01-02-2015, 03:46 PM
Hi Tim
Please do let us know how your visit to Rabban (monk) Hormizd Parish goes. I'm always delighted to hear of first impressions.
The story of Rabban Hormizd has always fascinated me. He is a central figure in the history of Christianity in Persia. You may recognize the name from the days of the Iraqi war - the stretch of water in the Persian Gulf that is called the "Straights of Hormuz" (variation on the spelling) might come to mind. It was a common name in pre-Islamic Persia. It means "date palm" in Iranian/Persian.
In regards to your inquiry about the pronunciation of your prayer which you composed in the other thread, which is based on the Words of the Institution:
I wanted to give you a brief and hopefully understandable note about another important difference between English and Aramaic. This is just a general note for reference.
In Aramaic, significantly unlike English, the construction of phrases and sentences is complex and largely influenced by context. Word order and inflection is extremely important. Let me give you an example in English...the following phrase:
"The man entered the temple offering many sacrifices"
Can be reworded any number of ways, simply by re-arranging the word order, and still make perfect sense in English (without changing a single letter of any of the words):
"The man, offering many sacrifices, entered the temple"
"Offering many sacrifices, the man entered the temple"
"The man entered, offering many sacrifices, the temple"
"The temple the man entered, offering many sacrifices"
And so forth. Notice that not a single letter changed in the sentence, and all are equally comprehensible in English. They can be understood equally, and more importantly - they can be annunciated just as easily as the original word order of the sentence.
Aramaic is not the same. At all. With Aramaic, word order is extremely important. In many cases, the spelling of words (in the sense of proclitics and suffixes, and even inflections) is affected by the order of words in phrases and of phrases in complete sentences. The rules are too complex to list here, but I hope you get the gist of what I am saying.
What that leads to, is this: the reading aloud of Aramaic is helped by a certain "rhythmic" flow that a sentence or phrase has.
With Aramaic, we are not able to simply re-arrange words as in the above example, and be able to properly read and annunciate the sentence.
Aramaic speakers expect context and understanding of the phrase which, when identified and constructed properly, is easily pronounced when read aloud.
If it is not properly constructed, then the reader will pause, unsure of the meaning and ultimately the proper sounds. Yes, the sounds (or silence) of letters are often influenced by context, which is always influenced by proper grammar.
So I think people will be able to read aloud to you phrases of the prayer which you constructed, particularly the phrases which come from the words of the institution. But they may stumble on other phrases, due to word order and the above mentioned struggles with context and meaning if it is not constructed properly.
I can help if you give me the English counterpart to what you are trying to compose.
Be well, and Happy New Year
+Shamasha
Please do let us know how your visit to Rabban (monk) Hormizd Parish goes. I'm always delighted to hear of first impressions.
The story of Rabban Hormizd has always fascinated me. He is a central figure in the history of Christianity in Persia. You may recognize the name from the days of the Iraqi war - the stretch of water in the Persian Gulf that is called the "Straights of Hormuz" (variation on the spelling) might come to mind. It was a common name in pre-Islamic Persia. It means "date palm" in Iranian/Persian.
In regards to your inquiry about the pronunciation of your prayer which you composed in the other thread, which is based on the Words of the Institution:
I wanted to give you a brief and hopefully understandable note about another important difference between English and Aramaic. This is just a general note for reference.
In Aramaic, significantly unlike English, the construction of phrases and sentences is complex and largely influenced by context. Word order and inflection is extremely important. Let me give you an example in English...the following phrase:
"The man entered the temple offering many sacrifices"
Can be reworded any number of ways, simply by re-arranging the word order, and still make perfect sense in English (without changing a single letter of any of the words):
"The man, offering many sacrifices, entered the temple"
"Offering many sacrifices, the man entered the temple"
"The man entered, offering many sacrifices, the temple"
"The temple the man entered, offering many sacrifices"
And so forth. Notice that not a single letter changed in the sentence, and all are equally comprehensible in English. They can be understood equally, and more importantly - they can be annunciated just as easily as the original word order of the sentence.
Aramaic is not the same. At all. With Aramaic, word order is extremely important. In many cases, the spelling of words (in the sense of proclitics and suffixes, and even inflections) is affected by the order of words in phrases and of phrases in complete sentences. The rules are too complex to list here, but I hope you get the gist of what I am saying.
What that leads to, is this: the reading aloud of Aramaic is helped by a certain "rhythmic" flow that a sentence or phrase has.
With Aramaic, we are not able to simply re-arrange words as in the above example, and be able to properly read and annunciate the sentence.
Aramaic speakers expect context and understanding of the phrase which, when identified and constructed properly, is easily pronounced when read aloud.
If it is not properly constructed, then the reader will pause, unsure of the meaning and ultimately the proper sounds. Yes, the sounds (or silence) of letters are often influenced by context, which is always influenced by proper grammar.
So I think people will be able to read aloud to you phrases of the prayer which you constructed, particularly the phrases which come from the words of the institution. But they may stumble on other phrases, due to word order and the above mentioned struggles with context and meaning if it is not constructed properly.
I can help if you give me the English counterpart to what you are trying to compose.
Be well, and Happy New Year
+Shamasha