Word play in aramaic and syriac

[Paul Younan]

Shlama' Younan and Steve

After your "disputatio" about the dialect of Jesus, I want to know your opinion : Did Jesus use one ?international? dialect with maybe some dialectal adaptations (Jesus would have use a single dialect in Galilee, Samaria, Judea and was understood) or did Jesus use several dialects according to the place where he was preaching (he used Galilean in Galilee, Samaritan Aramaic in Samaria to be understood)?

John the Baptist (a Judean and not a Galilean according to Luke 1:39) would have used the same dialect as Jesus?

And if you have some texts testimoniing the galilean dialect, I'd be habby to know them.... <!-- s:biggrin: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/biggrin.gif" alt=":biggrin:" title="Big Grin" /><!-- s:biggrin: -->

Hi Memradya,

I've mentioned this several times before. All major languages have local dialects, and (at least) one (sometimes, more) "koine" dialects. When people of mixed dialects converse, they revert to a standard "koine" that is usually the base of all the others. Or, if they are in the minority of the group they are conversing with, they switch to the dialect that the rest of the group is talking in.

I only use my Tkhuma dialect with family members, or members of my Tkhuma tribe. Out of courtesy to others, if they aren't accustomed to my dialect (many in my church parish speak the Urmi dialect), then I switch to that one for their sake.

Jesus not only spoke multiple dialects of Aramaic with people from Galilee, Samaria, Judea, Jordan and Syria ... but He also very likely spoke Greek and Latin to Pilate and soldiers, etc. There is no one dialect of Aramaic that Jesus was constrained to.

Was Eusebius of Caesarea an idiot for thinking that King Abgar and Jesus could actually communicate and understand one another? Eusebius saw the letters himself. Was the correspondence between the two in the Chinese language? Was he that uneducated, as to not know if they couldn't understand each others' Aramaic dialects?

+Shamasha