Aramaic

Aramaic is a Northwest Semitic language that started in the ancient area of Syria. Over many years, it spread to places such as Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Arabia. People have been using Aramaic for speaking and writing for over 3,000 years.

This language was very important for big empires like the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Neo-Babylonian Empire, and Achaemenid Empire. It was also used in important religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Gnosticism for worship and learning. Even today, some people still speak modern kinds of Aramaic.

Aramaic is part of the Semitic language family, which includes languages like Hebrew. It uses a special writing system called the Aramaic alphabet, which helped create other writing systems such as the Hebrew alphabet and the Arabic alphabet. Some of the earliest writings in Aramaic are from the 11th century BC, making it one of the earliest languages to be written down. Many believe that Jesus of Nazareth spoke Aramaic in his daily life.

Name

In 1679, a German teacher named Johann Wilhelm Hilliger noticed that Chaldean, Syriac, and Samaritan languages were all connected as "Aramaic." Later, other teachers agreed. In 1807, a teacher named Anton Theodor Hartmann explained that Aramaic existed long before the Chaldeans arrived and should not be called "Chaldean." He also said "Syriac" was not a different language from Aramaic.

In 1819–1821, a teacher named Ulrich Friedrich Kopp wrote a book about old writings. He said other teachers were wrong to call all old writings Phoenician, because they ignored the Arameans. He found that some words on an old stone matched Aramaic words in old books. Ancient writers like Josephus and Strabo said that the "Syrians" called themselves "Arameans." The old Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible often used the word "Syria" where the Hebrew Bible used "Aramean."

Aramaic has two kinds of names: ones used by its speakers and ones used by others. The speakers’ names come from the same root as the name of the ancient Arameans. In ancient Greek, Aramaic was often called the "Syrian language" because of the region of Syria. The word "Hebrew" in old Greek texts usually meant Hebrew, not Aramaic.

History

Old Aramaic was the language of the ancient Aramean tribes. By around 1000 BC, the Arameans had kingdoms in parts of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, and southern Mesopotamia (Iraq). Aramaic became important under the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC). The empire adopted Aramaic as a common language, spreading its use across Mesopotamia, the Levant, parts of Asia Minor, the Arabian Peninsula, and Ancient Iran.

The scribes of the Neo-Assyrian Empire used Aramaic. This practice continued with the Neo-Babylonian Empire (605–539 BC) and later the Achaemenid Empire (539–330 BC). Highly standardized written Aramaic became the common language for public life, trade, and commerce throughout the Achaemenid Empire. Wide use of written Aramaic led to the adoption of the Aramaic alphabet and some Aramaic words in Pahlavi scripts, used by several Middle Iranian languages.

Biblical Aramaic was used in parts of the Hebrew Bible, including Daniel and Ezra. It was the language of Jesus, who spoke the Galilean dialect, and of the Jerusalem Talmud, Babylonian Talmud, and Zohar. Some variants of Aramaic remain as sacred languages for certain religious groups. Classical Syriac is used by several Christian communities. Neo-Aramaic languages are still spoken today by many communities, including Assyrians, Mizrahi Jews, and Mandaeans, with the main languages being Suret and Turoyo. Western Neo-Aramaic persists in only two villages in western Syria.

Periodization

Scholars have proposed different ways to divide the history of Aramaic into periods, based on language, time, and place. Commonly used types of periodization include those by Klaus Beyer and Joseph Fitzmyer.

Klaus Beyer's periodization:

• Old Aramaic, from the earliest records to around 200 AD
• Middle Aramaic, from around 200 AD to around 1200 AD
• Modern Aramaic, from around 1200 AD to today

Joseph Fitzmyer's periodization:

• Old Aramaic, from the earliest records to around 700 BC
• Official Aramaic, from around 700 BC to around 200 BC
• Middle Aramaic, from around 200 BC to around 200 AD
• Late Aramaic, from around 200 AD to around 700 AD
• Modern Aramaic, from around 700 AD to today

Old Aramaic

Main article: Old Aramaic

Aramaic's long history and wide use led to many different varieties, sometimes considered dialects but now distinct languages. The more widely spoken Eastern Aramaic languages are mainly used by Assyrian, Mandean, and Mizrahi Jewish communities in Iraq, northeastern Syria, northwestern Iran, and southeastern Turkey. The endangered Western Neo-Aramaic language is spoken by small Christian and Muslim communities in the Anti-Lebanon mountains.

The term "Old Aramaic" describes the language from its first known use until around the rise of the Sasanian Empire (224 AD). This covers over thirteen centuries of development. Written Aramaic likely dates from the 11th century BC, established by the 10th century.

The central phase was its official use by the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Achaemenid Empires. Before this, "Ancient Aramaic" saw the language develop from being spoken in Aramean city-states to become a major means of communication in diplomacy and trade across Mesopotamia, the Levant, and Egypt. After the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, local languages became more prominent, leading to the divergence of Aramaic and the development of different written standards.

Ancient Aramaic

See also: Samalian language

"Ancient Aramaic" refers to the earliest period of the language, from its origin until it became the common language of the Fertile Crescent. It was the language of Aramean city-states like Damascus, Hamath, and Arpad.

Inscriptions from the 10th century BC show the earliest use of the language, mostly in diplomatic documents between Aramean city-states. The alphabet was based on the Phoenician alphabet. Over time, a more refined alphabet developed in eastern regions. With Aramean migration eastward, the western part of Assyria became bilingual in Akkadian and Aramaic by the mid-9th century BC. As the Neo-Assyrian Empire conquered Aramean lands west of the Euphrates, Tiglath-Pileser III made Aramaic the empire's second official language, eventually replacing Akkadian.

From 700 BC, the language spread in all directions but lost much of its unity. Different dialects emerged in Assyria, Babylonia, the Levant, and Egypt. Around 600 BC, the Canaanite king Adon used Aramaic to write to an Egyptian Pharaoh.

Imperial Aramaic

Main article: Imperial Aramaic

Around 500 BC, after the Achaemenid (Persian) conquest of Mesopotamia under Darius I, Aramaic was adopted by the conquerors as the language for written communication across the empire. This use of a single official language helped the Achaemenids manage their vast empire. Imperial Aramaic was highly standardized, with its writing based more on historical roots than any spoken dialect. Persian influence gave the language clarity and flexibility. For centuries after the fall of the Achaemenid Empire (in 330 BC), Imperial Aramaic influenced various native Iranian languages. Aramaic script and vocabulary survived as essential features of the Pahlavi scripts.

One of the largest collections of Imperial Aramaic texts is from the Persepolis Administrative Archives, with about five hundred documents. Many extant documents come from Egypt, especially Elephantine. The best-known is the Story of Ahikar, similar in style to the biblical Book of Proverbs. The Aramaic part of the Book of Daniel (2:4b–7:28) is considered an example of Imperial Aramaic.

Achaemenid Aramaic is so uniform that it's often hard to tell where any particular example was written. Only careful examination reveals occasional loan words from local languages.

A group of 30 Aramaic documents from Bactria was discovered, and an analysis was published in 2006. The texts, written on leather, show the use of Aramaic in the 4th century BC Achaemenid administration of Bactria and Sogdia.

Biblical Aramaic

Biblical Aramaic is the Aramaic found in four sections of the Old Testament:

• Ezra – documents from the Achaemenid period (5th century BC) about the restoration of the temple in Jerusalem.
• Daniel – five tales and an apocalyptic vision.
• Jeremiah 10:11 – a single sentence in the middle of a Hebrew text against idolatry.
• Genesis – translation of a Hebrew place-name.

Biblical Aramaic is a mixed dialect. It is thought that some material originated in both Babylonia and Judaea before the fall of the Achaemenid dynasty. Biblical Aramaic posed challenges for early biblical scholars. The label "Chaldean" was used until modern analysis showed it was unrelated to ancient Chaldeans.

Post-Achaemenid Aramaic

The fall of the Achaemenid Empire and its replacement by Alexander the Great and his Hellenistic successors marked a turning point. During the early post-Achaemenid era, public use of Aramaic continued but shared space with the newly introduced Greek language. By 300 BC, all main Aramaic-speaking regions were under the Seleucid Empire, which promoted Hellenistic culture and favored Greek as the main language. During the 3rd century BC, Greek overtook Aramaic in many areas of public communication, especially in Hellenized cities. However, Aramaic continued among the upper classes and local authorities, along with Greek. Post-Achaemenid Aramaic, similar to that of the Achaemenid period, was used until the 2nd century BC.

By the end of the 2nd century BC, several variants of Post-Achaemenid Aramaic emerged with regional features. One was Hasmonaean Aramaic, the official language of Hasmonaean Judaea (142–37 BC), alongside Hebrew. It influenced Biblical Aramaic of the Qumran texts and was the main language of non-biblical theological texts. The major Targums, translations of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic, were originally composed in Hasmonaean Aramaic. It also appears in quotations in the Mishnah and Tosefta, though adjusted to its later context. It is written differently from Achaemenid Aramaic, with an emphasis on spelling as words are pronounced.

The use of written Aramaic in the Achaemenid bureaucracy led to the adoption of Aramaic-derived scripts for Middle Iranian languages. Many common words—including pronouns, particles, numerals, and auxiliaries—were written as Aramaic "words" even when writing Middle Iranian languages. Over time, these Aramaic "words" became signs, much like the symbol '&' is read as "and" in English.

Under the early 3rd-century BC Parthian Arsacids, whose government used Greek but whose native language was Parthian, the Parthian language and its Aramaic-derived writing system gained prestige. This led to the adoption of the name 'pahlavi'.

Nabataean Aramaic was the written language of the Arab kingdom of Nabataea, with its capital at Petra. The kingdom controlled regions east of the Jordan River, the Negev, the Sinai Peninsula, and northern Hijaz, supporting a wide trade network. The Nabataeans used imperial Aramaic for written communications, rather than their native Arabic. Nabataean Aramaic developed from Imperial Aramaic, with some Arabic influence: "l" often turned into "n", and there are some Arabic loanwords. Arabic influence increased over time. Some Nabataean Aramaic inscriptions date from the kingdom's early days, but most are from the first four centuries AD. The language was written in a cursive script that was the precursor to the Arabic alphabet. After annexation by the Romans in 106 AD, most of Nabataea became part of the province of Arabia Petraea, and the Nabataeans turned to Greek for written communications, leading to a decline in Aramaic use.

Palmyrene

Main article: Palmyrene inscriptions

Palmyrene Aramaic was used in the multicultural city-state of Palmyra in the Syrian Desert from 44 BC to 274 AD. It was written in a rounded script, which later became a cursive Estrangela. Like Nabataean, Palmyrene was influenced by Arabic, but to a lesser degree.

Eastern dialects

Main article: Eastern Aramaic languages

In eastern regions (from Mesopotamia to Persia), dialects like Palmyrene Aramaic and Arsacid Aramaic merged with regional dialects, creating languages with roots in both Achaemenid and regional Aramaic.

In the Kingdom of Osroene, founded in 132 BC and centered in Edessa (Urhay), the regional dialect became the official language: Edessan Aramaic (Urhaya), later known as Classical Syriac. On the upper reaches of the Tigris, East Mesopotamian Aramaic flourished, with evidence from regions like Hatra and Assur.

Tatian the Assyrian (or Syrian), author of the gospel harmony the Diatessaron, came from Adiabene (Syr. Beth-Hadiab), and may have written his work (172 AD) in East Mesopotamian rather than Classical Syriac or Greek. In Babylonia, the regional dialect was used by the Jewish community, Jewish Old Babylonian (from around 70 AD). This everyday language came under the influence of Biblical Aramaic and Babylonian Targumic.

The written form of Mandaic, the language of Mandaeism, descended from the Arsacid chancery script.

Western dialects

Main article: Western Aramaic languages

The western regional dialects of Aramaic followed a similar path to those in the east. They are quite different from eastern dialects and Imperial Aramaic. Aramaic coexisted with Canaanite dialects, eventually replacing Phoenician in the 1st century BC and Hebrew around the 4th century AD.

The form of Late Old Western Aramaic used by the Jewish community is best known as Jewish Old Palestinian. Its oldest form is Old East Jordanian, probably from the region of Caesarea Philippi. This is the dialect of the oldest manuscript of the Book of Enoch (around 170 BC). The next phase is called Old Judaean, lasting into the 2nd century AD. Old Judaean literature is found in inscriptions, personal letters, preserved quotations in the Talmud, and receipts from Qumran. Josephus' first edition of his The Jewish War was written in Old Judaean.

The Old East Jordanian dialect continued to be used into the 1st century AD by pagan communities east of the Jordan. Their dialect is often called Pagan Old Palestinian, written in a cursive script similar to that used for Old Syriac. A Christian Old Palestinian dialect may have arisen from the pagan one, and this dialect may be behind some Western Aramaic features in the otherwise eastern Old Syriac gospels (see Peshitta).

Languages during Jesus' lifetime

Further information: Language of Jesus

It is generally believed that in the 1st century, Jews in Judea mainly spoke Aramaic, with fewer using Hebrew as a first language, though many learned Hebrew for religious purposes. Koine Greek was the lingua franca of the Near East in trade, among Hellenized classes, and in Roman administration. Latin, the language of the Roman army and higher administration, had little impact on the linguistic landscape.

In addition to formal, literary dialects of Aramaic based on Hasmonean and Babylonian, there were several colloquial Aramaic dialects spoken in the southern Levant. Seven Western Aramaic varieties were spoken around Judea in Jesus' time. They were likely distinct but mutually intelligible. Old Judaean was the main dialect of Jerusalem and Judea. The Ein Gedi region spoke the Southeast Judaean dialect. Samaritan Aramaic was different; it merged certain sounds as a glottal stop, keeping only one in initial position before the vowel a. Galilean Aramaic, the dialect of Jesus' home region, is known from a few place names, influences on Galilean Targumic, some rabbinic literature, and a few private letters. It seems to have distinctive features like the collapse of certain sounds and the maintenance of diphthongs. In Transjordan, various dialects of East Jordanian Aramaic were spoken. In Damascus and the Anti-Lebanon Mountains, Damascene Aramaic was spoken (mostly deduced from Modern Western Aramaic). Finally, as far north as Aleppo, the western dialect of Orontes Aramaic was spoken.

The three languages, especially Hebrew and Aramaic, influenced each other through loanwords and semantic loans. Hebrew words entered Jewish Aramaic. Most were technical religious words, but some were everyday words like עץ ʿēṣ "wood". Conversely, Aramaic words, such as māmmôn "wealth", were borrowed into Hebrew, and Hebrew words acquired additional meanings from Aramaic. For example, Hebrew: ראוי, romanized: rāʾûi, lit. 'seen' borrowed the sense "worthy, seemly" from Aramaic ḥzî "seen, worthy".

New Testament Greek preserves some Semiticisms, including transliterations of Semitic words. Some are Aramaic, like talitha (ταλιθα), representing the Aramaic noun ṭalīṯā, and others may be either Hebrew or Aramaic like Rabbouni (Ραββουνει), meaning "my master/great one/teacher" in both languages. Other examples:

• "Talitha kumi" (טליתא קומי)
• "Ephphatha" (אתפתח)
• "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" (?אלהי, אלהי, למה שבקתני)

The 2004 film The Passion of the Christ uses Aramaic for much of its dialogue, reconstructed by scholar William Fulco, S.J. Where appropriate words in first-century Aramaic were unknown, he used Aramaic from Daniel and 4th-century Syriac and Hebrew as a basis.

Middle Aramaic

During the Late Middle Aramaic period, from 300 BCE to 200 CE, Aramaic split into eastern and western branches. During this time, the nature of various Aramaic dialects began to change. The descendants of Imperial Aramaic ceased to be living languages, and eastern and western regional dialects started to develop significant new literatures. Unlike many dialects of Old Aramaic, much is known about the vocabulary and grammar of Middle Aramaic.

Eastern Middle Aramaic

The dialects of Old Eastern Aramaic continued in ancient Assyria, Babylon, and the Achaemenid Empire as written languages using various Aramaic scripts. Eastern Middle Aramaic includes Classical Mandaic, Hatran, Jewish Babylonian Aramaic dialects, and Classical Syriac.

Syriac Aramaic

Main article: Syriac language

Avūo·nə đə·Vē·shəmēiā

The Lord's Prayer, Avūo·nə đə·Vē·shəmēyā, Reading in Eastern variant of Syriac

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Abun D'Bashmayo

The Lord's Prayer, Abun D'Bashmayo, recited in Western variant of Syriac

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Syriac Aramaic (also "Classical Syriac") is the literary, liturgical, and often spoken language of Syriac Christianity. It originated in the 1st century in the region of Osroene, centered in Edessa, but its golden age was the 4th to 8th centuries. This period began with the translation of the Bible into the language: the Peshitta, and the masterful prose and poetry of Ephrem the Syrian. Classical Syriac became the language of Eastern Christianity and missionary activity spread Syriac from Mesopotamia and Persia, into Central Asia, India, and China.

Jewish Babylonian Aramaic

Main article: Jewish Babylonian Aramaic

Jewish Middle Babylonian is the language used by Jewish writers in Babylonia between the 4th and 11th century. It is most commonly identified with the language of the Babylonian Talmud (completed in the seventh century) and of post-Talmudic Geonic literature, the most important cultural products of Babylonian Judaism. The most important epigraphic sources for the dialect are the hundreds of incantation bowls written in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic.

Mandaic Aramaic

Main article: Mandaic language

Classical Mandaic, used as a liturgical language by the Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran, is a sister dialect to Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, though linguistically and culturally distinct. It is the language in which the Mandaeans' gnostic religious literature was composed. It is characterized by a highly phonetic orthography and does not use vowel diacritics.

Western Middle Aramaic

The dialects of Old Western Aramaic continued with Nabataean, Jewish Palestinian (in Hebrew "square script"), Samaritan Aramaic (in the Old Hebrew script), and Christian Palestinian (in Syriac Estrangela script). Of these four, only Jewish Palestinian continued as a written language.^{[clarification needed]}

Samaritan Aramaic

Samaritan Aramaic is earliest attested by the documentary tradition of the Samaritans that can be dated back to the 4th century. Its modern pronunciation is based on the form used in the 10th century.

Roman Judea

Main article: Jewish Palestinian Aramaic

In 135, after the Bar Kokhba revolt, many Jewish leaders, expelled from Jerusalem, moved to Galilee. The Galilean dialect thus rose from obscurity to become the standard among Jews in the west. This dialect was spoken in the surrounding region as well. It is the linguistic setting for the Jerusalem Talmud (completed in the 5th century), Palestinian targumim (Jewish Aramaic versions of scripture), and midrashim (biblical commentaries and teaching). The standard vowel pointing for the Hebrew Bible, the Tiberian system (7th century), was developed by speakers of the Galilean dialect of Jewish Middle Palestinian. Classical Hebrew vocalisation, therefore, in representing the Hebrew of this period, probably reflects the contemporary pronunciation of this Aramaic dialect.

Middle Judaean Aramaic, the descendant of Old Judaean Aramaic, was no longer the dominant dialect, and was used only in southern Judaea (the variant Engedi dialect continued throughout this period). Likewise, Middle East Jordanian Aramaic continued as a minor dialect from Old East Jordanian Aramaic. The inscriptions in the synagogue at Dura-Europos are either in Middle East Jordanian or Middle Judaean.

Christian Aramaic in the Levant

Main article: Christian Palestinian Aramaic

This was the language of the Christian Melkite (Chalcedonian) community, predominantly of Jewish descent, in Palestine, Transjordan and Sinai from the 5th to the 8th century. As a liturgical language, it was used up to the 13th century. It is also been called "Melkite Aramaic", "Syro-Palestinian" and "Palestinian Syriac". The language itself comes from Old Western Aramaic, but its writing conventions were based on the Aramaic dialect of Edessa, and it was heavily influenced by Greek. For example, the name Jesus, Syriac īšū‘, is written īsūs, a transliteration of the Greek form, in Christian Palestinian.

Modern Aramaic

Main article: Neo-Aramaic languages

As the Western Aramaic dialects of the Levant have become nearly extinct in non-liturgical usage, the most prolific speakers of Neo-Aramaic languages in the 21st century are Eastern Aramaic speakers, the most numerous being the Central Neo-Aramaic and Northeastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) speakers of Mesopotamia. This includes speakers of the Assyrian (235,000 speakers) and Chaldean (216,000 speakers) varieties of Suret, and Turoyo (112,000 to 450,000 speakers). Having largely lived in remote areas as insulated communities for over a millennium, the remaining speakers of modern Aramaic dialects, such as the Arameans of the Qalamoun Mountains, Assyrians, Mandaeans and Mizrahi Jews, escaped the linguistic pressures experienced by others during the large-scale language shifts that saw the proliferation of other tongues among those who previously did not speak them, most recently the Arabization of the Middle East and North Africa by Arabs beginning with the early Muslim conquests of the seventh century.

Modern Eastern Aramaic

Main articles: Central Neo-Aramaic, Northeastern Neo-Aramaic, and Neo-Mandaic

Spoken Assyrian Neo-Aramaic

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Modern Eastern Aramaic exists in a wide variety of dialects and languages. There is significant difference between the Aramaic spoken by Assyrians, Mizrahi Jews, and Mandaeans, with mutually unintelligible variations within each of these groups.

The Christian varieties of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) are often called "Assyrian", "Chaldean" or "Eastern Syriac", and are spoken by the Assyrians in northern Iraq, northeast Syria, southeast Turkey, northwest Iran, and in the diaspora. However, they also have roots in numerous previously unwritten local Aramaic varieties and, in some cases, even contain Akkadian influences. These varieties are not purely the direct descendants of the language of Ephrem the Syrian, which was Classical Syriac.

The Judeo-Aramaic languages are now mostly spoken in Israel, and most are facing extinction. The Jewish varieties that have come from communities that once lived between Lake Urmia and Mosul are not all mutually intelligible. In some places, for example Urmia, Christian Assyrians and Mizrahi Jews speak mutually unintelligible varieties of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic in the same place. In others, the Nineveh Plains around Mosul for example, the varieties of these two ethnicities are similar enough to allow conversation.

Modern Central Neo-Aramaic, being in between Western Neo-Aramaic and Northeastern Neo-Aramaic, is generally represented by Turoyo, the language of the Assyrians/Syriacs of Tur Abdin. A related Neo-Aramaic language, Mlaḥsô, has recently become extinct.

Mandaeans living in the Khuzestan province of Iran and scattered throughout Iraq, speak Neo-Mandaic. It is quite distinct from any other Aramaic variety. Mandaeans number some 50,000–75,000 people, but it is believed Neo-Mandaic may now be spoken fluently by as few as 5,000 people, with other Mandaeans having varying degrees of knowledge.

Modern Western Aramaic

Main article: Western Neo-Aramaic

Very little remains of Western Aramaic. Its only remaining vernacular is Western Neo-Aramaic, which is still spoken in the Aramean villages of Maaloula and Jubb'adin on Syria's side of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains, as well as by some people who migrated from these villages, to Damascus and other larger towns of Syria. Bakh'a was completely destroyed during the Syrian civil war and all the survivors fled to other parts of Syria or to Lebanon. All these speakers of modern Western Aramaic are fluent in Arabic as well. Other Western Aramaic languages, like Jewish Palestinian Aramaic and Samaritan Aramaic, are preserved only in liturgical and literary usage.

Geographic distribution

During the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires, Arameans moved to new places like Babylonia and parts of Assyria. These empires used a special form of Aramaic for important work. Later, the Achaemenid Empire kept this, helping Aramaic spread across western Asia, Anatolia, the Caucasus, and Egypt.

Even after the Rashidun Caliphate and Muslim conquests, Arabic became the main language in the Near East. But Aramaic is still used today by some local Christians and Jews. It is spoken in parts of northern Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran, and in communities in Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Russia. Some people use Aramaic in religious services. Though many now speak Arabic, Aramaic is still used in some places and by certain groups.

Writing system

The earliest Aramaic alphabet came from the Phoenician alphabet. Over time, Aramaic made its own special "square" style. This style was also used for writing other languages, like the Hebrew alphabet. It is the writing system used for Biblical Aramaic and other Jewish writing in Aramaic. Christian communities used a different writing system called the Syriac alphabet. A changed version of the Aramaic alphabet, the Mandaic alphabet, is used by the Mandaeans.

Some special groups used their own versions of the Aramaic alphabet long ago: the Nabataean alphabet in Petra and the Palmyrene alphabet in Palmyra. Today, Turoyo is sometimes written using the Latin script.

Sample texts

Here are some examples of the Aramaic language from the Bible.

The first example shows part of the story of the Three Wise Men from the book of Matthew, chapter 2, verses 1–4, written in Classical Syriac (Eastern accent), Christian Palestinian Aramaic, and Suret (Swadaya).

The second example shows a verse from the end of Matthew, chapter 28, verse 16, written in Classical Syriac (Eastern accent), Western Neo-Aramaic, Turoyo, and Suret (Swadaya).

Phonology

Each type of Aramaic has its own special way of speaking. Aramaic can make between 25 and 40 different sounds. Some modern ways of speaking Aramaic have lost certain strong sounds and have picked up sounds from nearby languages like Arabic, Azerbaijani, Kurdish, Persian, and Turkish.

Vowels

Like most languages related to Aramaic, it uses three main groups of vowels:

• Open a-vowels
• Close front i-vowels
• Close back u-vowels

These groups stay mostly the same, but how each vowel sounds can change a little depending on the letters around it.

Consonants

The letters used to write Aramaic have twenty-two symbols, all of which stand for consonants. Some of these letters can make two or three different sounds.

Aramaic has special strong consonants made by pulling the root of the tongue back slightly while saying them. These include sounds like the "ch" in the Scottish "loch".

In addition to these, Aramaic has nasal sounds like m and n, and soft sounds like r, l, y, and w.

Grammar

Aramaic, like other Semitic languages, builds words from a root of consonants. For example, the root k-t-b means "writing". We can add vowels and other consonants to make new words such as "handwriting", "books", or "I wrote".

Aramaic nouns and adjectives change to show if they are masculine or feminine, singular or plural, and whether they are definite or indefinite. Verbs change to show who is doing the action and whether it has happened or will happen. There are several ways to form verbs, each with a slightly different meaning.