Jewish Palestinian Aramaic also known as Jewish Western Aramaic was a Western Aramaic language spoken by the Jews during the Classic Era in

Judea Judea or Judaea (; ; , ; ) is a mountainous region of the Levant. Traditionally dominated by the city of Jerusalem, it is now part of Palestine and Israel. The name's usage is historic, having been used in antiquity and still into the pres ...

and the

Levant The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use toda ...

, specifically in Hasmonean, Herodian and Roman Judaea and adjacent lands in the late first millennium BCE, and later in

Syria Palaestina Syria Palaestina ( ) was the renamed Roman province formerly known as Judaea, following the Roman suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt, in what then became known as the Palestine region between the early 2nd and late 4th centuries AD. The pr ...

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 The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the centerpiece of Jewi ...

, 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 Qumran (; ; ') is an archaeological site in the West Bank managed by Israel's Qumran National Park. It is located on a dry marl plateau about from the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, about south of the historic city of Jericho, and adjac ...

, is written in this language as well. There were some differences in the dialects between

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. Jewish Western Aramaic was gradually replaced by

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

following the

Muslim conquest of the Levant The Muslim conquest of the Levant (; ), or Arab conquest of Syria, was a 634–638 CE invasion of Byzantine Syria by the Rashidun Caliphate. A part of the wider Arab–Byzantine wars, the Levant was brought under Arab Muslim rule and develope ...

in the seventh century.

Grammar

Orthography

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.

Sample text

References

Sources

* * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Jewish Palestinian Aramaic Extinct languages of Asia Jews and Judaism in Palestine (region) Jews and Judaism in the Roman Empire Judeo-Aramaic languages Sacred languages Talmud Western Aramaic languages

Grammar

Orthography

Sample text

See also

References

Sources