Loan words (Aramaic vs. Greek)?

[Paul Younan]

Hi Nimrod,

The Greek of Luqa 1:15 has "Sikera" (Aramaic "Shikera" for "strong drink"), "Paskha" (not Hebrew "Pesakh") in Luqa 2:41, "Korin" in Luqa 16:7, "Mammona" in Luqa 16:9, "Beelzebub" in Luke 11:15, "Satana" (not Hebrew "ha-Satan") in Luke 10:18, etc. There are many other Aramaic loan-words in the Greek (even adjectives/names like Keepas, etc.). There are Persian words, too.

In the Hebrew OT there are Aramaic (of course), Persian, etc.

I know you already realize this, but really the presence of loan-words in any text is a weak indicator of the language of composition. Much stronger arguments can be made based, as you said, on the presence of mistranslations, syntax and several other categories.

Another example comes to mind: The Assyrians from Iraq, take them for example. Those who live in the north of Iraq among Kurds have several Kurdish and Turkish loan-words in their neo-Aramaic dialect ("champa/spoon", "changal/fork", etc.) Those who live in the south among the Arabs have, of course, several Arabic loan-words in the neo-Aramaic dialects. The Assyrians in Iran have Persian loan-words in their dialects. This is to be expected, it's a natural evolution of dialects in languages.

Why someone would not expect there to be Greek and Latin loan-words in the Aramaic of 1st-century Palestine (and the Peshitta) is really mind-boggling.

That's also why there is a lot of Egyptian, Canaanite loan-words in the Hebrew of the early books of the O.T. And Old Babylonian/Persian Aramaic loan-words in later parts of the O.T. That's how we can know it was genuinely from those milieus.

If the Peshitta were 100% pure Aramaic with no Greek and Latin loan-words in it, I can guarantee you that it was a translation and not originally written by 1st century Jews living in the Roman empire.

Akhan Nimrod, are you able to read modern Neo-Aramaic? If so, please see the Patriarch Mar Dinkha's recent epistle:

http://myacoe.com/AssyrianIgarta.htm

Obviously, Mar Dinkha composed this epistle in Aramaic. Now, there are Greek and Persian (even, Arabic) loan-words in there. If you can read, are you able to identify them?

But that doesn't mean that Mar Dinkha composed this document in Greek, Arabic, or in Persian, right?

I guess what I am trying to say is that I would not stress loan-words (either way) as an evidence of any kind, it's a very weak argument.