Linguistics 101 - Languages and Dialects

[Paul Younan]

Dave,

Pay attention here unless you've already departed for good for the seventeenth time.

All languages, English included, are an umbrella of related regional, and sometimes even socio-demographic, dialects. There is no such thing as **THE** English Language. Never was, is not now, nor ever will be. That's how human speech works. Languages are constantly evolving and accents are constantly being formed and idiomatic expressions are always forming and people are constantly making up new words, mannerisms and even grammatical components in the different regions they reside in.

Likewise, there is no such thing as **THE** Aramaic language. No such thing as **THE** Arabic language. No such thing as **THE** Spanish language. No such thing as **THE** Chinese language.

All the languages that are spoken on this planet (not the one you live on) are umbrellas of mutually comprehensible dialects. Got that? An umbrella. Not anything in and of itself, only an umbrella.

Aramaic existed a long time before Jesus was born, and a long time even before Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were born. It was the language of three empires (even a non-Semitic one), it had classical periods where it became highly refined and was a lingua franca of its time.

In the thousands upon thousands of years of its existence, Aramaic had many variations. Even when it was an official language of three different empires that spanned a thousand years, it was not a single dialect.

There is no language on the face of this planet (again, not the one you live on) that is made up of one single, solitary dialect that everyone speaks the same way no matter where, or when, they live.

Next time you foolishly say something like "Syriac is just a dialect", be sure you aren't trying to fool someone else who knows vastly more (exponentially more) than you do about this topic.

Educate yourself a little bit before typing next time. Perhaps there really is something of value in your posts, perhaps you do have something to add here - but it is hard to recognize it among all the muck. Once you valiantly declare something that _stoopid_, my mind shuts off to the rest of what you've written.

Syriac __is__ Aramaic. Just like Palmyrene __is__ Aramaic. Just like Judean __is__Aramaic. Just like Hatran __is__ Aramaic. Just like Galilean __is__ Aramaic. Just like Samaritan__is__ Aramaic. Those are __all__ Aramaic. That's why Jesus could communicate with all of those people, and He did communicate with all those people - not in Greek, but in **their** own dialect of Aramaic. Aramaic is an umbrella that includes those, and the hundreds of other dialects over the 4,000 years of its existence, that it shelters.

The American Ocracoke dialect __is__ English. The American Bonac dialect __is__ English. The various Australian dialects __are__ English. The various Canadian, Carribean, Scottish, Welsh dialects __are__ English.

The Mandarin dialect __is__ Chinese. The Cantonese dialect __is__ Chinese. The Hakka dialect __is__ Chinese. The Shanghai dialect __is__ Chinese.

The Lebanese dialect __is__ Arabic. The Jordanian dialect __is__ Arabic. The Egyptian dialect __is__ Arabic. The Iraqi dialect __is__ Arabic. The Yemeni dialect __is__ Arabic. The Moroccan dialect __is__ Arabic.

The Cuban dialect __is__ Spanish. The Mexican dialect __is__ Spanish. The various dialects spoken in Spain itself __are__ Spanish. The Costa Rican dialect __is__ Spanish. The Puerto Rican dialect __is__ Spanish.

All these people can communicate with, and understand, each other just fine. These are all mutually intelligible dialects. They make up an umbrella, a **Language**.

If Syriac wasn't Aramaic, then it wouldn't make up 90% of the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon - you fool. Syriac is the longest lasting, most comprehensive, most refined and most spoken Aramaic dialect of all of all time - and the *only* one that exists to this very day as a spoken first language. Syriac is 90% of all the Aramaic that we have in our hands.

I know you think God talks to you. The guy who kidnapped Elizabeth Smart does, too. You're not impressing me with the prophet/messenger act. If God were really working within you among us and for our benefit, He would have slapped you silly by now for all the bunk you've written.

Now, depart us for good again and until the next time you return read something that'll help you understand this topic so that we can have an meaningful discourse, or even debate should you desire.