| Eastern Aramaic | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution | Fertile Crescent (Iraq, northwesternIran, northern & easternSyria,Southeastern Anatolia),Eastern Arabia[1][2] |
| Linguistic classification | Afro-Asiatic
|
| Subdivisions | |
| Language codes | |
| Glottolog | east2680 |
Eastern Aramaic refers to a group of dialects[8] that evolved historically from the varieties ofAramaic spoken in the core territories of Mesopotamia (modern-dayIraq, southeasternTurkey and parts of northeastern Syria) and further expanded into northernSyria,[9][10]eastern Arabia[11][12] and northwesternIran. This is in contrast to theWestern Aramaic varieties found predominantly in thesouthern Levant, encompassing most parts of modern western Syria andPalestine region. Most speakers areAssyrians (includingChaldean Catholics), although there is a minority ofBavlim Jews andMandaeans who also speakmodern varieties of Eastern Aramaic.[13]
Numbers of fluent speakers range from approximately 300,000 to 575,000, with the main languages beingSuret (220,000 speakers)[14][15][16] andSurayt/Turoyo (250,000 speakers),[17] together with a number of smaller closely related languages with no more than 5,000 to 10,000 speakers between them.
Despite their names, they are not restricted to specific churches; Chaldean Neo-Aramaic being spoken by members of the Chaldean Catholic Church, Assyrian Church of the East, Syriac Orthodox Church, Assyrian Protestant churches, and Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and Turoyo being spoken by members of the Chaldean Catholic Church etc.[18][19] Despite some differences, Assyrian and Chaldean Neo-Aramaic are both colloquially known asSureth amongst speakers.
In addition, there are approximately 25,000 speakers ofJewish varieties, and some 5,000 fluent speakers of theMandaic language[20] among the some 50,000 Mandaeans, an ethno-gnostic minority in Iraq and Iran.
Students of theTalmud will also have a passive mastery ofJewish Babylonian Aramaic, adding hundreds of thousands of users with varying levels of Aramaic mastery.
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Historically, eastern varieties of Aramaic have been more dominant, mainly due to their political acceptance in theNeo-Assyrian Empire andAchaemenid Persian empires. With the later loss of political platforms toGreek andPersian, Eastern Aramaic continued to be used by the population of Mesopotamia.
During theLate Middle Aramaic period, spanning from 300 B.C.E. to 200 C.E., Aramaic diverged into its eastern and western branches.[21]
InEdessa, present-dayUrfa in southeast Turkey, the local variety ofEastern Middle Aramaic known asClassical Syriac had emerged. Between the 1st and 4th centuries AD, it became aliturgical language among theEastern RiteSyriac Christians throughout the Middle East.[22] It was used in thePeshitta and by the poetEphrem the Syrian, as well as in the schools ofEdessa andNisibis. Later, it was adopted by theSaint Thomas Christians in India.
In the region ofBabylonia (modern southern Iraq),rabbinical schools flourished, producing theTargumim andTalmud, making the language a standard of religiousJewish scholarship.
Among theMandaean community in theKhuzestan province ofIran andIraq, another variety of Eastern Aramaic, known asMandaic, became the liturgical language ofMandaeism.
These varieties have widely influenced the less prominentWestern Aramaic dialects of thesouthern Levant, and the three classical languages outlined above have also influenced numerous vernacular varieties of Eastern Aramaic, some of which are spoken to this day, largely by the Assyrians,Mizrahi Jews and Mandaeans (seeNeo-Aramaic languages). Since theMuslim conquest of Persia of the seventh century, most of the population of the Middle East has undergone a gradual but steadylanguage shift toArabic.
However there are still between some 550,000 – 1,000,000 fluent Eastern Neo-Aramaic speakers among the indigenousAssyrians of northern Iraq, northeast Syria, southeastern Turkey and northwestern Iran, as well as small migrant communities in Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Armenia, Georgia, southern Russia and Azerbaijan. Most of these are members of theAssyrian Church of the East,Syriac Orthodox Church,Chaldean Catholic Church,Ancient Church of the East,Assyrian Pentecostal Church andAssyrian Evangelical Church. A further number may have a more sparse understanding of the language, due to pressures in theirhomelands to speakArabic,Turkish,Persian orKurdish, and as a result of thediaspora to the Western World.
The Syriac writers of Qatar themselves produced some of the best and most sophisticated writing to be found in all Syriac literature of the seventh century, but they have not received the scholarly attention that they deserve in the last half century. This volume seeks to redress this underdevelopment by setting the standard for further research in the sub-field of Beth Qatraye studies.
While the East Aramaic Palmyrene language seamlessly supplanted Imperial Aramaic as the language of Palmyra, likely in the second century BCE.…
…Palmyrene was a continuation of Official Aramaic and a close reflection of the spoken language of the Palmyrene region, with eastern Aramaic features….
Sie ist sonst erst wesentlich später in ostaramäischen Dialekten (etwa im Palmyrenischen) bezeugt.
…Palmyrene Aramaic has preserved many old Aramaic features; on the other hand, it also shows isoglosses with the eastern dialects…
It may be akin to the Eastern Aramaic dialect component in Palmyrene, but the regional element there is often eclipsed by the strong presence of an older literary tradition and defies exact dialectal classification (Gzella 2015a: 250-3).
It may just demonstrate that in the course of the evolution of the Aramaic dialects it removed itself from Western Aramaic to a lesser extent than the other Eastern dialects.
Antioch was a major city and the capital of the Syriac-speaking region. From Antioch, the rest of the Syriac-speaking provinces received the Christian message,…
On market days and festivals, Syriac-speaking peasants flocked to Antioch, which indicates that there was lively interaction between Syriac-speaking and Greek-speaking Syrians, thus allowing Antiochene inhabitants to continue to hear Syriac. Furthermore, adding to the general picture, it is thought that the Syriac Peshitta might have been used by Chrysostom (Krupp 1991:75). Based on this, three points can be summarized. (i) The linguistic milieu of Antioch was bilingualism in Aramaic and Greek. (ii) There may have been many bilinguals among both upper-status and lower-status Syrians. (iii) The inhabitants' competence in speaking Greek depends on their social status and, by and large, it is appropriate to assume that upper-status inhabitants spoke Greek as their matrix languages while lower-status inhabitants spoke Aramaic as their matrix languages.
The Persian location and character of the Metropolitan proved to be a source of friction between the Syriac-speaking Christians of Beth Qatraye who naturally looked to their co-linguists back in Mesopotamia.
He was born in the region of Beth Qatraye in Eastern Arabia, a mixed Syriac- and Arabic-speaking region…
The Neo-Aramaic dialects are clearly closely related to the written forms of Aramaic of earlier periods. The Neo-Aramaic subgroups can be correlated broadly with dialectal divisions that are reflected in pre-modern written Aramaic sources from the first millennium CE onwards particularly during Late Antiquity, which are sometimes referred to collectively as 'Middle Aramaic' or 'Late (Antique) Aramaic'. Central Neo-Aramaic, North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic and Neo-Mandaic are related to the eastern branch of premodern Aramaic, e.g. Classical Syriac, Classical Mandaic and Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, whereas Western Neo-Aramaic is related to the western branch, e.g. Jewish and Christian Palestinian Aramaic and Samaritan Aramaic. No Neo-Aramaic subgroup, however, could be considered a direct descendent of the attested forms of the literary pre-modern Aramaic varieties.
Based on interviews with community informants, this paper explores socialization for ingroup identity and endogamy among Assyrians in the United States. The Assyrians descent from the population of ancientAssyria (founded in the 24th century BC), and have lived as alinguistic, political, religious, andethnic minority in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey since the fall of theAssyrian Empire in 608 BC. Practices that maintain ethnic and cultural continuity in theNear East, the United States and elsewhere include language and residential patterns, ethnically basedChristian churches characterized by unique holidays andrites, and culturally specific practices related to life-cycle events andfood preparation. The interviews probe parental attitudes and practices related toethnic identity and encouragement ofendogamy. Results are being analyzed.
a) Old Aramaic from the beginning (through Biblical Aramaic, Nabataean, Palmyrene) down to the established eastern and western branches; b) Middle Aramaic, with two branches, eastern and western; c) Late Aramaic, with the contemporary western (Ma'alula) and eastern branches. This older terminology is still followed by M. Sokoloff in his recent work, A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine Period.'1 A different division, now widely accepted, has been put forward by J. A. Fitzmyer.2 It is as follows: a) Old Aramaic, up to 700 B.C.E.; b) Official Aramaic, 700-300 .c.E.; c) Middle Aramaic, 300 ..E.-200 c.E.; d) Late Aramaic (= Middle Aramaic of Rosenthal's division), with two branches: the eastern branch consisting of Syriac, Mandaic, the Aramaic of the Talmud Babli, the Gaonic Literature and incantation texts found mainly in Nippur; and the western, consisting of Samaritan Aramaic, Christian Palestinian Aramaic, Galilean Aramaic (which some, for example Sokoloff, prefer to call Jewish Palestinian Aramaic) found in the Aramaic portions of the Palestinian Talmud and haggadic midrashim and other sources; e) Modern Aramaic (in its eastern and western [Ma'alula] dialects).
The classical version of Eastern Neo-Aramaic, often called Syriac, emerged in the first centuries after Christ in the theological school of Edessa. It has its own alphabet and serves as a ritual language.