Jewish Palestinian Aramaic or Jewish Western Aramaic was a
Western Aramaic language spoken by the Jews during the
Classic Era in
Judea
Judea or Judaea ( or ; from he, יהודה, Standard ''Yəhūda'', Tiberian ''Yehūḏā''; el, Ἰουδαία, ; la, Iūdaea) is an ancient, historic, Biblical Hebrew, contemporaneous Latin, and the modern-day name of the mountainous so ...
and the
Levant
The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is ...
, specifically in
Hasmonean,
Herodian and
Roman Judea
Judaea ( la, Iudaea ; grc, Ἰουδαία, translit=Ioudaíā ) was a Roman province which incorporated the regions of Judea, Samaria, and Idumea from 6 CE, extending over parts of the former regions of the Hasmonean and Herodian kingdom ...
and adjacent lands in the late first millennium BCE, and later in
Syria Palaestina
Syria Palaestina (literally, "Palestinian Syria";Trevor Bryce, 2009, ''The Routledge Handbook of the Peoples and Places of Ancient Western Asia''Roland de Vaux, 1978, ''The Early History of Israel'', Page 2: "After the revolt of Bar Cochba in 135 ...
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
The Jerusalem Talmud ( he, תַּלְמוּד יְרוּשַׁלְמִי, translit=Talmud Yerushalmi, often for short), also known as the Palestinian Talmud or Talmud of the Land of Israel, is a collection of rabbinic notes on the second-century ...
, which is still studied in Jewish religious schools and academically, although not as widely as the
Babylonian Talmud
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) 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 cent ...
, 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
4Q246, also known as the Son of God Text or the ''Aramaic Apocalypse'', is one of the Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran which is notable for an early messianic mention of a son of God. , found in
Qumran, is written in this language as well. Many extant manuscripts in Jewish Western Aramaic have been corrupted over the years of their transmission by Eastern Aramaic-speaking scribes freely correcting "errors" they came across, these "errors" actually being genuine Jewish Western Aramaic features. To date, all formal grammars of the dialect fall victim to these corruptions, and there is still no published syntax.
There were some differences in
dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that is ...
between Judea and
Galilee
Galilee (; he, הַגָּלִיל, hagGālīl; ar, الجليل, al-jalīl) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon. Galilee traditionally refers to the mountainous part, divided into Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and Lower Gali ...
, 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 the
language spoken by
Jesus
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...
.
Jewish Western Aramaic was gradually replaced by
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
following the
Muslim conquest of the Levant
The Muslim conquest of the Levant ( ar, فَتْحُ الشَّام, translit=Feth eş-Şâm), also known as the Rashidun conquest of Syria, occurred in the first half of the 7th century, shortly after the rise of Islam."Syria." Encyclopædia Br ...
in the 7th century.
See also
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Christian Palestinian Aramaic
Christian Palestinian Aramaic (CPA) was a Western Aramaic languages, Western Aramaic dialect used by the Melkites, Melkite Christian community in Palestine (region), Palestine and Transjordan (region), Transjordan between the fifth and thirteenth ...
*
Jewish Babylonian Aramaic
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Mandaic language
Mandaic is a southeastern Aramaic variety in use by the Mandaean community, traditionally based in southern parts of Iraq and southwest Iran, for their religious books. Classical Mandaic is still employed by Mandaean priests in liturgical rite ...
*
Samaritan Aramaic language
Samaritan Aramaic, or Samaritan, was the dialect of Aramaic used by the Samaritans in their sacred and scholarly literature. This should not be confused with the Samaritan Hebrew language of the Scriptures. Samaritan Aramaic ceased to be a ...
*
Western Neo-Aramaic
References
Sources
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{{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