet of Aramaic then seems to be based on the Phoenician alphabet , and there is a unity in the written language. It seems that in time,
854-532: A few changes in the shape of characters during the period it was used. This can be seen as a standardization of the heights of wedges, which in the beginning (i.e. in DB ) took only half the height of a line. The following phonemes are expressed in the Old Persian script: Notes: Lycian 𐊋𐊆𐊈𐊈𐊀𐊓𐊕𐊑𐊏𐊀 Kizzaprñna ~ 𐊈𐊆𐊖𐊀𐊓𐊕𐊑𐊏𐊀 Zisaprñna for (genuine) Old Persian *Ciçafarnā (besides
976-678: A generic term for Semitic wanderers and nomads of varying origins who appeared during the 13th century BCE across the ancient Near East , the Arabian Peninsula , Asia Minor , and Egypt . The Arameans would appear to be one part of the larger generic Ahlamû group rather than synonymous with the Ahlamu. The presence of the Ahlamû is attested during the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1020 BCE), which already ruled many of
1098-509: A good chronology but only an approximate geographical indication of what seem to be ancient Persians. In these records of the 9th century BCE, Parsuwash (along with Matai , presumably Medians) are first mentioned in the area of Lake Urmia in the records of Shalmaneser III . The exact identity of the Parsuwash is not known for certain, but from a linguistic viewpoint the word matches Old Persian pārsa itself coming directly from
1220-519: A mixture of Mesopotamian , Hittite and Hurrian influences. The legacy of ancient Arameans became of particular interest for scholars during the early modern period and resulted in the emergence of Aramaic studies as a distinctive field, dedicated to the study of the Aramaic language. By the 19th century, the Aramean question was formulated, and several scholarly theses were proposed regarding
1342-637: A more refined alphabet, suited to the needs of the language, began to develop from this in the eastern regions of Aram. The dominance of the Neo-Assyrian Empire under Tiglath-Pileser III over Aram-Damascus in the middle of the 8th century led to the establishment of Aramaic as a lingua franca of the empire, rather than it being eclipsed by Akkadian. From 700 BCE, the language began to spread in all directions but lost much of its homogeneity . Different dialects emerged in Assyria , Babylonia ,
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#17327726409341464-613: A number of colloquial Aramaic dialects. Seven dialects of Western Aramaic were spoken in the vicinity of Judaea in Jesus ' time. They were probably distinctive yet mutually intelligible. Old Judaean was the prominent dialect of Jerusalem and Judaea. The region of Ein Gedi had the Southeastern Judaean dialect. Samaria had its distinctive Samaritan Aramaic, where the consonants he , heth and ayin all became pronounced
1586-567: A part and other times to the whole of the Syrian region during the Iron Age . The expressions “All Aram” and “Upper and Lower Aram” in Sefire treaty inscriptions have been variously interpreted but can suggest a degree of political and cultural unity among some of the polities in the area. Biblical sources tell that Saul , David and Solomon (late 11th to 10th centuries BC) fought against
1708-689: A people appears much later, in the inscriptions of Tiglath Pileser I (c. 1100 BCE). Nomadic pastoralists have long played a prominent role in the history and economy of the Middle East , but their numbers seem to vary according to climatic conditions and the force of neighbouring states inducing permanent settlement. The Late Bronze Age seems to coincide with increasing aridity, which weakened neighbouring states and induced transhumance pastoralists to spend longer and longer periods with their flocks. Urban settlements (hitherto largely inhabited by Amorite , Canaaite , Hittite , and Ugarite peoples) in
1830-515: A sculptured figure of myself I made. Also, the analysis of certain Old Persian inscriptions are "supposed or claimed" to predate Darius the Great. Although it is true that the oldest attested Old Persian inscriptions are found on the Behistun monument from Darius, the creation of this "new type of writing" seems, according to Schmitt, "to have begun already under Cyrus the Great ". The script shows
1952-521: A short-lived Chaldean dynasty. The Aramean regions became a battleground between the Babylonians and the 26th Dynasty of Egypt , which had been installed by the Assyrians as vassals after they had defeated and ejected the previous Nubian -ruled 25th Dynasty . The Egyptians, having entered the region in a belated attempt to aid their former Assyrian masters, fought the Babylonians, initially with
2074-466: A similar course to those of the east. They are quite distinct from the eastern dialects and Imperial Aramaic. Aramaic came to coexist with Canaanite dialects, eventually completely displacing Phoenician and Hebrew around the turn of the 4th century CE. The form of Late Old Western Aramaic used by the Jewish community is best attested, and is usually referred to as Jewish Old Palestinian. Its oldest form
2196-403: A single official language, which modern scholarship has dubbed Official Aramaic or Imperial Aramaic, can be assumed to have greatly contributed to the astonishing success of the Achaemenids in holding their far-flung empire together for as long as they did. The term "Imperial Aramaic", originally German " Reichsaramäisch ", was coined by Josef Markwart in 1927. In 1955, Richard Frye questioned
2318-412: A somewhat confusing and inconsistent look: 'horse,' for instance, is [attested in Old Persian as] both asa (OPers.) and aspa (Med.)." Old Persian texts were written from left to right in the syllabic Old Persian cuneiform script and had 36 phonetic characters and 8 logograms . The usage of logograms is not obligatory. The script was surprisingly not a result of evolution of the script used in
2440-585: A stream of Aramaic that is not dependent on Imperial Aramaic. They show a clear division between the regions of Mesopotamia, Babylon and the east, and Judah, Syria, and the west. In the East, the dialects of Palmyrene and Arsacid Aramaic merged with the regional languages to create languages with a foot in Imperial and a foot in regional Aramaic. The written form of Mandaic , the language of the Mandaean religion,
2562-596: A tribe called Parsuwash , who arrived in the Iranian Plateau early in the 1st millennium BCE and finally migrated down into the area of present-day Fārs province . Their language, Old Persian, became the official language of the Achaemenid kings. Assyrian records, which in fact appear to provide the earliest evidence for ancient Iranian (Persian and Median) presence on the Iranian Plateau, give
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#17327726409342684-565: Is Old East Jordanian, which probably comes from the region of Caesarea Philippi . This is the dialect of the oldest manuscript of the Book of Enoch ( c. 170 BCE). The next distinct phase of the language is called Old Judaean into the 2nd century CE. Old Judaean literature can be found in various inscriptions and personal letters, preserved quotations in the Talmud and receipts from Qumran . Josephus ' first, non-extant edition of his The Jewish War
2806-496: Is a direct descendant of Middle and Old Persian. Old Persian "presumably" has a Median language substrate . The Median element is readily identifiable because it did not share in the developments that were peculiar to Old Persian. Median forms "are found only in personal or geographical names [...] and some are typically from religious vocabulary and so could in principle also be influenced by Avestan ." "Sometimes, both Median and Old Persian forms are found, which gave Old Persian
2928-457: Is a somewhat hybrid dialect. It is theorized that some Biblical Aramaic material originated in both Babylonia and Judaea before the fall of the Achaemenid dynasty. The conquest by Alexander the Great did not destroy the unity of Aramaic language and literature immediately. Aramaic that bears a relatively close resemblance to that of the fifth century BCE can be found right up to the early second century BCE. The Seleucids imposed Koine Greek in
3050-552: Is a topic of interest among scholars but is never referred to simply as "Aramean". Scholars have difficulty in identifying and isolating characteristic Aramean elements in the culture. Even in North Syria, where more substantial evidence is available, scholars still find it difficult to identify what is genuinely Aramean from what is borrowed from other cultures. Widespread scholarly opinion still maintains that since several ethnic groups, such as Luwians and Aramaeans, interacted in
3172-640: Is based on Hasmonaean with very few changes. This was perhaps because many of the documents in BDA are legal documents, the language in them had to be sensible throughout the Jewish community from the start, and Hasmonaean was the old standard. The Nabataean language was the Western Aramaic variety used by the Nabateans of the Negev , including the kingdom of Petra . The kingdom ( c. 200 BCE–106 CE) covered
3294-525: Is derived from a Semitic root rwm , "to be high". Newer suggestions interprets it as a broken plural meaning "white antelopes" or "white bulls". However, there are no historical, archaeological or linguistic evidences that those early uses of the terms Aramu , Armi or Arame were actually referring to the Arameans; thus, it is believed to originally be a toponym without any ethnic connotations. The earliest undisputed historical attestation of Arameans as
3416-415: Is differentiated by dialectical features, still easily recognizable from the dialect prevailing in north-western and eastern Iran. Middle Persian , also sometimes called Pahlavi, is a direct continuation of Old Persian and was used as the written official language of the country. Comparison of the evolution at each stage of the language shows great simplification in grammar and syntax. However, New Persian
3538-549: Is from the Behistun Inscriptions . Old Persian is one of the oldest Indo-European languages which are attested in original texts. The oldest date of use of Old Persian as a spoken language is not precisely known. According to certain historical assumptions about the early history and origin of ancient Persians in Southwestern Iran (where Achaemenids hailed from), Old Persian was originally spoken by
3660-633: Is one of two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan ) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of the Sasanian Empire ). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native speakers as ariya (Iranian). Old Persian is close to both Avestan and the language of the Rig Veda , the oldest form of the Sanskrit language. All three languages are highly inflected . Old Persian appears primarily in
3782-617: Is rendered in Elamite as Mirkānu- , rendering transcriptions such as V(a)rakāna , Varkāna or even Vurkāna questionable and making Vrkāna or Virkāna much more realistic (and equally for vrka- "wolf", Brdiya and other Old Persian words and names with syllabic /r/ ). While v usually became /v/ in Middle Persian, it became /b/ word-initially in New Persian, except before [u] (including
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3904-543: Is the Carpentras Stela , published by Rigord in 1704. After 539 BCE, following the Achaemenid conquest of Mesopotamia under Darius I , the Achaemenids adopted the local use of Aramaic. When the Achaemenids extended their rule westward, they adopted this language as the vehicle for written communication between the various regions of the vast empire with its different peoples and languages. The use of
4026-477: Is written quite differently from Achaemenid Aramaic; there is an emphasis on writing as words are pronounced rather than using etymological forms. Babylonian Targumic is the later post-Achaemenid dialect found in the Targum Onqelos and Targum Jonathan , the "official" targums . The original, Hasmonaean targums had reached Babylon sometime in the 2nd or 3rd century CE. They were then reworked according to
4148-652: The Babylonian Talmud , Hanina bar Hama said that God sent the exiled Jews to Babylon because "their language [Aramaic] is close to the language of the Torah [Hebrew]". Biblical Aramaic is the term for the Aramaic passages interspersed in the Hebrew Bible . These passages make for a small fraction of the entire text (of the order of 1%), and most of it is due to the Aramaic parts of the Book of Daniel : Biblical Aramaic presented several challenges for later writers who were engaged in early Biblical studies . Since
4270-998: The Byzantine and Sasanid Empires. Several minor states also existed in frontier regions, most notably the Kingdom of Osroene , centred in the city of Edessa , known in Aramaic as Urhay. However, it is not easy in either pre-Christian or Christian periods to trace purely-Aramean elements in Edessan culture. During the Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages , the Ancient Greek custom of using Syrian labels for Arameans and their language started to gain acceptance among an Aramaic-speaking literary and ecclesiastical elites. The practice of using Syrian labels as designations for Aramaic-speakers and their language
4392-643: The Greeks . The early Muslim conquests in the 7th century were followed by the Islamization and the gradual Arabization of Aramaic-speaking communities throughout the Near East. That ultimately resulted in their fragmentation and acculturation . Today, their cultural and linguistic heritage continues to be recognized by some Syriac-Christian or Neo-Aramaic speaking groups, such as the Maronites and
4514-726: The Indo-European -speaking post-Hittite states . The Arameans, together with the Edomites and the Ammonites , attacked Israel in the early 11th century BCE but were defeated. Meanwhile, Arameans moved to the east of the Euphrates and into Babylonia, where an Aramean usurper was crowned king of Babylon under the name Adad-apal-iddin. During the 11th and the 10th centuries BCE, the Arameans conquered Sam'al and renamed it Bît-Agushi ,. They also conquered Til Barsip , which became
4636-572: The Khalili Collection of Aramaic Documents , and an analysis was published in November 2006. The texts, which were rendered on leather, reflect the use of Aramaic in the fourth century BCE Achaemenid administration of Bactria and Sogdia . Old Aramaic and Biblical Hebrew both form part of the group of Northwest Semitic languages , and during antiquity, there may still have been substantial mutual intelligibility. In Tractate Pesahim of
4758-694: The Levant and Egypt . However, the Akkadian-influenced Aramaic of Assyria, and then Babylon , started to come to the fore. As described in 2 Kings 18:26, envoys of Hezekiah , king of Judah , ask to negotiate with Assyrian military commanders in Aramaic so that the common people would not understand. Around 600 BCE, Adon, a Canaanite king, used Aramaic to write to the Egyptian Pharaoh . The first Old Aramaic inscription found in Europe, but originally from (Ptolemaic?) Egypt,
4880-516: The Levant diminished in size until fully-nomadic pastoralist lifestyles came to dominate much of the region. The highly mobile competitive tribesmen, with their sudden raids, continually threatened long-distance trade and interfered with the collection of taxes and tribute. The people who had long been the prominent population in what is now Syria (called the Land of the Amurru during their tenure) were
5002-590: The Median form *Ciθrafarnah ) = Tissaphernes suggests /t͡s/ as the pronunciation of ç (compare [1] and Kloekhorst 2008, p. 125 in [2] for this example, who, however, mistakenly writes Çiçafarnā , which contradicts the etymology [ PIIr. *Čitra-swarnas- ] and the Middle Persian form Čehrfar [ ç gives Middle Persian s ]). The phoneme /l/ does not occur in native Iranian vocabulary, only in borrowings from Akkadian (a new /l/ develops in Middle Persian from Old Persian /rd/ and
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5124-708: The Middle Assyrian Empire . Assyrian annals from the end of the Middle Assyrian Empire c. 1050 BCE and the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 911 BCE contain numerous descriptions of battles between Arameans and the Assyrian army. The Assyrians launched repeated raids into Aramean lands, Babylonia, Ancient Iran, Elam, Asia Minor, and even as far as the Mediterranean to keep its trade routes open. The Aramean city-states, like much of
5246-600: The Near East and Asia Minor since the first half of the 14th century BCE, began to shrink rapidly after the death of Ashur-bel-kala , its last great ruler in 1056 BCE. The Assyrian withdrawal allowed the Arameans and others to gain independence and take firm control of Eber-Nari in the late 11th century BCE. Some of the major Aramean-speaking city states included Aram-Damascus , Hamath , Bet-Adini , Bet-Bagyan , Bit-Hadipe , Aram-Bet Rehob , Aram-Zobah , Bet-Zamani , Bet-Halupe , and Aram-Ma'akah , as well as
5368-547: The Near East in various dialects. By around 800 BCE, Aramaic had become the lingua franca of the Neo-Assyrian Empire , which continued during the Achaemenid period as Imperial Aramaic . Although it was marginalized by Greek during the Hellenistic period , Aramaic in its varying dialects remained unchallenged as the common language of all Semitic peoples of the region until the Arabs ' Islamic conquest of Mesopotamia in
5490-796: The Palestine region , Transjordan and Sinai . Descendant Neo-Aramaic languages of the Eastern Aramaic branch continue to serve as the spoken and written languages of the Assyrians , Mandeans and Mizrahi Jews . These languages are primarily found in Iraq , northwestern Iran , southeastern Turkey and northeastern Syria , and to a lesser extent, in migrant communities in Armenia , Georgia, Russia , Lebanon , Israel , Jordan and Azerbaijan , as well as in Assyrian diaspora communities in
5612-729: The Tur Abdin . Tatian , the author of the gospel harmony known as the Diatessaron , came from the Seleucid Empire and perhaps wrote his work (172 CE) in East Mesopotamian rather than Edessan Aramaic or Greek. In Babylonia, the regional dialect was used by the Jewish community, Jewish Old Babylonian ( c. 70 CE). The everyday language increasingly came under the influence of Biblical Aramaic and Babylonian Targumic. The western regional dialects of Aramaic followed
5734-523: The common language of public life and administration, particularly during the periods of the Neo-Babylonian Empire (612–539 BCE) and the Achaemenid Empire (539–330 BCE). Before Christianity , Aramaic-speaking communities had undergone considerable Hellenization and Romanization in the Near East . Thus, their integration into the Greek-speaking world had begun a long time before Christianity became established. Some scholars suggest that Arameans who accepted Christianity were referred to as Syrians by
5856-399: The ensí of A-ra-me " ( Arame is seemingly a genitive form), in the course of a campaign against Simurrum in the northern mountains. Other early references to a place or people of "Aram" have appeared at the archives of Mari (c. 1900 BCE) and at Ugarit (c. 1300 BCE). There is no consensus on the origin and meaning of the word "Aram", one of the most accepted suggestions being that it
5978-439: The "Ahlamû-Arameans" ( Ahlame Armaia ). Shortly afterward, the Ahlamû disappear from Assyrian annals and are replaced by the Arameans ( Aramu, Arimi ). That indicates that the Arameans had risen to dominance amongst the nomads. Among scholars, the relationship between the Akhlame and the Arameans is a matter of conjecture. By the late 12th century BCE, the Arameans had been firmly established in Syria; however, they were conquered by
6100-428: The 7th century AD, when the language became gradually superseded by Arabic . The vernacular dialects of Eastern Old Aramaic, spoken during the Neo-Assyrian , Neo-Babylonian , and Achaemenid Persian empires, developed into various Eastern Middle Aramaic dialects. Among these were the Aramaic dialects of the ancient region of Osrhoene , one of which later became the liturgical language of Syriac Christianity . In
6222-461: The 8th century BC, local Aramaean city-states were gradually conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire . The policy of population displacement and relocation that was applied throughout Assyrian domains also affected Arameans, many of whom were resettled by Assyrian authorities. That caused a wider dispersion of Aramean communities throughout various regions of the Near East, and the range of Aramaic also widened. It gained significance and eventually became
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#17327726409346344-505: The Ahlamû", apparently the region of Jebel Bishri in northern Syria. The emergence of the Arameans occurred during the Bronze Age collapse (1200–900 BCE), which saw great upheavals and mass movements of peoples across the Middle East , Asia Minor , the Caucasus , the East Mediterranean , North Africa , Ancient Iran , Ancient Greece and the Balkans and led to the genesis of new peoples and polities across those regions. The Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1050 BCE), which had dominated
6466-456: The Amorites, a Northwest Semitic -speaking people who had appeared during the 25th century BCE, destroyed the hitherto dominant state of Ebla, founded the powerful state of Mari in the Levant and during the 19th century BCE also Babylonia , in southern Mesopotamia . However, they seem to have been displaced or wholly absorbed by the appearance of a people called the Ahlamu by the 13th century BCE and disappear from history. Ahlamû appears to be
6588-459: The Aramaic language and came to be understood as signs (i.e. logograms ), much like the sign ⟨&⟩ is read as "and" in English and the original Latin et is now no longer obvious. Under the early third-century BCE Parthian Empire , whose government used Koine Greek but whose native language was Parthian , the Parthian language and the Aramaic-derived writing system used for Parthian both gained prestige. This in turn influenced
6710-493: The Aramean groups is derived from excavated objects and temples and by Aramaic literary sources, as well as the names they had. Their religion did not feature any particular deity that could be called an Aramean god or goddess. It appears from their inscriptions and their names that the Arameans worshipped Canaanite and Mesopotamian gods such as Hadad , Sin , Ishtar (whom they called Astarte ), Shamash , Tammuz , Bel and Nergal , and Canaaite - Phoenecian deities such as
6832-415: The Aramean inhabitants of Maaloula and Jubb’adin near Damascus in Syria. The toponym A-ra-mu appears in an inscription at the East Semitic -speaking kingdom of Ebla listing geographical names, and the term Armi , the Eblaite term for nearby Idlib , occurs frequently in the Ebla tablets (c. 2300 BCE). One of the annals of Naram-Sin of Akkad (c. 2250 BCE) mentions that he captured "Dubul,
6954-407: The Aramean tribal polities of the Gambulu , Litau and Puqudu . Akkermans and Schwartz note that in assessing Luwian and Aramean states in ancient Syria, the existing information on the ethnic composition of the regional states in ancient Syria primarily concerns the rulers and so the ethnolingustic situation of the majority of the population of the states is unclear. Furthermore, they mean that
7076-545: The Byzantine authorities and thus secured religious tolerance. The Byzantines extended their rule up to Edessa (1031) but were forced into a general retreat from Syria during the course of the 11th century and were pushed back by the newly-arrived Seljuk Turks , who took Antioch (1084). The later establishment of Crusader states (1098), the Principality of Antioch and the County of Edessa , created new challenges for local Aramaic-speaking Christians, both Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox. The Iron Age culture of Syria
7198-432: The Israelite royal dynasty, the House of David . In the early 11th century BCE, much of Israel came under foreign rule for eight years according to the Book of Judges until Othniel defeated the forces led by Cushan-Rishathaim , who was titled in the Bible as ruler of Aram-Naharaim . Further north, the Arameans gained possession of post-Hittite Hamath on the Orontes River and became strong enough to dissociate with
7320-443: The Near East and Asia Minor, were subjugated by the Neo Assyrian Empire from the reign of Adad-nirari II in 911 BCE, who cleared Arameans and other tribal peoples from the borders of Assyria and began to expand in all directions. The process was continued by Ashurnasirpal II and his son Shalmaneser III , who destroyed many of the small Aramean tribes and conquered Aramean lands for the Assyrians. In 732 BCE, Aram-Damascus fell and
7442-399: The Neo-Assyrian Empire and followed by the gradual linguistic Aramization of non-Aramean populations, created a specific situation in the regions of Assyria proper among ancient Assyrians , who originally spoke the ancient Assyrian language , a dialect of Akkadian, but later accepted Aramaic. Eber-Nari was then ruled by the succeeding Neo-Babylonian Empire, which was initially headed by
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#17327726409347564-597: The Neo-Assyrian Empire in the 8th century BCE, and the native Assyrians and Babylonians began to make a gradual language shift towards Aramaic as the most common language of public life and administration. The Neo Assyrian Empire descended into a series of brutal internal wars from 626 BCE that weakened it greatly. That allowed a coalition of many its former subject peoples ( Babylonians , Chaldeans , Medes , Persians , Parthians , Scythians , Sagartians and Cimmerians ) to attack Assyria in 616 BCE, sack Nineveh in 612 BCE and finally defeat it between 605 and 599 BCE. During
7686-406: The Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian times, as the Persians, seeing themselves as successors of previous empires, maintained Imperial Aramaic as the main language of public life and administration. Provincial administrative structures also remained the same, and the name Eber Nari still applied to the region. The conquests of Alexander the Great marked the beginning of a new era in the history of
7808-447: The Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago unearthed Old Persian tablets, which suggest Old Persian was a written language in use for practical recording and not only for royal display. As a written language , Old Persian is attested in royal Achaemenid inscriptions. It is an Iranian language and as such a member of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family . The oldest known text written in Old Persian
7930-418: The West, particularly in the United States , Canada , Great Britain , Sweden , Australia and Germany . Western Neo-Aramaic , the only surviving modern variety of the Western branch, is now spoken by Muslims and Christians solely in Maaloula and Jubb'adin in the Qalamoun mountains of southwestern Syria. During the early modern period , the study of the Aramaic language, both ancient and modern,
8052-403: The Western Aramaic tendencies found in the otherwise eastern Old Edessan Aramaic gospels (see Middle Aramaic versions of the Bible ). In the 1st century CE, Jews in Roman Judaea primarily spoke Aramaic (besides Koine Greek as the international language of the Roman administration and trade). In addition to the formal, literary dialects of Aramaic based on Hasmonaean and Babylonian there were
8174-401: The administration of Syria and Mesopotamia from the start of their rule. In the third century BCE, Koine Greek overtook Aramaic as the common language in Egypt and Syria. However, a post-Achaemenid Aramaic continued to flourish from Judea , Assyria, Mesopotamia, through the Syrian Desert and into northern Arabia and Parthia . Under the category of post-Achaemenid is Hasmonaean Aramaic,
8296-403: The adoption of the name pahlavi (< parthawi , "of the Parthians") for their use of Aramaic script with logograms. The Sasanian Empire , which succeeded the Parthian Arsacids in the mid-3rd century CE, subsequently inherited/adopted the Parthian-mediated Aramaic-derived writing system for their own Middle Iranian ethnolect as well. That particular Middle Iranian dialect, Middle Persian , i.e.
8418-492: The biblical Book of Proverbs . In addition, current consensus regards the Aramaic portion of the Biblical book of Daniel (i.e., 2:4b-7:28) as an example of Imperial (Official) Aramaic. Achaemenid Aramaic is sufficiently uniform that it is often difficult to know where any particular example of the language was written. Only careful examination reveals the occasional loanword from a local language. A group of thirty Aramaic documents from Bactria has been discovered, now forming
8540-432: The change of /rθ/ to /hl/ ). The phoneme /r/ can also form a syllable peak; both the way Persian names with syllabic /r/ (such as Brdiya ) are rendered in Elamite and its further development in Middle Persian suggest that before the syllabic /r/ , an epenthetic vowel [i] had developed already in the Old Persian period, which later became [u] after labials. For example, Old Persian Vᵃ-rᵃ-kᵃ-a-nᵃ /wr̩kaːna/
8662-485: The chief town of Bît-Adini , also known as Beth Eden. North of Sam'al was the Aramean state of Bit Gabbari, which was sandwiched between the post-Hittite states of Carchemish , Gurgum , Khattina , Unqi and the Georgian state of Tabal . One of their earliest semi-independent kingdoms in northern Mesopotamia was Bît-Bahiâni ( Tell Halaf ). The first certain reference to the Arameans appears in an Assyrian inscription of Tiglath-Pileser I, which refers to subjugating
8784-485: The classification of Imperial Aramaic as an " official language ", noting that no surviving edict expressly and unambiguously accorded that status to any particular language. Frye reclassifies Imperial Aramaic as the lingua franca of Achaemenid territories, suggesting then that the Achaemenid-era use of Aramaic was more pervasive than generally thought. Imperial Aramaic was highly standardised; its orthography
8906-506: The consensus difficult are, among others, the difficult passage DB (IV lines 88–92) from Darius the Great who speaks of a new "form of writing" being made by himself which is said to be "in Aryan ": King Darius says: By the grace of Ahuramazda this is the inscription which I have made. Besides, it was in Aryan (" ariyâ ") script, and it was composed on clay tablets and on parchment. Besides,
9028-441: The contemporary dialect of Babylon to create the language of the standard targums. This combination formed the basis of Babylonian Jewish literature for centuries to follow. Galilean Targumic is similar to Babylonian Targumic. It is the mixing of literary Hasmonaean with the dialect of Galilee . The Hasmonaean targums reached Galilee in the 2nd century, and were reworked into this Galilean dialect for local use. The Galilean Targum
9150-608: The development of differing written standards. The language is considered to have given way to Middle Aramaic by the 3rd century (a conventional date is the rise of the Sasanian Empire in 224 AD). "Ancient Aramaic" refers to the earliest known period of the language, from its origin until it becomes the lingua franca of the Fertile Crescent and Bahrain . It was the language of the Aramaean city-states of Damascus , Guzana , Hamath and Arpad . Distinctive royal inscriptions at Sam'al have been interpreted by some scholars as
9272-556: The development of the language and the history of the Arameans. In modern times, Aramean identity is held mainly by a number of Syriac Christians , from southeastern Turkey and parts of Syria , in the diaspora , especially in Germany and Sweden . In 2014, Israel officially recognised Arameans as a distinctive minority. Questions related to the minority rights of Arameans in some other countries were also brought to international attention. Old Persian Old Persian
9394-414: The diverse influences on their culture. For example, the earliest Syriac legal documents contain legal formulae that could be considered Aramean, but they could also be interpreted as Neo-Assyrian or Neo-Babylonian . After the establishment of Roman Syria in the 1st century BCE, Aramean lands became the frontier region between two empires, Roman and Parthian , and later between their successor states,
9516-605: The dominant language of Islamic prayer and worship but also as a common language of public and domestic life. The acceptance of Arabic language became the main vessel of the gradual Arabization of Aramean communities throughout the Near East and ultimately resulted in their fragmentation and acculturation . Those processes affected not only Islamized Aramaic-speakers but also some of those who remained Christians, which created local communities of Arabic-speaking Christians of Syriac Christian origin who spoke Arabic in their public and domestic life but continued to belong to churches that used
9638-502: The early days of the kingdom, but most are from the first four centuries CE. The language is written in a cursive script that is the precursor to the modern Arabic alphabet . The number of Arabic loan words increases through the centuries, until, in the 4th century, Nabataean merges seamlessly with Arabic. Palmyrene Aramaic is the dialect that was in use in the city state of Palmyra in the Syrian Desert from 44 BC to 274 CE. It
9760-584: The east bank of the Jordan River , the Sinai Peninsula and northern Arabia. Perhaps because of the importance of the caravan trade, the Nabataeans began to use Aramaic in preference to Ancient North Arabian . The dialect is based on Achaemenid with a little influence from Arabic: "l" is often turned into "n", and there are a few Arabic loan words. Some Nabataean Aramaic inscriptions exist from
9882-563: The entire Near East, including the regions inhabited by Arameans. By the late 4th century BCE, two newly created Hellenistic states emerged as main pretenders for regional supremacy: the Seleucid Empire (305–64 BCE) and the Ptolemaic Empire (305–30 BCE). Since earlier times, ancient Greeks commonly used "Syrian" labels as designations for Arameans and heir lands, but it was during the Hellenistic (Seleucid-Ptolemaic) period that
10004-408: The epenthetic vowel mentioned above), where it became /ɡ/ . This suggests that it was really pronounced as [w] . Old Persian has 3 types of grammatical number: singular, dual and plural. Old Persian has three grammatical genders : masculine, feminine and neuter. In contrast, Modern Persian (as well as Middle Persian ) is a genderless language . Old Persian stems: Adjectives are declined in
10126-612: The essential characteristics of the Pahlavi scripts . One of the largest collections of Imperial Aramaic texts is that of the Persepolis fortification tablets, which number about five hundred. Many of the extant documents witnessing to this form of Aramaic come from Egypt , Elephantine in particular (see: Elephantine papyri ). Of them, the best known is the Wisdom of Ahiqar , a book of instructive aphorisms quite similar in style to
10248-520: The first centuries AD, the Christian Bible was translated into Aramaic and by the 4th century, the local Aramaic dialect of Edessa ( Syriac : Urhay ) had evolved into a literary language known as Edessan Aramaic (Syriac: Urhaya ). Since Edessan Aramaic ( Urhaya ) was the primary liturgical language of Aramaic Christianity, it also became known as Edessan Syriac and was later defined by Western scholars as Classical Syriac . This laid
10370-520: The foundation for the term Syriac Christianity . The Eastern Orthodox patriarchates were dominated by Greek episcopate and Greek linguistic and cultural traditions. The use of the Aramaic language in liturgical and literary life among Melkites of Jewish descent persisted throughout the Middle Ages until the 14th century, as exemplified in the use of a specific regional dialect known as Christian Palestinian Aramaic or Palestinian Syriac in
10492-701: The help of remnants of the Assyrian army, in the region for decades before they were finally vanquished. The Babylonians remained masters of the Aramean lands only until 539 BCE, when the Persian Achaemenid Empire overthrew Nabonidus , the Assyrian-born last king of Babylon, who had himself overthrown the Chaldean dynasty in 556 BCE. The Arameans were later conquered by the Achaemenid Empire (539–332 BCE). However, little changed from
10614-507: The inscriptions, clay tablets and seals of the Achaemenid era ( c. 600 BCE to 300 BCE). Examples of Old Persian have been found in what is now Iran , Romania ( Gherla ), Armenia , Bahrain , Iraq , Turkey and Egypt , with the most important attestation by far being the contents of the Behistun Inscription (dated to 525 BCE). In 2007, research into the vast Persepolis Fortification Archive at
10736-547: The lands in which the Ahlamû arose in the Babylonian city of Nippur and even at Dilmun . Shalmaneser I (1274–1245 BCE) is recorded as having defeated Shattuara , King of the Mitanni and his Hittite and Ahlamû mercenaries. In the next century, the Ahlamû cut the road from Babylon to Hattusas . Also, Tukulti-Ninurta I (1244–1208 BCE) conquered Mari , Hanigalbat and Rapiqum on the Euphrates and "the mountain of
10858-675: The language of Persia proper, subsequently also became a prestige language. Following the Muslim conquest of Persia by the Arabs in the seventh-century, the Aramaic-derived writing system was replaced by the Arabic script in all but Zoroastrian usage , which continued to use the name pahlavi for the Aramaic-derived writing system and went on to create the bulk of all Middle Iranian literature in that writing system. The dialects mentioned in
10980-407: The large family of Indo-European languages . The common ancestors of Indo-Iranians came from Central Asia sometime in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE . The extinct and unattested Median language is another Old Iranian language related to Old Persian; both are classified as Western Iranian languages , and many Median names appear in Old Persian texts. The group of Old Iranian languages
11102-410: The last section were all descended from Achaemenid Imperial Aramaic. However, the diverse regional dialects of Late Ancient Aramaic continued alongside them, often as simple, spoken languages. Early evidence for these spoken dialects is known only through their influence on words and names in a more standard dialect. However, the regional dialects became written languages in the 2nd century BCE and reflect
11224-665: The liturgical Aramaic/Syriac language. In the 10th century, the Byzantine Empire gradually reconquered much of northern Syria and upper Mesopotamia, including the cities of Melitene (934) and Antioch (969) and thus liberated local Aramaic-speaking Christian communities from the Muslim rule. Byzantines favoured Eastern Orthodoxy, but the leadership of the Antiochian Oriental Orthodox Patriarchate succeeded in reaching agreement with
11346-577: The material culture shows no distinctions between states dominated by the Luwians or the Arameans. Aramean tribal groups were identified by family names that often began with the Semitic prefix Bit , meaning "house of", such as "Bit Adini". This naming convention was influenced by the writing system used by the coastal Phoenicians . Each tribe's name signified the house or ancestral lineage to which it belonged. The term "Aram" sometimes referred only to
11468-492: The nearby civilisation of Mesopotamia . Despite the fact that Old Persian was written in cuneiform script, the script was not a direct continuation of Mesopotamian tradition and in fact, according to Schmitt, was a "deliberate creation of the sixth century BCE". The origin of the Old Persian cuneiform script and the identification of the date and process of introduction are a matter of debate among Iranian scholars with no general agreement having been reached. The factors making
11590-705: The official language of the Hasmonean dynasty of Judaea (142–37 BCE). It influenced the Aramaic of the Qumran texts, and was the main language of non-biblical theological texts of that community. The major Targums , translations of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic, were originally composed in Hasmonaean. Hasmonaean also appears in quotations in the Mishnah and Tosefta , although smoothed into its later context. It
11712-557: The older word *pārćwa . Also, as Old Persian contains many words from another extinct Iranian language, Median , according to P. O. Skjærvø it is probable that Old Persian had already been spoken before the formation of the Achaemenid Empire and was spoken during most of the first half of the first millennium BCE. Old Persian belongs to the Iranian language family , a branch of the Indo-Iranian language family, itself within
11834-406: The one hand, and Canaanite , which comprises languages further south in the speech area such as Hebrew , Phoenician , and Moabite , on the other hand. All three branches can be subsumed under the more general rubric Northwest Semitic and thus share a common origin. The earliest direct witnesses of Aramaic, which were composed between the 10th and 8th centuries BC, are unanimously subsumed under
11956-547: The opening centuries of the Iron Age , when several newly-emerging chiefdoms decided to use it as a written language . The process coincided with a change from syllabic cuneiform to alphabetic scribal culture and the rise of a novel style of public epigraphy , which was formerly unattested in Syria-Palestine. The language is considered a sister branch of the idiom used in the Bronze-Age city-state of Ugarit , on
12078-661: The region of Damascus and the Anti-Lebanon Mountains , Damascene Aramaic was spoken (deduced mostly from Modern Western Aramaic). Finally, as far north as Aleppo , the western dialect of Orontes Aramaic was spoken. The three languages influenced one another, especially Hebrew and Aramaic. Hebrew words entered Jewish Aramaic (mostly technical religious words but also everyday words like ‘ēṣ "wood"). Vice versa, Aramaic words entered Hebrew (not only Aramaic words like māmmôn "wealth" but Aramaic ways of using words like making Hebrew rā’ûi , "seen" mean "worthy" in
12200-678: The region of Aram was commonly labelled as "Syria", and the Arameans were labelled as "Syrians". When reflecting on traditional influences of Greek terminology on English translations of the Septuagint, American orientalist Robert W. Rogers noted in 1921 that it was unfortunate that the change also affected later English versions. In Greek sources, two writers spoke particularly clearly on the Arameans. Posidonius , born in Apamea , as quoted by Strabo , writes: "Those people whom we Greeks call Syrioi, call themselves Aramaioi". Further, Josephus , who
12322-546: The region, one material culture with "mixed" elements resulted. The material culture appears to be so homogeneous that it "shows no clear distinctions between states dominated by Luwians or Aramaeans". Arameans were mostly defined by their use of the West Semitic Old Aramaic language (1100 BCE – 200 CE), which was first written using the Phoenician alphabet but over time modified to a specifically- Aramaic alphabet . Aramaic first appeared in history during
12444-461: The same as aleph , presumably a glottal stop . Galilean Aramaic, the dialect of Jesus' home region, is only known from a few place names, the influences on Galilean Targumic, some rabbinic literature and a few private letters. It seems to have a number of distinctive features: diphthongs are never simplified into monophthongs. East of the Jordan, the various dialects of East Jordanian were spoken. In
12566-547: The sense of "seemly", which is a loan translation of Aramaic ḥāzê meaning "seen" and "worthy"). The Greek of the New Testament often preserves non-Greek semiticisms , including transliterations of Semitic words: Arameans The Arameans , or Aramaeans ( Old Aramaic : 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀 , Aramayya ; Hebrew : אֲרַמִּים ; Ancient Greek : Ἀραμαῖοι ; Classical Syriac : ܐܪ̈ܡܝܐ , Aramaye , Syriac pronunciation : [ʔɑːrɑːˈmɑːje] ), were
12688-587: The small Aramean states ranged across the northern frontier of Israel: Aram-Sôvah in the Beqaa , Aram-Bêt-Rehob ( Rehov ) and Aram-Ma'akah around Mount Hermon , Geshur in the Hauran , and Aram-Damascus. An Aramean king's account dating at least two centuries later, the Tel Dan stele , was discovered in northern Israel and is famous for being perhaps the earliest non-Israelite extra-biblical historical reference to
12810-445: The storm-god, El , the supreme deity of Canaan, in addition to Anat (‘Atta) and others. The Arameans who lived outside their homelands apparently followed the traditions of the countries in which they settled. The King of Damascus , for instance, employed Phoenician sculptors and ivory-carvers. In Tell Halaf-Guzana, the palace of Kapara , an Aramean ruler (9th century BCE) was decorated with orthostates and with statues that display
12932-477: The surrounding areas. Bilingual texts in Aramaic and the Assyrian dialect of Akkadian are among the earliest examples of Aramaic writing. In the western regions, Aramean states had close contact with Israel, Phoenicia , and northern Arabia . The Phoenician god Baʿalšamem was even incorporated into the Aramean tradition. Identifying distinct elements of the Aramean heritage in later times is challenging because of
13054-476: The term " Old Aramaic ". The early writings exhibit variation and anticipate the enormous linguistic diversity within the Aramaic language group. Despite the variation, they are connected by common literary forms and formulaic expressions. As early as the 8th century BCE, Aramaic competed with the East Semitic Akkadian language and script in Assyria and Babylonia and then spread throughout
13176-459: The term "Syria" was finally defined to designate the regions west of the Euphrates , as opposed to the term " Assyria ", which designated the regions further east. In the 3rd century BCE, various narratives related to the history of earlier Aramean states became accessible to wider audiences after the translation of the Hebrew Bible into the Greek language . Known as Septuagint , the translation
13298-414: The time of Jerome of Stridon (d. 420), Biblical Aramaic was misnamed as "Chaldean" (Chaldaic, Chaldee). That label remained common in early Aramaic studies , and persisted up into the nineteenth century. The " Chaldean misnomer " was eventually abandoned, when modern researchers showed that Aramaic dialect used in Hebrew Bible was not related with ancient Chaldeans and their language. Biblical Aramaic
13420-483: The war against Assyria, hordes of horse-borne Scythian and Cimmerian marauders ravaged through the Levant and all the way into Egypt. As a result of migratory processes, various Aramean groups were settled throughout the ancient Near East, and their presence is recorded in the regions of Assyria , Babylonia , Anatolia , Phoenicia , Palestine , Egypt and Northern Arabia . Population transfers, conducted during
13542-423: Was also called Aram. "Arameans" is merely an appellation of the geographical term Aram given to 1st-millennium BC inhabitants of Syria. At the beginning of the 1st millennium BCE, several Aramean-ruled city-states were established throughout the ancient Near East . The most notable was Aram-Damascus which reached its height in the second half of the 9th century BCE during the reign of King Hazael . During
13664-406: Was based more on historical roots than any spoken dialect, and the inevitable influence of Old Persian gave the language a new clarity and robust flexibility. For centuries after the fall of the Achaemenid Empire (in 331 BCE), Imperial Aramaic or a similar dialect would remain an influence on the various native Iranian languages . Aramaic script and, as ideograms, Aramaic vocabulary would survive as
13786-569: Was born in Jerusalem , defines the regions of "Aram's sons" as the Tranchonitis, Damascus "midway between Palestine and Coelo-Syria", Armenia, Bactria, and the Mesene around Spasini Charax. The ancient Arameans lived in a close relationship with other distinct societies in the region. Throughout much of their history, they were heavily influenced by the cuneiform culture of Mesopotamia and
13908-401: Was conquered by Assyrian King Tiglath-Pileser III . The Assyrians named their Aramean colonies Eber Nari but still used the term "Aramean" to describe many of its peoples. The Assyrians conducted forced deportations of hundreds of thousands of Arameans to both Assyria and Babylonia, where a migrant population already existed. Conversely, the Aramaic language was adopted as the lingua franca of
14030-486: Was created in Alexandria , the capital of Ptolemaic Egypt that was the most important city of the Hellenistic world and was one of the main centres of Hellenization . Influenced by Greek terminology, translators decided to adopt ancient Greek custom of using "Syrian" labels as designations for Arameans and their lands and thus abandon the endonymic (native) terms that were used in the Hebrew Bible. In Septuagint,
14152-701: Was descended from the Arsacid chancery script. In the kingdom of Osroene , centred on Edessa and founded in 132 BCE, Aramaic was the official language, and local dialect gradually developed into a language of wider regional significance, known as the Edessan Aramaic , and later (since the 5th century CE) specifically labeled as the Syriac language . On the upper reaches of the Tigris , East Mesopotamian Aramaic flourished, with evidence from Hatra , Assur and
14274-414: Was initiated among Western scholars. This led to the formation of Aramaic studies as a broader multidisciplinary field, encompassing the study of the cultural and historical heritage of Aramaic. The linguistic and historical aspects of Aramaic studies have been further expanded since the 19th century through archaeological excavations of ancient sites in the Near East . What is known of the religion of
14396-588: Was not considered an authoritative work by other communities, and documentary evidence shows that its text was amended. From the 11th century onwards, once the Babylonian Targum had become normative, the Galilean version became heavily influenced by it. Babylonian Documentary Aramaic is a dialect in use from the 3rd century onwards. It is the dialect of Babylonian private documents, and, from the 12th century, all Jewish private documents are in Aramaic. It
14518-439: Was presumably large; however, knowledge of it is restricted mainly to Old Persian, Avestan , and Median. The first two are the only languages in that group to have left written original texts, while Median is known mostly from loanwords in Old Persian. By the 4th century BCE, the late Achaemenid period , the inscriptions of Artaxerxes II and Artaxerxes III differ enough from the language of Darius' inscriptions to be called
14640-637: Was very common among ancient Greeks, and under their influence, the practice also became common among the Romans and Byzantines. An Arabization process was initiated after the Arab conquest in the 7th century. In the religious sphere of life, Aramaic-speaking Christians (such as Melkites in Palestine) were exposed to Islamization , which created a base for gradual acceptance of the Arabic language not only as
14762-485: Was written in Old Judaean. The Old East Jordanian dialect continued to be used into the 1st century CE by pagan communities living to the east of the Jordan. Their dialect is often then called Pagan Old Palestinian , and it was written in a cursive script somewhat similar to that used for Old Edessan Aramaic. A Christian Old Palestinian dialect may have arisen from the pagan one, and this dialect may be behind some of
14884-582: Was written in a rounded script, which later gave way to cursive Estrangela . Like Nabataean, Palmyrene was influenced by Arabic, but to a much lesser degree. The use of written Aramaic in the Achaemenid bureaucracy also precipitated the adoption of Aramaic-derived scripts to render a number of Middle Iranian languages. Moreover, many common words, including even pronouns, particles, numerals, and auxiliaries, continued to be written as Aramaic "words" even when writing Middle Iranian languages. In time, in Iranian usage, these Aramaic "words" became disassociated from
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