The Age of the Peshitta

[SteveCaruso]

Your classification of the Aramaic dialect of Edessa as "Syriac", an intentional differentiation in order to draw distance from it and the language of Christ, is simply unwarranted and (perhaps unintentionally) deceitful.

And one more minute to spare between after cleaning up dinner:

It's not "his" classification, Akhi. It's the conventional classification, come about by thorough study by many thousands of individuals who have dedicated their lives to studying the Aramaic language family over hundreds of years. It's not something to throw away lightly.

Although it's a smidgeon tongue-in-cheek, as the saying attributed to Max Weinreich goes: /)a $prak )yz )a dy)al(q+ my+ )an )armyy )wn Pl)A+/ = "A 'language' is a 'dialect' with an army and navy." <!-- s --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s -->

The dialect of Osroene Edessa kinda fits that "rule of thumb," which is why its own separate designation is not unwarranted. It coalesced originally as the dialect of a pagan kingdom that shared a very different culture from the various Jewish sects that were contemporary to Jesus, and had a very different culture after the dialect was effectively Christianized afterwards. This causes some understandable differences that are enough to draw a distinction for the sake of discourse vis-a-vis the greater body of Aramaic languages.