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Word play in aramaic and syriac
#14
Paul Younan Wrote:Akhi Steven Caruso - "Missed Wordplay" is a strong proposal, and assumes that you have a primary text to reference. It is only "missed" if you _assume_ that was the exact original wording. Absent a "Galilean" text with the wordplay you propose, it is merely that - a proposal. Interesting hypothesis, but nothing more. I realize that is your passion, but please realize mine is dealing in real primary sources. If you have one, I'd love to see it.

Akhi Paul - Aye I don't expect to find us seeing eye-to-eye on this as we're both well-invested in our own particular frameworks.

Mine is, by its very nature, somewhat speculative in trying to work with dialects of Aramaic closer to what Jesus and his early disciples spoke. It's a holographic and multi-disciplinary approach, pulling from a variety of sources and studies. I cannot claim absolute certainty about any of my own conclusions, although I do invest a goodly amount of confidence with them.

This isn't founded upon an observation of Galilean, more than an observation of Classical Syriac.

Classical Syriac, by all accounts, was not Jesus' mother tongue, nor what he conversed with. He was a Galilean, and his early followers were known for their speech as Galileans (which was quite distinct). There was no Syriac in Galilee or Judea on record until well after Jesus' time, and the only Syriac inscription that is anywhere to the proper time period was on the coffin of a Pagan who converted to Judaism which had to be re-inscribed in local Western Jewish Aramaic right underneath to be understood by the common man (the script and cadence was decidedly foreign and unintellgible).

Additionally the Peshitta as we have it is in Classical Syriac, not in "contemporary" Old Syriac; therefore, at any time that Jesus or his followers are quoted in the Peshitta, it's a translation at best, and a translation of a translation of an indirect quote at worst. If we were to take the middle road, it's still not a "primary" source, linguistically at all.

This is why trying to understand things from Jesus' dialect is important *even* for Peshitta studies. The Peshitta being written in *an* Aramaic language, brings us closer to Jesus' words, in a tangible sense, from the very offset. There is little disputing that Syriac, linguistically, is closer than Greek. However, it's improper to claim it's the very words of Jesus himself or even "good enough."

However, we can put that aside for now. :-)

The relationship between /kyp/-/)bn/-/bny/ is rather well-established between dialects. The noun /)bn/ "rock" is *exceedingly* rare in Syriac. For example, the CAL corpus returns 928 uses of /kyp/ but only *9* of /)bn/ for its holdings (that's less than 1%), and of all of those 9 it seems to be used in translational context only:

1x Peshitta Isaiah,
1x Peshitta Psalms,
1x Peshitta 1st Peter quoting the OT,
1x Peshitta Wisdom of Solomon,
2x Jacob of Serug's poetry "Concerning the Composition of Man" using a Jewish epithet,
3x Jacob of Serug's "Against the Jews" mostly quoting scripture and Jewish epithets, engaging speakers of another dialect.

Given this, the /kyp/-/)bn/ difference is functionally a shibboleth (it meets the conventional definition).

This is why I say with a safe amount of confidence that the Peshitta will "miss" any puns involving the noun /)bn/ simply because that's how Classical Syriac *works*. :-)

That conclusion, at least, is not a "must/might/should/could" but what we have quantitatively observed about Classical Syriac.
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Messages In This Thread
Word play in aramaic and syriac - by memradya - 02-27-2013, 08:26 PM
RE: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by Thomas - 05-27-2020, 04:56 AM
Re: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by distazo - 02-28-2013, 04:10 AM
Re: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by Thirdwoe - 02-28-2013, 04:27 AM
Re: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by memradya - 02-28-2013, 05:06 PM
Re: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by distazo - 03-01-2013, 06:59 AM
Re: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by Thirdwoe - 03-01-2013, 07:45 PM
Re: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by memradya - 03-01-2013, 08:25 PM
Re: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by distazo - 03-01-2013, 08:40 PM
Re: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by SteveCaruso - 03-01-2013, 10:57 PM
Re: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by Thirdwoe - 03-02-2013, 01:07 AM
Re: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by Thirdwoe - 03-03-2013, 07:29 PM
Re: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by memradya - 03-04-2013, 12:58 PM
Re: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by memradya - 03-04-2013, 08:47 PM
Re: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by distazo - 03-04-2013, 08:53 PM
Re: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by memradya - 03-05-2013, 04:37 PM
Re: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by distazo - 03-06-2013, 07:18 AM
Re: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by Thirdwoe - 03-06-2013, 07:48 AM
Re: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by Thirdwoe - 03-07-2013, 05:23 AM
Re: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by Thirdwoe - 03-07-2013, 06:23 AM
Re: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by distazo - 03-07-2013, 10:49 AM
Re: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by memradya - 03-07-2013, 05:16 PM
Re: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by Thirdwoe - 03-08-2013, 01:23 AM
Re: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by Thirdwoe - 03-08-2013, 04:11 AM
Re: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by Thirdwoe - 03-08-2013, 04:47 AM
Re: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by memradya - 03-08-2013, 01:25 PM
Re: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by memradya - 03-09-2013, 08:19 PM
Re: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by Thirdwoe - 06-25-2014, 02:46 AM
Re: Word play in aramaic and syriac - by Thirdwoe - 06-28-2014, 09:12 PM

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