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Jewish Palestinian Aramaic

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jewish Palestinian Aramaic
RegionLevant
Era150 BCE – 1200 CE
Dialects
Aramaic alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3jpa
Glottologgali1269

Jewish Palestinian Aramaic also known as Jewish Western Aramaic or Palestinian Jewish Aramaic was a Western Aramaic language spoken by the Jews during the Classic Era in Judea and the Levant, specifically in Hasmonean, Herodian and Roman Judaea and adjacent lands in the late first millennium BCE, and later in Syria Palaestina and Palaestina Secunda in the early first millennium CE. This language is sometimes called Galilean Aramaic, although that term more specifically refers to its Galilean dialect.

The most notable text in the Jewish Western Aramaic corpus is the Jerusalem Talmud, which is still studied in Jewish religious schools and academically, although not as widely as the Babylonian Talmud, most of which is written in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. There are some older texts in Jewish Western Aramaic, notably the Megillat Taanit: the Babylonian Talmud contains occasional quotations from these. Dead Sea Scroll 4Q246, found in Qumran, is written in this language as well.

There were some differences in the dialects between Judea and Galilee, and most surviving texts are in the Galilean dialect. Michael Sokoloff has published separate dictionaries of the two dialects. A Galilean dialect of Aramaic was probably a language spoken by Jesus.[1]

Jewish Western Aramaic was gradually replaced by Arabic following the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the seventh century.

Grammar

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Orthography

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י, ו, א, ה are used to denote vowels. וו and יי are also used as replacements for their singular counterparts in the middle of words.[2]

Sample Text

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JPA[3] English[3]
בת גבר אביינוס דאתרה The daughter of an important man of the place
לית אפשר לאבילא למיכל מיניה It is impossible for the mourner to eat from it
דחסיר אבר או יתיר אבר Lacking a limb or having an extra limb

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "'Passion' Stirs Interest in Aramaic". National Public Radio. 25 February 2004. Retrieved 3 September 2011. Jesus would have spoken the local dialect, referred to by scholars as Galilean Aramaic, which was the form common to that region, Amar says.
  2. ^ Grammar of Palestinian Jewish Aramaic [Grammar of Palestinian Jewish Aramaic]. Oxford University Press. 1924. p. 11.
  3. ^ a b Sokoloff, Michael (2002). A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine Period [A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine Period] (2nd ed.). Israel (published 1992). p. 33. ISBN 965-226-101-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

Sources

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