Forum Name: Assyrian Forums - Peshitta
Message URL: https://www.atour.com/cgi-bin/forums/board.cgi?az=read_count&om=948&forum=peshitta&viewmode=all
Message ID: 5

#5, RE: Compendious
Posted by Paul Younan on Mar-20-2002 at 08:45 PM

In response to message #4

» Last edited by Paul Younan on Mar-20-2002 at 08:47 PM (GMT3)

Shlama Akhi Iakov,

>Which had the following statement.
>There are two major dialects, Western
>(also refered to as palastinian
>dialectŒ (the dialect of EESHO
>(Jesus)) and Eastern (also referred
>to as "Syriac dialect" ("Syriac"
>is a dialect of Aramaic,
>NOT a language. Syriac also
>has Akkadian influences)). To say
>modern aramaic or modern syriac,
>you must be consistent and
>say modern hebrew, modern english,
>modern greek, etc. for all
>languages follow the law of
>evolution.
>
>See why I am confused?

Yes - this is a very common misconception.

"Eastern Aramaic" and "Western Aramaic" refer to 2 distinct dialects which formed after the Aramaic-speaking churches split up in the 5th century AD onwards. They did not interact with each other and so two different major dialects formed, one used by the Western Churches (SOC, Maronite, Melchite, etc.) and one used by the CoE in the Eastern regions (Persia, Mesopotamia, etc.)

Before the 5th century Christological wars, there was no such distinction as "Eastern" and "Western" Aramaic.

Therefore, some people think that since "Western" Aramaic became the speech of the Levant, Syria, etc. after the 5th century - that Meshikha must have spoken this dialect.

The fact is that the Galilean speech at the time of Christ (400 years before the Christological wars) was heavily influenced by the Assyrian/Babylonian speech of the inhabitants of Samaria and Galilee (2 Kings 17:24).

The Galileans and the Samarians were/are Assyrians and Babylonians.

This is why their speech was different than the 'Hebrew' dialect of Aramaic that was used in Judea.

Meshikha and the Apostles were recognized by their 'Assyrian' speech.

This is why the Peshitta does not need to translate things like 'Talitha Qumi' but why it does need to translate things like 'Khaqel-Dama.'

>
>Also do you know where I
>can find a serto vowel
>chart?
>

In our Eastern tradition, a system for marking vowels in Aramaic with dots above and below letters had developed. This system was later adopted and adapted by the Masoretes to mark their Hebrew texts and by the Arabs to mark their Arabic texts.

On the other hand, the Western branch of Aramaic/Syriac developed a different system based on diacritics modeled after miniature versions of Greek vowels.

I said all that to say this: I don't know a thing about the Serto script or the vowel system employed by that script.

Here's an excellent paper which is very helpful:

https://omega.enstb.org/yannis/pdf/syriac96.pdf

Fk^rwbw 0ml4

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