Hatran Aramaic (Aramaic of Hatra,Ashurian orEast Mesopotamian) designates a MiddleAramaic dialect, that was used in the region ofHatra andAssur in northeastern parts ofMesopotamia (modernIraq), approximately from the 3rd century BC to the 3rd century CE.^[2][3] Its range extended from theNineveh Plains in the centre, up toTur Abdin in the north,Dura-Europos in the west andTikrit in the south.

Most of the evidence of the language comes from inscriptions within the cities dating between 100 BC and the mid-3rd century AD, coinciding withShapur I's destruction of Hatra in 241 AD and Assur in 257 AD.^[4][5] As a result of Hatra being the site with the most attestation,Hatran Aramaic is a more common name. It is attested by inscriptions from various local sites, that were published byWalter Andrae in 1912 and were studied by S. Ronzevalle and P. Jensen. The excavations undertaken by the Iraqi Department of Antiquities brought to light more than 100 new texts, the publication of which was undertaken by F. Safar in the journalSumer. The first four series were the subject of reviews in the journalSyria. The texts range in date from the 2nd or 3rd century BCE to the destruction of the city c. 240 CE; the earliest dated text provides a date of 98 BCE.

For the most part, these inscriptions are short commemorativegraffiti with minimal text. The longest of the engraved inscriptions does not have more than 13 lines. It is therefore difficult to identify more than a few features of theAramaic dialect of Hatra, which shows overall the greatest affinity toSyriac.

The stone inscriptions bear witness to an effort to establish a monumental script. This script is little different from that of theAramaic inscriptions ofAssur (possessing the same triangularš, and the use of the same means to avoid confusion betweenm,s, andq). Theds and thers are not distinguished from one another, and it is sometimes difficult not to confusew andy.

Having conquered the Aramean city-states to the west, theNeo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC) adoptedOld Aramaic as the official language alongside the AssyrianAkkadian language. With theAchaemenid Empire succeeding them and adopting Old Aramaic, it rose to become thelingua franca ofIran,Mesopotamia and theLevant.^[6]

Hatran Aramaic developed through dialectic deviation as well as producing its own script. Various dialects of Aramaic developed around major cities or regions including the sister dialect ofSyriac (city of Edessa),Mandaic (region surrounding the head of thePersian Gulf,Nabataean (from theNegev to the east bank of theJordan River and theSinai Peninsula),Jewish Babylonian Aramaic (Babylon),Palmyrene (Palmyra) and variousPalestinian sub dialects (Palestine). Syriac, Mandaic andChristian Palestinian Aramaic also developed their own variants of the original script which is still employed today byWestern Neo-Aramaic speakers as well as members of the Jewish nation for Hebrew who refer to it as "Ktāḇ Āšūrī" (Assyrian writing) since it was the Assyrian monarchs who promulgated it.^[7]

Hatran Aramaic and Syriac have been heavily influenced by Akkadian, partly due to the proximity to the heartland as well as the native Assyrians having adopted these two dialects. Many commonly used nouns such as month names were burrowed from Akkadian as well as being influenced phonologically, morphologically and syntactically.^[8]

The city ofNisibis came under siege several times during theRoman-Persian Wars. However, in 363 AD the Romans were forced to surrender the city to the Persians and standby as the Christian population was expelled.^[9] StEphrem the Syrian was one of these refugees and ended up settling in Edessa. The city was flourishing with pagans, quite the opposite to his beloved Nisibis which had been a bastion for Syriac-speaking Christians.^[10] As Edessa's demographics shifted to a Christian-majority which used Syriac as the language of worship, the language rose to become the new regional lingua franca. Well over 70 important Syriac writers are known from the gold age of Syriac (5th – 9th centuries), stretching from the Levant and the Sinai to the foothills of theZagros Mountains andQatar.^[11] Combined with the devastation of the cities of Assur and Hatra, Syriac replaced the language of the locals and remained as a major language until its decline following theMongol invasions and conquests and rise of theNeo-Aramaic languages.

With Hatra enjoying great prosperity during the life of the language, the city has by far the most inscriptions with the city of Assur also containing numerous inscriptions. The rest of the evidence is spread sparsely throughout Dura-Europos, Gaddāla, Tikrit, Qabr Abu Naif, Abrat al-Sagira and Sa'adiya.^[4] The surviving corpus which has been published, transliterated and translated consists of commemorative and votive inscriptions, similar to those found in Edessa, Palmyra and among the Nabataean inscriptions. This method usually includes the date of completion of the writing, place, person who commissioned the inscription or statue as well as the scribe's own details on some occasions. Unlike theNeo-Assyrian,Neo-Babylonian and theSyriac scribes of theSasanian realm, the regal year is not included.^[12] Both Assyro-Babylonian and Arabian gods are mentioned in the inscriptions includingAshur,Allat,Bel, Gad (Tyche),Nabu, Nasr, (Apollo),Shamash andSin. ܽWhile both cities also attest the personal names of affluent citizens, the Hatran rulers with distinctlyParthian names are attested only in Hatra.^[13]

The dialect ofHatra is no more consistent than that ofPalmyra in its use ofmatres lectiones to indicate the long vowelsō andī; the pronominal suffix of the 3rd person plural is written indiscriminately, and in the same inscription one findshwn andhn, the quantifierkwl andkl "all", the relative pronoundy andd, and the wordbyš andbš "evil".

The following features are attested:

A weakening ofʿayn; in one inscription, the masculine singular demonstrative adjective is writtenʿdyn (ʿdyn ktbʾ "this inscription") which corresponds toMandaic andJewish Babylonian Aramaichādēn. Similar demonstratives,ʿadī andʿadā, are attested in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic.

• The surnameʾkṣrʾ "the court" (qṣr) and the proper namekṣyʾ, which resemblesNabataeanqṣyw and theSafaiticqṣyt, demonstrate a regressive dissimilation of emphasis, examples of which are found already inOld Aramaic, rather than a loss of the emphasis ofq, which is found inMandaic andJewish Babylonian Aramaic.
• Dissimilation of geminate consonants through n-insertion: the adjectivešappīr "beautiful" is regularly writtenšnpyr; likewise, the divine namegadd "Tyché" is once writtengd, but more commonly appears asgnd. This is a common phenomenon in Aramaic;Carl Brockelmann, however, claims that it is a characteristic feature of the northern dialect to whichArmenian owes its Aramaic loans.

The divine nameNergal, writtennrgl, appears in three inscriptions. The pronunciationnergōl is also attested in theBabylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin, 63b) where it rhymes withtarnəgōl, "cock."

The Hatranb-yld corresponds to the Syriacbēt yaldā "anniversary". Theapocope of the final consonant of the substantivebt in the construct state is not attested in either Old Aramaic or Syriac; it is, however, attested in other dialects such asJewish Babylonian Aramaic andJewish Palestinian Aramaic.

• The perfect: The first person singular of the perfect appears only in one inscription:ʾnʾ ... ktbyt "I ... wrote"; this is the regular vocalization elsewhere among those Aramaic dialects in which it is attested.
• The causative perfect ofqm "demand" should be vocalizedʾēqīm, which is evident from the written formsʾyqym (which appears besideʾqym), the feminineʾyqymt, and the third person plural,ʾyqmw. This detail distinguishes Hatran as well as Syriac and Mandaic from the western Jewish and Christian dialects. The vocalization of the preformative poses the same problem as theHebrewhēqīm.
• The imperfect: The third person of the masculine singular is well attested; it consistently has the preformativel-.

1. In the jussive:lṭb bʿšym "that Baʿl Šemēn may announce it" (Syriacʾaṭeb(b)),lʾ ldbrhn ... bqṭyrʾ "that he not oppress them" (Syriacdəbar baqəṭīrā "to oppress," lit. "to carry away with force").
2. In the indicative:mn dy lšḥqh "whoever strikes him" (Syriacšəḥaq),mn dy lqrhy wlʾ ldkrhy "whoever reads it and does not make mention of it",mn dlʿwl mhkʾ bmšn "whoever goes from here to Mesene",kwl mn dl^cbwr ... wlktwb lʿlyh "whoever passes ... and writes over".
3. The preformativel- is employed identically in the Aramaic ofAssur. The dialect of Hatra is thus further distinguished from Syriac (which uses ann- preformative) and also from Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, in which the use of thel- preformative for the indicative is not consistent.

The distinction between the three states is apparent. As inSyriac, the masculine plural form of the emphatic state has the inflection-ē, written-ʾ. The confusion of this form with that of the construct state may explain the constructionsbnʾ šmšbrk "sons of Š." andbnʾ ddhwn "their cousins." The absolute state is scarcely used:klbn "dogs" anddkyrn "(that they may be) remembered."

The ancientSemitic construction, according to which the counted noun, in the plural, is preceded by a numeral in the construct state, with an inversion of genders, is attested by one inscription:tltt klbn "three dogs." This same construction has been discovered inNabataean:tltt qysrym "the three Caesars."

As inSyriac, the analytical construction of the noun complement is common. The use of the construct state appears to be limited to kinship terms and some adjectives:brykʾ ʿhʾ. In the analytical construction, the definite noun is either in the emphatic state followed byd(y) (e.g.ṣlmʾ dy ... "statue of ...",sprʾ dy brmrynʾ "the scribe of (the god) Barmarēn") or is marked by the anticipatory pronominal suffix (e.g.qnh dy rʿʾ "creator of the earth,"ʿl ḥyyhy d ... ʾḥyhy "for the life of his brother,"ʿl zmth dy mn dy ... "against the hair (Syriaczemtā) of whomever ..."). The complement of the object of the verb is also rendered analytically:...lʾ ldkrhy lnšr qb "do not make mention of N.",mn dy lqrhy lʿdyn ktbʾ "whoever reads this inscription."

Likewise, the particled(y) can have a simple declarative meaning:...lʾ lmr dy dkyr lṭb "(a curse against whomever) does not say, 'may he be well remembered'" which can be compared withlʾ lmr dy dkyr.

Practically all of the known Hatran words are found inSyriac, including words ofAkkadian origin, such asʾrdklʾ "architect" (Syriacʾardiklā), andParthian professional nouns such aspšgrybʾ /pzgrybʾ "inheritor of the throne" (Syriacpṣgrybʾ); three new nouns, which appear to denote some religious functions, are presumably of Iranian origin:hdrpṭʾ (which Safar compares with theZoroastrian Middle Persianhylptʾhērbed "teacher-priest"), and the enigmatic termsbrpdmrkʾ andqwtgd/ryʾ.

Hatran script Hatran Aramaic script
Script type	Abjad
Period	c.98 BCE — c.257 AD
Related scripts
Parent systems	Proto-Sinaitic alphabet Phoenician alphabet Aramaic alphabet Hatran script
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Hatr(127), ​Hatran
Unicode
Unicode alias	Hatran
Unicode range	U+108E0–U+108FF Final Accepted Script Proposal

TheHatran alphabet is the script used to write Hatran Aramaic, and many inscriptions of this alphabet could be found atHatra, an ancient city in northernIraq built by theSeleucid Empire and also used by theParthian Empire, but subsequently destroyed by theSassanid Empire in 241 AD.Assur also has several inscriptions which came to an end following its destruction by the Sasanians in 257 AD while the rest of the inscriptions are spread sparsely throughoutDura-Europos, Gaddala,Tur Abdin, Tikrit, Sa'adiya and Qabr Abu Naif.^[4] Many of the contemporary ruins were destroyed byIslamic State of Iraq and the Levant in early 2015. It was encoded in the Unicode Standard 8.0 with support fromUC Berkeley's Script Encoding Initiative.

The script is written from right to left, as is typical of Aramaic scripts and of most abjads. Numerals are also written from right to left (bigger place value on the right), and there are two known punctuation marks as well. Some common ligatures also exist, and they do not appear to be necessary, and are rather just a shorthand form of writing. Some 600 texts are known to exist.^[14]

The alphabet consists of the letters listed in the following table. Ligatures have been used in certain inscriptions, although it appears to be optional.^[14]

The Hatran (Ashurian) script was added to theUnicode Standard in June, 2015 with the release of version 8.0.

The Unicode block for this script is U+108E0–U+108FF:

• Aramaic language
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