Aramaic

 ( Languages Attested From The 10th Century Bc ) 

Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai Peninsula, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia,

Aramaic served as a language of public life and administration of ancient kingdoms and empires, particularly the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Neo-Babylonian Empire, and Achaemenid Empire, and also as a language of divine worship and religious study within Judaism, Christianity, and Gnosticism. Several modern varieties of Aramaic are still spoken. The modern Eastern Aramaic is spoken by Assyrian people, Mandaeans, and Mizrahi Jews.

Aramaic belongs to the Northwest group of the Semitic language family, which also includes the mutually intelligible Canaanite languages such as Hebrew language, Edomite language, Moabite language, Ekronite, Suteans, and Phoenician, as well as Amorite language and Ugaritic. Aramaic varieties are written in the Aramaic alphabet, a descendant of the Phoenician alphabet. The most prominent variant of this alphabet is the Syriac alphabet, used in the ancient city of Edessa. The Aramaic alphabet also became a base for the creation and adaptation of specific writing systems in some other Semitic languages of West Asia, such as the Hebrew alphabet and the Arabic alphabet.

Early Aramaic inscriptions date from 11th century BC, placing it among the earliest languages to be written down. Aramaicist notes, "The linguistic history of Aramaic prior to the appearance of the first textual sources in the ninth century BC remains unknown." Aramaic is also believed by most historians and scholars to have been the primary language spoken by Jesus of Nazareth both for preaching and in everyday life.

The scribes of the Neo-Assyrian bureaucracy used Aramaic, and this practice was subsequently inherited by the succeeding Neo-Babylonian Empire (605–539 BC) and later by the Achaemenid Empire (539–330 BC). Mediated by scribes that had been trained in the language, highly standardized written Aramaic, named by scholars Imperial Aramaic, progressively also became the lingua franca of public life, trade and commerce throughout Achaemenid territories. Wide use of written Aramaic subsequently led to the adoption of the Aramaic alphabet and, as , some Aramaic vocabulary in the Pahlavi scripts, which were used by several Middle Iranian languages, including Parthian, Middle Persian, Sogdian language, and Khwarezmian.

Biblical Aramaic was used in several sections of the Hebrew Bible, including parts of the books of Daniel and Ezra. Aramaic translation of the Bible is known as the Targum. It was the language of Jesus, who spoke the Galilean dialect during his public ministry, and of the Jerusalem Talmud, Babylonian Talmud, and Zohar. According to the Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 38b), the Adamic language first human in the Biblewas Aramaic.

Some variants of Aramaic are retained as sacred languages by certain religious communities. Most notable among them is Syriac language, the liturgical language of Syriac Christianity. It is used by several communities, including the Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Maronite Church, and also the Saint Thomas Christians, Syriac Christians of Kerala, India. One of the liturgical dialects was Mandaic language, which besides becoming a vernacular, Neo-Mandaic, also remained the liturgical language of Mandaeism. Syriac was also the liturgical language of several now-extinct gnosticism faiths, such as Manichaeism.

Neo-Aramaic languages are still spoken in the 21st century as a first language by many communities of Assyrian people, Mizrahi Jews (in particular, the Iraqi Jews), and Mandaeans of the Near East, with the main Neo-Aramaic languages being Suret language (~240,000 speakers) and Turoyo language (~250,000 speakers). Western Neo-Aramaic (~3,000) persists in only two villages in the Anti-Lebanon Mountains in western Syria.Brock, An Introduction to Syriac Studies They have retained use of the once-dominant lingua franca despite subsequent experienced throughout the Middle East.

Josephus and Strabo (the latter citing Posidonius) both stated that the "Syrians" called themselves "Arameans".Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 1.144: "Aram had the Aramites, which the Greeks called Syrians" (Strabo, Geographica, 1.2.34: "But it would seem that the view of Poseidonius is best, for here he derives an etymology of the words from the kinship of the peoples and their common characteristics. For the nation of the Armenians and that of the Syrians and Arabians betray a close affinity, not only in their language, but in their mode of life and in their bodily build, and particularly wherever they live as close neighbours. Mesopotamia, which is inhabited by these three nations, gives proof of this, for in the case of these nations the similarity is particularly noticeable. And if, comparing the differences of latitude, there does exist a greater difference between the northern and the southern people of Mesopotamia than between these two peoples and the Syrians in the centre, still the common characteristics prevail. And, too, the Assyrians, the Arians, and the Aramaeans display a certain likeness both to those just mentioned and to each other. Indeed, Poseidonius conjectures that the names of these nations also are akin; for, says he, the people whom we call Syrians are by the Syrians themselves called Arimaeans and Arammaeans; and there is a resemblance between this name and those of the Armenians, the Arabians and the Erembians, since perhaps the ancient Greeks gave the name of Erembians to the Arabians, and since the very etymology of the word "Erembian" contributes to this result".Strabo, Geographica, 16.4.27: "Poseidonius says that the Arabians consist of three tribes, that they are situated in succession, one after another, and that this indicates that they are homogeneous with one another, and that for this reason they were called by similar names – one tribe "Armenians," another "Arameans," and another "Arambians." And just as one may suppose that the Arabians were divided into three tribes, according to the differences in the latitudes, which ever vary more and more, so also one may suppose that they used several names instead of one. Neither are those who write "Eremni" plausible; for that name is more peculiarly applicable to the Aethiopians. The poet also mentions "Arimi,"by which, according to Poseidonius, we should interpret the poet as meaning, not some place in Syria or in Cilicia or in some other land, but Syria itself; for the people in Syria are Arameans, though perhaps the Greeks called them Arimaeans or Arimi". The Septuagint, the earliest extant full copy of the Hebrew Bible, a Greek translation, used the terms Syria and Syrian where the Masoretic Text, the earliest extant Hebrew copy of the Bible, uses the terms Aramean and Aramaic; numerous later bibles followed the Septuagint's usage, including the King James Version.

id:canvas value:rgb(1,1,0.85)
     

width:15 color:red
bar:test from:-1200 till:200 # Old Aramaic
     

width:15 color:orange
bar:test from:200 till:1200 # Middle Aramaic
     

width:15 color:yellow
bar:test from:1200 till:2005 # Modern Aramaic
     

bar:test at:-1200 mark:(line,white)
at:-1200 shift:(10,0) text:12th c. BCE Aramaeans settle in Aram
bar:test at:-1000 mark:(line,white)
at:-1000 shift:(10,0) text:10th c. BCE early written Aramaic
bar:test at:-740 mark:(line,white)
at:-740 shift:(10,0) text:740s BCE Aramaic official in Assyria
bar:test at:-500 mark:(line,white)
at:-500 shift:(10,0) text:c.500 BCE Darius I makes Aramaic official
bar:test at:-425 mark:(line,white)
at:-425 shift:(10,0) text:5th c. BCE Elephantine papyri composed
bar:test at:-330 mark:(line,white)
at:-331 shift:(10,0) text:331 BCE Greek ascendancy
bar:test at:-246 mark:(line,white)
at:-246 shift:(10,0) text:247 BCE Aramaic official in Arsacid Empire
bar:test at:-169 mark:(line,white)
at:-169 shift:(10,5) text:c. 170 BCE Book of Daniel probably composed
bar:test at:-141 mark:(line,white)
at:-141 shift:(10,0) text:142 BCE Aramaic official in Hasmonaean Judah
bar:test at:-49 mark:(line,white)
at:-40 shift:(10,0) text:1st c. BCE Aramaic Palmyra, Petra & Osrhoene
bar:test at:45 mark:(line,white)
at:45 shift:(10,0) text:1st c. New Testament records some Aramaic
bar:test at:135 mark:(line,white)
at:135 shift:(10,4) text:135 Galilean Aramaic becomes prominent
bar:test at:172 mark:(line,white)
at:172 shift:(10,1) text:172 Tatian's Diatessaron produced
bar:test at:200 mark:(line,white)
at:200 shift:(10,-3) text:3rd c. Targum composition
bar:test at:224 mark:(line,white)
at:224 shift:(10,-8) text:224 Classical Mandaic emerges
bar:test at:306 mark:(line,white)
at:306 shift:(10,-1) text:c. 306 Ephrem born, Syriac golden age
bar:test at:431 mark:(line,white)
at:431 shift:(10,0) text:431 Nestorian schism of Aramaic Christians
bar:test at:435 mark:(line,white)
at:435 shift:(10,-9) text:c. 435 Peshitta Syriac Bible produced
bar:test at:637 mark:(line,white)
at:637 shift:(10,0) text:637 Arabic ascendancy
bar:test at:700 mark:(line,white)
at:700 shift:(10,0) text:700 Talmud completed
bar:test at:1258 mark:(line,black)
at:1258 shift:(10,0) text:1258 Mongols sack Baghdad
bar:test at:1290 mark:(line,black)
at:1290 shift:(10,-5) text:13th c. Zohar published in Spain
bar:test at:1650 mark:(line,black)
at:1650 shift:(10,0) text:17th c. School of Alqosh flourishes
bar:test at:1836 mark:(line,black)
at:1836 shift:(10,0) text:1836 Assyrian Neo-Aramaic first in print
bar:test at:1915 mark:(line,black)
at:1915 shift:(10,4) text:1915 Persecution in Turkey
bar:test at:1951 mark:(line,black)
at:1951 shift:(10,2) text:1951 Aramaic Jews move to Israel
bar:test at:1998 mark:(line,black)
at:1998 shift:(10,0) text:1998 last speakers of Mlahsô & Bijil die
     

One of the largest collections of Imperial Aramaic texts is that of the Persepolis Administrative Archives, found at Persepolis, which number about five hundred. Many of the extant documents witnessing to this form of Aramaic come from Egypt, and Elephantine in particular (see Elephantine papyri). Of them, the best known is the Story of Ahikar, a book of instructive aphorisms quite similar in style to the biblical Book of Proverbs. Consensus regards the Aramaic portion of the Biblical book of Daniel (i.e., 2:4b–7:28) as an example of Imperial (Official) Aramaic.

Achaemenid Aramaic is sufficiently uniform that it is often difficult to know where any particular example of the language was written. Only careful examination reveals the occasional loan word from a local language.

A group of thirty Aramaic documents from Bactria have been discovered, and an analysis was published in November 2006. The texts, which were rendered on leather, reflect the use of Aramaic in the 4th century BC Achaemenid administration of Bactria and Sogdia.

• Ezra and – documents from the Achaemenid period (5th century BC) concerning the restoration of the temple in Jerusalem.
• Daniel – five tales and an apocalyptic vision.
• – a single sentence in the middle of a Hebrew text denouncing idolatry.
• Genesis – translation of a Hebrew place-name.

Biblical Aramaic is a somewhat hybrid dialect. It is theorized that some Biblical Aramaic material originated in both Babylonia and Judaea before the fall of the Achaemenid dynasty.

Biblical Aramaic presented various challenges for writers who were engaged in early Biblical studies. Since the time of Jerome of Stridon (d. 420), Aramaic of the Bible was named as "Chaldean" (Chaldaic, Chaldee). That label remained common in early Aramaic studies, and persisted up into the nineteenth century. The " Chaldean misnomer" was eventually abandoned, when modern scholarly analyses showed that Aramaic dialect used in the Hebrew Bible was not related to ancient Chaldeans and their language.

By the end of the 2nd century BC, several variants of Post-Achaemenid Aramaic emerged, bearing regional characteristics. One of them was Hasmonaean Aramaic, the official administrative language of Hasmonean Judaea (142–37 BC), alongside Hebrew language, which was the language preferred in religious and some other public uses (coinage). It influenced the Biblical Aramaic of the Qumran texts, and was the main language of non-biblical theological texts of that community. The major , translations of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic, were originally composed in Hasmonaean Aramaic. It also appears in quotations in the Mishnah and Tosefta, although smoothed into its later context. It is written quite differently from Achaemenid Aramaic; there is an emphasis on writing as words are pronounced rather than using etymological forms.

The use of written Aramaic in the Achaemenid bureaucracy also precipitated the adoption of Aramaic(-derived) scripts to render a number of Middle Iranian languages. Moreover, many common words, including even pronouns, particles, numerals, and auxiliaries, continued to be written as Aramaic "words" even when writing Middle Iranian languages. In time, in Iranian usage, these Aramaic "words" became disassociated from the Aramaic language and came to be understood as signs (i.e. logograms), much like the symbol '&' is read as "and" in English and the original Latin et is now no longer obvious. Under the early 3rd-century BC Arsacid Empire, whose government used Greek but whose native language was Parthian, the Parthian language and its Aramaic-derived writing system both gained prestige. This in turn also led to the adoption of the name 'Pahlavi scripts' (< parthawi, "of the Parthians") for that writing system. The Sassanid Empire, who succeeded the Parthian Arsacids in the mid-3rd century AD, subsequently inherited/adopted the Parthian-mediated Aramaic-derived writing system for their own Middle Iranian ethnolect as well.

Other regional dialects continued to exist alongside these, often as simple, spoken variants of Aramaic. Early evidence for these vernacular dialects is known only through their influence on words and names in a more standard dialect. However, some of those regional dialects became written languages by the 2nd century BC. These dialects reflect a stream of Aramaic that is not directly dependent on Achaemenid Aramaic, and they also show a clear linguistic diversity between eastern and western regions.

Galilean Targumic is similar to Babylonian Targumic. It is the mixing of literary Hasmonaean with the dialect of Galilee. The Hasmonaean targums reached Galilee in the 2nd century AD, and were reworked into this Galilean dialect for local use. The Galilean Targum was not considered an authoritative work by other communities, and documentary evidence shows that its text was amended. From the 11th century AD onwards, once the Babylonian Targum had become normative, the Galilean version became heavily influenced by it.

In the Kingdom of Osroene, founded in 132 BC and centred in Edessa (Urhay), the regional dialect became the official language: Edessan Aramaic (Urhaya), that later came to be known as Syriac language. On the upper reaches of the Tigris, East Mesopotamian Aramaic flourished, with evidence from the regions of Hatra and Assur.

Tatian (or Syrian), the author of the gospel harmony the Diatessaron came from Adiabene (Syr. Beth-Hadiab),

The written form of Mandaic language, the language of Mandaeism, was descended from the Arsacid chancery script.

The form of Late Old Western Aramaic used by the Jewish community is best attested, and is usually referred to as Jewish Old Palestinian. Its oldest form is Old East Jordanian, which probably comes from the region of Caesarea Philippi. This is the dialect of the oldest manuscript of the Book of Enoch (c. 170 BC). The next distinct phase of the language is called Old Judaean lasting into the second century AD. Old Judean literature can be found in various inscriptions and personal letters, preserved quotations in the Talmud and receipts from Qumran. Josephus' first, non-extant edition of his The Jewish War was written in Old Judean.

The Old East Jordanian dialect continued to be used into the first century AD by pagan communities living to the east of the Jordan. Their dialect is often then called Pagan Old Palestinian, and it was written in a cursive script somewhat similar to that used for Old Syriac. A Christian Old Palestinian dialect may have arisen from the pagan one, and this dialect may be behind some of the Western Aramaic tendencies found in the otherwise eastern Old Syriac gospels (see Peshitta).

In addition to the formal, literary dialects of Aramaic based on Hasmonean and Babylonian, there were a number of colloquial Aramaic dialects spoken in the southern Levant. Seven Western Aramaic varieties were spoken in the vicinity of Judea in Jesus' time. They were probably distinctive yet mutually intelligible. Old Judean was the prominent dialect of Jerusalem and Judaea. The region of Ein Gedi spoke the Southeast Judaean dialect. Samaritan Aramaic was distinct; it ultimately merged ʔ, h, ħ, and ʕ as a glottal stop, only maintaining ʕ in the initial position before the vowel a. Galilean Aramaic, the dialect of Jesus' home region, is only known from a few place names, the influences on Galilean Targumic, some rabbinic literature, and a few private letters. It seems to have a number of distinctive features, including the collapse of gutturals and the maintenance of . In the Transjordan, the various dialects of East Jordanian Aramaic were spoken. In the region of Damascus and the Anti-Lebanon Mountains, Damascene Aramaic was spoken (deduced mostly from Modern Western Aramaic). Finally, as far north as Aleppo, the western dialect of Orontes Aramaic was spoken.

The three languages, especially Hebrew and Aramaic, influenced one another through and semantic loans. Hebrew words entered Jewish Aramaic. Most were mostly technical religious words, but a few were everyday words like עץ "wood". Conversely, Aramaic words, such as māmmôn "wealth" were borrowed into Hebrew, and Hebrew words acquired additional senses from Aramaic. For instance, borrowed the sense "worthy, seemly" from Aramaic "seen, worthy".

New Testament Greek preserves some semiticisms, including transliterations of Semitic words. Some are Aramaic, like talitha (ταλιθα), which represents the Aramaic noun טליתא , and others may be either Hebrew or Aramaic like רבוני Rabbounei (Ραββουνει), which means "my master/great one/teacher" in both languages. Other examples:

• "Talitha kumi" (טליתא קומי)
• "Ephphatha" (אתפתח)
• "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" (?אלהי, אלהי, למה שבקתני)

The 2004 film The Passion of the Christ used Aramaic for much of its dialogue, specially reconstructed by a scholar, William Fulco, S.J. Where the appropriate words (in first-century Aramaic) were no longer known, he used the Aramaic of Daniel and fourth-century Syriac and Hebrew as the basis for his work.

Middle Judaean Aramaic, the descendant of Old Judaean Aramaic, was no longer the dominant dialect, and was used only in southern Judaea (the variant Engedi dialect continued throughout this period). Likewise, Middle East Jordanian Aramaic continued as a minor dialect from Old East Jordanian Aramaic. The inscriptions in the synagogue at Dura-Europos are either in Middle East Jordanian or Middle Judaean.

The Christian varieties of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) are often called "Assyrian", "Chaldean" or "Eastern Syriac", and are spoken by the Assyrian people in northern Iraq, northeast Syria, southeast Turkey, northwest Iran, and in the diaspora. However, they also have roots in numerous previously unwritten local Aramaic varieties and, in some cases, even contain Akkadian influences. These varieties are not purely the direct descendants of the language of Ephrem the Syrian, which was Syriac language.

The Judeo-Aramaic languages are now mostly spoken in Israel, and most are facing extinction. The Jewish varieties that have come from communities that once lived between Lake Urmia and Mosul are not all mutually intelligible. In some places, for example Urmia, Christian Assyrians and Mizrahi Jews speak mutually unintelligible varieties of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic in the same place. In others, the Nineveh Plains around Mosul for example, the varieties of these two ethnicities are similar enough to allow conversation.

Modern Central Neo-Aramaic, being in between Western Neo-Aramaic and Northeastern Neo-Aramaic, is generally represented by Turoyo, the language of the Assyrians/Syriacs of Tur Abdin. A related Neo-Aramaic language, Mlaḥsô, has recently become extinct.

Mandaeans living in the Khuzestan province of Iran and scattered throughout Iraq, speak Neo-Mandaic. It is quite distinct from any other Aramaic variety. Mandaeans number some 50,000–75,000 people, but it is believed Neo-Mandaic may now be spoken fluently by as few as 5,000 people, with other Mandaeans having varying degrees of knowledge.

Matthew 28, verse 16, in Classical Syriac (Eastern accent), Western Neo-Aramaic, Turoyo and Suret (Swadaya):

As with most Semitic languages, Aramaic can be thought of as having three basic sets of vowels:

• Open a-vowels
• Close front i-vowels
• Close back u-vowels

The open vowel is an open near-front unrounded vowel ("short" a, somewhat like the first vowel in the English "batter", ). It usually has a back counterpart ("long" a, like the a in "father", , or even tending to the vowel in "caught", ), and a front counterpart ("short" e, like the vowel in "head", ). There is much correspondence between these vowels between dialects. There is some evidence that Middle Babylonian dialects did not distinguish between the short a and short e. In West Syriac dialects, and possibly Middle Galilean, the long a became the o sound. The open e and back a are often indicated in writing by the use of the letters א "alaph" (a glottal stop) or ה "he" (like the English h).

The close front vowel is the "long" i (like the vowel in "need", ). It has a slightly more open counterpart, the "long" e, as in the final vowel of "café" (). Both of these have shorter counterparts, which tend to be pronounced slightly more open. Thus, the short close e corresponds with the open e in some dialects. The close front vowels usually use the consonant י y as a mater lectionis.

The close back vowel is the "long" u (like the vowel in "school", ). It has a more open counterpart, the "long" o, like the vowel in "show" (). There are shorter, and thus more open, counterparts to each of these, with the short close o sometimes corresponding with the long open a. The close back vowels often use the consonant ו w to indicate their quality.

Two basic exist: an open vowel followed by י y ( ay), and an open vowel followed by ו w ( aw). These were originally full diphthongs, but many dialects have converted them to e and o respectively.

The so-called "emphatic" consonants (see the next section) cause all vowels to become mid-centralised.

The various alphabets used for writing Aramaic languages have twenty-two letters (all of which are consonants). Some of these letters, though, can stand for two or three different sounds (usually a stop consonant and a fricative at the same point of articulation). Aramaic classically uses a series of lightly contrasted plosives and fricatives:

• Labial set: פּ\ פ p/ f and בּ\ ב b/ v,
• Dental set: תּ\ ת t/ θ and דּ\ ד d/ ð,
• Velar set: כּ\ כ k/ x and גּ\ ג ɡ/ ɣ.

A distinguishing feature of Aramaic phonology (and that of Semitic languages in general) is the presence of "emphatic" consonants. These are consonants that are pronounced with the root of the tongue retracted, with varying degrees of pharyngealization and Velar consonant. Using their alphabetic names, these emphatics are:

• ח Ḥêṯ, a voiceless pharyngeal fricative, ,
• ט Ṭêṯ, a pharyngealized t, ,
• ע ʽAyin (or ʽE in some dialects), a pharyngealized glottal stop (sometimes considered to be a voiced pharyngeal approximant), or ,
• צ Ṣāḏê, a pharyngealized s, ,
• ק Qôp, a voiceless uvular stop, .

Ancient Aramaic may have had a larger series of emphatics, and some Neo-Aramaic languages definitely do. Not all dialects of Aramaic give these consonants their historic values.

Overlapping with the set of emphatics are the "guttural" consonants. They include ח Ḥêṯ and ע ʽAyn from the emphatic set, and add א ʼĀlap̄ (a glottal stop) and ה Hê (as the English "h").

Aramaic classically has a set of four (ancient Aramaic may have had six):

• ס, שׂ (as in English "sea"),
• ז (as in English "zero"),
• שׁ (as in English "ship"),
• צ (the emphatic Ṣāḏê listed above).

In addition to these sets, Aramaic has the מ m and נ n, and the approximants ר r (usually an alveolar trill), ל l, י y and ו w.

• Vowel change occurs almost too frequently to document fully, but is a major distinctive feature of different dialects.
• Plosive/fricative pair reduction. Originally, Aramaic, like Tiberian Hebrew, had fricatives as conditioned for each plosive. In the wake of vowel changes, the distinction eventually became phonemic; still later, it was often lost in certain dialects. For example, Turoyo language has mostly lost , using instead, like Arabic; other dialects (for instance, standard Assyrian Neo-Aramaic) have lost and and replaced them with and , as with Modern Hebrew. In most dialects of Modern Syriac, and are realized as after a vowel.
• Loss of emphatics. Some dialects have replaced emphatic consonants with non-emphatic counterparts, while those spoken in the Caucasus often have glottalized rather than pharyngealized emphatics.
• Guttural assimilation is the main distinctive feature of Samaritan pronunciation, also found in Samaritan Hebrew: all the gutturals are reduced to a simple glottal stop. Some Modern Aramaic dialects do not pronounce h in all words (the third person masculine pronoun hu becomes ow).
• Proto-Semitic */θ/ */ð/ are reflected in Aramaic as */t/, */d/, whereas they became sibilants in Hebrew (the number three is שלוש šālôš in Hebrew but תלת tlāṯ in Aramaic, the word gold is זהב zahav in Hebrew but דהב dehav in Aramaic). Dental/sibilant shifts are still happening in the modern dialects.
• New phonetic inventory. Modern dialects have borrowed sounds from the dominant surrounding languages. The most frequent borrowings are (as the first consonant in "azure"), (as in "jam"), and (as in "church"). The Syriac alphabet has been adapted for writing these new sounds.

• כתבה kṯāḇâ, handwriting, inscription, script, book.
• כתבי kṯāḇê, books, the Scriptures.
• כתובה kāṯûḇâ, secretary, scribe.
• כתבת kiṯḇeṯ, I wrote.
• אכתב 'eḵtûḇ, I shall write.

Aramaic has two grammatical genders: masculine and feminine. The feminine absolute singular is often marked by the ending ה- -â.

Nouns can be either singular or plural, but an additional "dual" number exists for nouns that usually come in pairs. The dual number gradually disappeared from Aramaic over time and has little influence in Middle and Modern Aramaic.

Aramaic nouns and adjectives can exist in one of three states. To a certain extent, these states correspond to the role of articles and cases in the Indo-European languages:

1. The absolute state is the basic form of a noun. In early forms of Aramaic, the absolute state expresses indefiniteness, comparable to the English indefinite article a(n) (for example, כתבה kṯāḇâ, " a handwriting"), and can be used in most syntactic roles. However, by the Middle Aramaic period, its use for nouns (but not adjectives) had been widely replaced by the emphatic state.
2. The construct state is a form of the noun used to make possessive constructions (for example, כתבת מלכתא kṯāḇat malkṯâ, "the handwriting of the queen"). In the masculine singular, the form of the construct is often the same as the absolute, but it may undergo vowel reduction in longer words. The feminine construct and masculine construct plural are marked by suffixes. Unlike a genitive case, which marks the possessor, the construct state is marked on the possessed. This is mainly due to Aramaic word order: possessedconst. possessorabs./emph. are treated as a speech unit, with the first unit (possessed) employing the construct state to link it to the following word. In Middle Aramaic, the use of the construct state for all but stock phrases (like בר נשא bar nāšâ, "son of man") begins to disappear.
3. The emphatic or determined state is an extended form of the noun that functions similarly to the definite article. It is marked with a suffix (for example, כתבת א kṯāḇtâ, " the handwriting"). Although its original grammatical function seems to have been to mark definiteness, it is used already in Imperial Aramaic to mark all important nouns, even if they should be considered technically indefinite. This practice developed to the extent that the absolute state became extraordinarily rare in later varieties of Aramaic.

Whereas other Northwest Semitic languages, like Hebrew, have the absolute and construct states, the emphatic/determined state is a unique feature to Aramaic. Inflection, as in Ugaritic, probably existed in a very early stage of the language, and glimpses of them can be seen in a few compound proper names. However, as most of those cases were expressed by short final vowels, they were never written, and the few characteristic long vowels of the masculine plural accusative and genitive are not clearly evidenced in inscriptions. Often, the direct object is marked by a prefixed -ל l- (the preposition "to") if it is definite.

Adjectives agree with their nouns in number and gender but agree in state only if used attributively. Predicative adjectives are in the absolute state regardless of the state of their noun (a copula may or may not be written). Thus, an attributive adjective to an emphatic noun, as in the phrase "the good king", is written also in the emphatic state מלכא טבא malkâ ṭāḇâkingemph. goodemph.. In comparison, the predicative adjective, as in the phrase "the king is good", is written in the absolute state מלכא טב malkâ ṭāḇkingemph. goodabs..

The final א- -â in a number of these suffixes is written with the letter aleph. However, some Jewish Aramaic texts employ the letter he for the feminine absolute singular. Likewise, some Jewish Aramaic texts employ the Hebrew masculine absolute singular suffix ים- -îm instead of ין- -în. The masculine determined plural suffix, יא- -ayyâ, has an alternative version, -ê. The alternative is sometimes called the "gentilic plural" for its prominent use in ethnonyms (יהודיא yəhûḏāyê, 'the Jews', for example). This alternative plural is written with the letter aleph, and came to be the only plural for nouns and adjectives of this type in Syriac and some other varieties of Aramaic. The masculine construct plural, -ê, is written with yodh. In Syriac and some other variants this ending is to -ai.

Possessive phrases in Aramaic can either be made with the construct state or by linking two nouns with the relative particle -ד[י-''. As the use of the construct state almost disappears from the Middle Aramaic period on, the latter method became the main way of making possessive phrases.

For example, the various forms of possessive phrases (for "the handwriting of the queen") are:

1. כתבת מלכתא kṯāḇaṯ malkṯâ – the oldest construction, also known as סמיכות səmîḵûṯ : the possessed object (כתבה kṯābâ, "handwriting") is in the construct state (כתבת kṯāḇaṯ); the possessor (מלכה malkâ, "queen") is in the emphatic state (מלכתא malkṯâ)
2. כתבתא דמלכתא kṯāḇtâ d(î)-malkṯâ – both words are in the emphatic state and the relative particle -ד[י-'' is used to mark the relationship
3. כתבתה דמלכתא kṯāḇtāh d(î)-malkṯâ – both words are in the emphatic state, and the relative particle is used, but the possessed is given an anticipatory, pronominal ending (כתבתה kṯāḇtā-h, "handwriting-her"; literally, "her writing, that (of) the queen").

By doubling of the second radical, or root letter, the D-stem or פעל Pa‘‘el is formed. This is often an intensive development of the basic lexical meaning. For example, qəṭal means "he killed", whereas qaṭṭel means "he slew". The precise relationship in meaning between the two stems differs for every verb.

A preformative, which can be -ה ha-, -א a-, or -ש ša-, creates the C-stem or variously the Hap̄‘el, Ap̄‘el or Šap̄‘el (also spelt הפעל Haph‘el, אפעל Aph‘el, and שפעל Shaph‘el). This is often an extensive or causative development of the basic lexical meaning. For example, טעה ṭə‘â means "he went astray", whereas אטעי aṭ‘î means "he deceived". The Šap̄‘el שפעל is the least common variant of the C-stem. Because this variant is standard in Akkadian, it is possible that its use in Aramaic represents loanwords from that language. The difference between the variants הפעל Hap̄‘el and אפעל Ap̄‘el appears to be the gradual dropping of the initial ה h sound in later Old Aramaic. This is noted by the respelling of the older he preformative with א aleph.

These three conjugations are supplemented with three further derived stems, produced by the preformative -הת hiṯ- or -את eṯ-. The loss of the initial ה h sound occurs similarly to that in the form above. These three derived stems are the Gt-stem, התפעל Hiṯpə‘el or אתפעל Eṯpə‘el (also written Hithpe‘el or Ethpe‘el), the Dt-stem, התפעּל Hiṯpa‘‘al or אתפעּל Eṯpa‘‘al (also written Hithpa‘‘al or Ethpa‘‘al), and the Ct-stem, התהפעל Hiṯhap̄‘al, אתּפעל Ettap̄‘al, השתפעל Hištap̄‘al or אשתפעל Eštap̄‘al (also written Hithhaph‘al, Ettaph‘al, Hishtaph‘al, or Eshtaph‘al). Their meaning is usually reflexive verb, but later became passive voice. However, as with other stems, actual meaning differs from verb to verb.

Not all verbs use all of these conjugations, and, in some, the G-stem is not used. In the chart below (on the root כת״ב K-T-B, meaning "to write"), the first form given is the usual form in Imperial Aramaic, while the second is Syriac language.

In Imperial Aramaic, the participle began to be used for a historical present. Perhaps under influence from other languages, Middle Aramaic developed a system of composite tenses (combinations of forms of the verb with pronouns or an auxiliary verb), allowing for narrative that is more vivid. Aramaic syntax usually follows the order verb–subject–object (VSO). Imperial (Persian) Aramaic, however, tended to follow a S-O-V pattern (similar to Akkadian), which was the result of Persian syntactic influence.

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• Ancient Aramaic Audio Files: Contains audio recordings of scripture.
• The Aramaic Language and Its Classification – Efrem Yildiz, Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies
• Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon (including editions of ) at the Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati
• Dictionary of Judeo-Aramaic
• Jewish Language Research Website: Jewish Aramaic