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Introduction to Aramaic

Aramaic (also translated as Aramaic, Aramaic, Aramaic, Aramaic in Chinese) is the language of the Aramaic people, the language in which the Old Testament was written in the latter part of the Bible, and is considered to be the language of the Jews in the time of Jesus Christ. In everyday language, the Gospel of Matthew (the Gospel of Matthew) in the New Testament is written in this language. Some scholars even believe that Jesus Christ preached in this language. It belongs to the Semitic language family and is close to Hebrew and Arabic.

Language introduction

Aramaic language, also known as Aramaic, was the lingua franca of the ancient Middle East and the official language of the Persian Empire. In modern times, it usually refers to a language in Syria. It belongs to the western branch of the Semitic language family of the Semitic language family.

The word Arami or Aram comes from Aram, the son of Shem, the grandson of Noah. Aramaic is 3,000 years old and one of the few ancient languages ​​in the world that has survived for thousands of years.

Aramaic has great significance in the cultural history of the Middle East. Two dialects of the ancient language Akkadian—Assyrian and Babylonian—were widely spoken in the Middle East in the 2,000 years before the 6th century BC, but by the 6th century BC, Aramaic gradually replaced them, It became the common language of the Middle East and later the official language of the Persian Empire. Part of the Old Testament of the Christian Bible was written in Aramaic, and historical legends believe that Jesus also used a dialect of Aramaic.

There are many dialects of Aramaic, but they can be mainly divided into East and West. In some small communities in northern Damascus, Syria, there are still a few people who still use the eastern dialect; in some remote villages in Lebanon, there are also a few people who still use the western dialect.

Aramaic retains more ancient elements than other Semitic languages. For example, in terms of phonetics, the vowel a is common, and the consonants appear frequently. In terms of grammar, passive voice is often expressed by participles or imperative sentences, and pronouns and participles often form a tense. In terms of word formation, it is generally composed of three consonant letters, with vowels added in the middle, and suffixes added depending on the situation. There are many words borrowed from Akkadian and Persian in the vocabulary.

The Aramaic script is a very ancient script, and it is the basis of many scripts in Asia. Its development can be divided into two main periods: (1) the early period, from the 9th to the 7th century BC; (2) the “Golden Age”, that is, Aramaic The period when the language became the lingua franca of the Middle East, when the Aramaic script was the official script of the Persian Empire.

Language family

Aramaic is actually a group of related languages, not a single language. Aramaic’s long history, its wide range of literature and its use by different religious communities are reasons for the division of the language. Only some of the Aramaic dialects are able to communicate, others are not. Some branches of Aramaic now exist under other language names, such as Syriac.

Most Aramaic dialects can be grouped into Eastern or Western dialects, demarcated by the Euphrates or the west bank of the river. Aramaic is a very broad language family, so the current Aramaic language is also called “New Aramaic” for identification. As for members of the Aramaic language that are no longer in use, we can classify them according to their ages, for example: “modern”, “middle generation” and “ancient”. This division from both regions and times is basically enough to allow us to subdivide the languages ​​of this language family.