Linguistics 101 - Languages and Dialects

[Paul Younan]

You see, you are quite the educated man, but in the big umbrella of things, this language called syriac, never came into being or evolve until around the late 3rd century.

Dave, you big dummy-head. The Syriac Dialect of Aramaic didn't "come into being" or "evolve" until around the late 3rd century?

From http://www.srr.axbridge.org.uk/syriac_language.html :

Mesopotamian Syriac is one of this ancient group of Aramaic dialects which included the Galilean dialect that Jesus spoke. Syriac was spoken in south western Mesopotamia in the small kingdom of Osrhoene with its capital at Edessa. The earliest dated Syriac writings are from this kingdom. They are in the form of inscriptions found at Birecik, (near Edessa) dating from 6 AD, (see [12] pp. 1-2, Maricq 1962, and Pirenne 1963) and another inscription at Serrin dated AD 73 (see [12] pp. 2-3). These early Syriac inscriptions demonstrate that the Syriac language and the Estrangela Syriac script existed just before and just after Jesus' ministry. Another first century Syriac inscription was found in Jerusalem and dates from about 49 AD, [6] [7]. This demonstrates that Syriac was also known in Palestine in the first century AD. Many second century pagan Syriac inscriptions have also been discovered in Mesopotamia, [6] [7] [12]. Three legal documents have been discovered which were written in the Euphrates valley in the mid third century AD, (see [12] pp. 54-57, Brock 1991). These were written on parchment and dated: 28th December AD 240, 1st September AD 242 and AD 243. We also have the evidence of other early dated manuscripts written in Syriac. The earliest known literary Syriac manuscript was written in Edessa and is dated AD 411 [11]. Many other Syriac manuscripts survive which are dated between AD 411 and the present day. Ancient Syriac continues to be used today in the Syrian Orthodox Church, the Melkite Chalcedonian Church and the Church of the East. Therefore, Syriac is an ancient language which has been used for at least 2000 years, and it is still used today.

Syriac was not only spoken in Mesopotamia, it was also spoken in Antioch and northern Palestine. In fact, Syriac was still spoken by the ordinary people of Palestine many years after the time of Jesus. Several historical data points demonstrate this remarkable fact.

In about AD 385, a woman called Egeria ([9], pp79 - 80) wrote in her middle-eastern travel diary:

"In this province [Palestine] there are some people who know both Greek and Syriac, but others know only one or the other. The bishop may know Syriac, but never uses it. He always speaks in Greek, and has a presbyter beside him who translates the Greek into Syriac, so that everyone can understand what he means. Similarly, the lessons read in church have to be read in Greek, but there is always someone in attendance to translate into Syriac so that the people can understand."

This report, (confirmed by another similar one in Eusebius' history of the martyrs of Palestine which was written earlier, at the beginning of the 4th century AD) shows that the Syriac language continued to be used in the areas of northern Palestine where Jesus had actually taught, 300 to 350 years after His ministry.

The remarkable survival of Aramaic in Palestine is reinforced by further historical evidence from much later. The Byzantine emperor Justinian, as part of his strategy to Hellenize the orient, founded a new Syriac speaking catholic sect which was later called Melkite (see [9], p. 213 and [10], p. 77). However, in order to operate effectively, the Melkites found it necessary to translate their Greek scriptures into the local Western Aramaic dialect then used in Palestine. This spawned a large translated literature in Christian Palestinian Aramaic (CPA) which included the bible and many other writings [4] [11]. Enough of this CPA literature survives to demonstrate that between about AD 530 and AD 1118, large numbers of people of Palestine still spoke a Western Aramaic dialect, more than a millennium after Christ.

Here are his references, for your reference:

1.
'Aramaic sources of Mark's gospel' Maurice Casey Publ.: Cambridge University Press 1998 ISBN 0 521 63314 1 (Hardback) Quoted by kind permission of the Author.
2.
'The lion handbook to the bible' Ed. by D. and P. Alexander Publ.: Lion 1974 ISBN 0 85648 010 X
3.
A brief history of the Syriac language (web page, with thanks to George Kiraz et al.).
4.
'An Aramaic Handbook' Ed. Franz Rosenthal, (4 volumes). Publ. Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1967.
5.
'Remains of a very ancient recension of the four gospels in Syriac' William Cureton Publ.: John Murray, London 1858
6.
'Pagan Syriac monuments in the Vilayet of Urfa' Segal, J. B. Anatolian Studies, JBIAA 3 1953
7.
'Some Syriac inscriptions of the 2nd-3rd century AD' Segal, J. B. BSOAS 16/1 1954
8.
'Ancient Syriac documents' William Cureton 1864. Reprinted by Oriental Press, Amsterdam 1967.
9.
'Christianity among the Arabs in pre-Islamic times.' J. Spencer Trimingham. Publ.: Librairie du Liban 1990
10.
'Edessa, the blessed city' J. B. Segal, OUP 1970
11.
'An album of dated Syriac manuscripts', William Henry Paine Hatch, AAAS 1946
12.
'Old Syriac (Edessean) inscriptions' Ed. H. J. W. Drijvers from the Semitic study series. Publ. Leiden, Brill 1972

Dave, you need to get your head out of the toilet and into some books before you make valiant statements next time like "The Holy Spirit is a broad" and "Syriac didn't exist until the late(!) 3rd century" - just had to throw that extra "late" in there, didn't ya?

Dave, you have no clue what you are talking about and you should just go away for good, again. When you come back next time, have an explanation, a Greek Primacist explanation, for how Acts 2:24 happened - I've been waiting for months for a good explanation. Go to your nearest seminary and find a Greek Primacist professor who is willing to take this challenge on and give me a reasonable answer for Acts 2:24 - a book supposedly written in Greek.

And then, when you have satisfactorily explained that one (we're still waiting), then you can point me to a mistake in the Aramaic Peshitta which arose from a grammatical error while translating from the Greek. In your model, there should be plenty that exist. I'd like for you to point me to one error in the Peshitta which can only be explained by the Aramaic translator making a grammatical mistake that could have only happened if he had a Greek original in front of him.

Then, and only then, will I worship your Greek-speaking Lord. Until then, I remain the servant of the Jewish Carpenter who spoke Aramaic.