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Best way to learn Syriac for cheap or free?
#1
Hello. I'm interested in learning the language of Jesus, and from the little I've researched I see a good bet is to learn Classical Syriac in Serto script which is close to that and which will enable me to read the Peshitta. However, I live in India and I'm very poor and cannot spend too much money on resources. Spending 20$ on books is about what I can spend. So keeping that in mind, can you advise me what would be a good way to start off - whether with free electronic resources (I don't think I can use my credit card internationally) or with cheap print books that are easy to get in India? I also have a Kindle and can purchase Kindle ebooks from Amazon.com as long as they are cheap. But I'm not sure whether the device supports non-English languages as I've not tried yet. Thanks for your advice.
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#2
Doof,

I highly recommend jesusspokearamaic.com. As far as quality of the lessons go, I don't think there is anything out there yet to rival it. Ewan throws in a lot of mnemonics, comparisons, recaps, etc. which makes the material stick into your mind. It's what I've been looking for all these years. He uploads an average of 10-12 new lessons per months.

What I found out, at least for me, was that most grammars even if titled as Introduction were difficult to get me up to speed. They all kind of assumed you already had some semitic language knowledge background (Hebrew, Arabic, etc.). Without that semitic background it's pretty hard. jesusspokearamaic.com truly takes you from zero up, no previous semitic language mastery needed.

If the subscription cost would get in the way, please contact them, they promise to accommodate if you really want to learn. See this: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://jesusspokearamaic.com/about/FAQs">http://jesusspokearamaic.com/about/FAQs</a><!-- m --> Question: Despite your very generous Refund Policy, I am poor and will struggle to pay the minimum subscription cost. Is there any way to pay something closer to what I can afford?

Also for benefit of others reading this, if you tell them you come from <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.peshitta.org/forum/">http://www.peshitta.org/forum/</a><!-- m --> you get half the price. See <!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://www.peshitta.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3750">viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3750</a><!-- l -->

As for free, public domain grammars see this site: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.peshitta.org/beth-sapra/library.html">http://www.peshitta.org/beth-sapra/library.html</a><!-- m --> But you will soon see what I am talking about - unless we do have mastery of Hebrew or Arabic or Ge'ez. Also recent grammars are not necessarily easier or better than those freely available, at least in my opinion - I bought quite a few.
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#3
If you want to learn how to write Serto this is a great video: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/39286/EMAP/1/play/">https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/ru ... AP/1/play/</a><!-- m -->
The full version of that video: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/39264/">https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/39264/</a><!-- m -->

Also this is an online library that has lots of Syriac (Middle Aramaic) books: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.bethmardutho.org/index.php/library/ebetharke.html">http://www.bethmardutho.org/index.php/l ... harke.html</a><!-- m --> But I couldn't find any grammar in English.

Steve Caruso, do you happen to know any treasures they might have in there?
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#4
Although Classical Syriac wasn't the dialect that Jesus spoke (he spoke early Galilean), learning Classical Syriac as your first Aramaic language is a solid thing to do as it's a very strong tradition with a large, well-studied corpus and a very strong New Testament tradition (the Peshitta) as well.

Archive.org has a lot of old grammars for Syriac online, but some of them are a bit dated. Two common ones are:

Uhlemann's Syriac Grammar - https://archive.org/details/uhlemannssyriacg00uhle
and
N?ldeke's Compendious Syriac Grammar - https://archive.org/details/CompendiousSyriacGrammar

If you can get your hands on a copy of Robinson's "Paradigms and Exercises in Syriac Grammar" I highly recommend it. It's usually available on eBay or Amazon for cheap.

If you're interested in Galilean Aramaic, I'm on-again-off-again working on online classes over at http://www.AramaicNT.org. Hopefully soon on-again as I'm finishing up my own grammar of the dialect and have a few children's books in the publication pipeline.

Peace,
-Steve
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#5
If you search in Google (at least the US Google) for "Paradigms and Exercises in Syriac Grammar" you'd be surprised at what you get right there on the fist page of results. I am not sure it is legit for that (and many other) to be there though...
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#6
Reader Alert:

Steve Caruso, seems to think that the Aramaic words that Jesus spoke in the 1st century were much different than what is found in the Greek New Testament, where the Apostles left various words and phrases un-translated...these which just happen to be near identical to the Aramaic words as found in The Aramaic Holy Scriptures, as seen in all The Peshitta manuscripts from the 5th-17th centuries.

We can be very sure that what we read in The Eastern Peshitta manuscripts text, and their printed editions, are the Aramaic words that Jesus and His Disciples spoke in the 1st century. The content and message hasn't changed, even if a letter here or there might have changed, the words are the same and have the same meaning.

What Steve Caruso is constructing over at his website there, is what he thinks *might* have been the form of Aramaic that Jesus and His Disciples *might* have used...but, he has no evidence to back up that *assumption* of his, yet, he tries to act like it is actually the way it was.

Also, It's weird, (I find it dis-honest) that he calls his website "The Aramaic New Testament", but, he doesn't even have The Aramaic New Testament presented there. It is just an English translation of an Alexandrian Greek source text, with his hypothetical "Galilean dialect" interpolated here and there, from the Greek text source he uses. It's an all Greek source text.

If I were you, I wouldn't waste my time trying to learn a hypothetical dialect, which no New Testament was written in, and which is a hobby horse of a re-constructionalist who can't be certain if it is as he has imagined it to be, or not.

I say stick with what has always been in The Aramaic New Testament, since the 1st century down to today. It's the real deal and does not disappoint.


.
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#7
I'm a Peshitta primacist and find Steve's work fascinating. While his conclusions might not be 100% correct, I'm sure they warrant a look see. I'm going to start using His site more when he puts more stuff up. Learning the Syriac and Galilean dialects of the Aramaic language would be very useful! Syriac and Galilean are two different dialects, but how different they are is a matter of debate. Only the Syriac dialect survives in a large corpus. Steve is utilizing the Peshitta and Greek New Testaments, as well as other sources (like surviving Judean, Galilean, and Samaritan Aramaic documents) in an attempt to reconstruct what he believes to be the Galilean Aramaic dialect of Yeshua Meshikha (Jesus the Messiah).
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#8
And Charley (Thirdwoe) and I have an ongoing tiff it seems (the Johnny Snow to my Dr. Horrible? "I'm not your nemesis." :-) ). I can't mention my work without him wrapping everything in scare quotes and crying caveat emptor in an attempt to discredit me even if I mention it in passing, but between the two of us I'm the only one who actually works in the field of Aramaic Studies in a professional capacity. He does not. Galilean is a real dialect, and has a sizable corpus of work written in it -- which to Charley apparently doesn't exist... despite it existing. He's bugged by it. :-)

I must also say thank you for your more tempered and reasonable comments, Dylan (ScorpioSniper2). :-)

Anyways, borota, I do know that there is a PDF of Robinson's Paradigms and Exercises floating about the web, but its copyright isn't up yet (nor will it be for a while). If you do snag it, be sure to purchase a physical copy as well when your means permit. Robinson did a very good job to make it easy to follow and fun.

Peace,
-Steve
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#9
Thank you Steve. In fact, I did use that online "library" to browse through books and decide on what I wanted to buy. One book that is on the way as a result is Healey's Leshono Suryoyo, any thoughts on that one? I like that it has audio in both Western and Eastern. The sound files are freely available from the publisher here: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.gorgiaspress.com/bookshop/download/1-59333-190-8.zip">http://www.gorgiaspress.com/bookshop/do ... -190-8.zip</a><!-- m -->

The Robinson's they have in the "online library" is the fifth edition, I saw on amazon that there is a 2013 revision available, I am thinking of buying that one too. But what would maybe commend Robinson's above Healey's in your opinion?

About the Galilean, the fact that the corpus is almost inexistent for the time of Jesus, wouldn't that indicate that it didn't have the status of a formal language yet? And as such would have been outright rude for Jesus and His disciples to use it in general public discourse and written form?

One wouldn't expect to have a southerner US president starting to y'all all over the place. Although his speech might still betray his southernness, he'd work hard to speak proper Midwestern. But then when with his close friends and family he'd go back to y'all-ing. A hundred years from now, as a lot of intelligentsia decides to move from all over US to Texas, y'all is now all of the sudden acceptable presidential lore. <!-- sSmile --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="Smile" title="Smile" /><!-- sSmile -->

So maybe both Thirdwoe and you are both right. Jesus and His disciples didn't speak Galilean (in public discourse generally and in written form), and Jesus and His disciples did speak Galilean (among themselves and areas where speaking otherwise would have been perceived as cocky). What do you guys think about that possibility?
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#10
I think they're both right, myself. I have a deep respect for both Steve Caruso and Paul Younan's work. They're approaching Aramaic studies from two different perspectives and they're both very enlightening. Jesus and the apostles clearly spent time among both Western and Eastern Aramaic speakers, so I don't think there was much of a language barrier, at least not that we're told in the four Gospels. I loved your "y'all" analogy, because Galileans were the "good ol' boy" rednecks of 1st century Israel! I find myself trying to avoid "Southern-isms" in my speech (I'm from Western Kentucky).
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#11
borota Wrote:Thank you Steve. In fact, I did use that online "library" to browse through books and decide on what I wanted to buy. One book that is on the way as a result is Healey's Leshono Suryoyo, any thoughts on that one? I like that it has audio in both Western and Eastern. The sound files are freely available from the publisher here: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.gorgiaspress.com/bookshop/download/1-59333-190-8.zip">http://www.gorgiaspress.com/bookshop/do ... -190-8.zip</a><!-- m -->

The Robinson's they have in the "online library" is the fifth edition, I saw on amazon that there is a 2013 revision available, I am thinking of buying that one too. But what would maybe commend Robinson's above Healey's in your opinion?

Unfortunately, I haven't had any experience with Healey's; however, if Georgias Press is carrying it that means it's vetted as good material.

borota Wrote:About the Galilean, the fact that the corpus is almost inexistent for the time of Jesus, wouldn't that indicate that it didn't have the status of a formal language yet?

Far from it. We do have a number of inscriptions in early Galilean that are about equal in number to those we have in Old Syriac (the dialect of Syriac contemporary to Jesus). Like the Old Syriac corpus, most are rather small or formulaic. It's not until the 3rd century (for Galilean) and the 4th century (for Syriac) that we see larger works preserved.

borota Wrote:And as such would have been outright rude for Jesus and His disciples to use it in general public discourse and written form?

One wouldn't expect to have a southerner US president starting to y'all all over the place. Although his speech might still betray his southernness, he'd work hard to speak proper Midwestern. But then when with his close friends and family he'd go back to y'all-ing. A hundred years from now, as a lot of intelligentsia decides to move from all over US to Texas, y'all is now all of the sudden acceptable presidential lore. <!-- sSmile --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="Smile" title="Smile" /><!-- sSmile -->
ScorpioSniper2 Wrote:I loved your "y'all" analogy, because Galileans were the "good ol' boy" rednecks of 1st century Israel! I find myself trying to avoid "Southern-isms" in my speech (I'm from Western Kentucky).

This idea of "rudeness" like this in dialog is a modern idea. Where the Judean Pharisees certainly thought the Galileans as crude due to their pronunciation, Galilean Aramaic (and Western Aramaic in general) actually is actually more conservative grammatically. Overall, Galileans had no problem speaking in their native dialect (such as when Peter denied Christ three times). It was very distinct, but intelligible.

borota Wrote:So maybe both Thirdwoe and you are both right. Jesus and His disciples didn't speak Galilean (in public discourse generally and in written form), and Jesus and His disciples did speak Galilean (among themselves and areas where speaking otherwise would have been perceived as cocky). What do you guys think about that possibility?

Given that most of the places named in the New Testament where Jesus spoke and preached were in and around Galilee (Bethsaida, Cana, Capernaum, Chorazin, Gennesaret, Nain, Nazareth, etc.) or where Western Aramaic was spoken (Caesarea Philippi, Decapolis [which also spoke a lot of Greek], Jericho, Sychar [and the rest of Samaria], Tyre, and Sidon) it would make sense for him to speak his native dialect.

That pretty much leaves Jerusalem where Eastern Aramaic was dominant, but was also a bit of a salad with Western Aramaic (Galilean and Samaritan), Greek, and even Latin spoken within the vicinity. (Have I left any places in Judea out?)

Syriac, on the other hand, was only really spoken far far to the north. There is only one example of Old Syriac in the vicinity of any of the places Jesus is said to have gone which is in Jerusalem (the Tomb of Queen Helena) and it's actually re-inscribed directly underneath, translated into Galilean, because the Syriac script and orthography was not understandable by the common man.

Would he have understood Old Syriac or Classical Syriac? Certainly, as easily as an American English speaker can understand Scots (with cases of difficulty here and there and missed wordplays, granted, but overall it's understandable -- read some Robert Burns and you'll see).

Would he have spoken Classical Syriac? No. The grammatical and vocabulary changes hadn't happened yet.

Would he have spoken Old Syriac? Given his upbringing and his audience, no. Everything else equal, at the very least there would simply be no need to.

Peace,
-Steve
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#12
I was wondering if Judean was an Eastern dialect, because I'd read Janet Magiera describe it as such.
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#13
SteveCaruso Wrote:This idea of "rudeness" like this in dialog is a modern idea.

Not so for Greco-Roman world. I don't know about Jewish world though. If anything, public speaking in our times is usually more casual and less of an art than it was in antiquity. At least that's what I learned in my history class back in secondary school.
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#14
And there you go, Wikipedia seconds me on that: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric</a><!-- m -->

"Along with grammar and logic (or dialectic?see Martianus Capella), rhetoric is one of the three ancient arts of discourse." If you wanted to have any audience in ancient Greco-Roman times you'd better make sure you didn't y'all at all <!-- sSmile --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="Smile" title="Smile" /><!-- sSmile -->. Sloppy speech had no place in public discourse.
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#15
Quote:Steve is utilizing the Peshitta....

Dylan, where do you see The Peshitta Aramaic New Testament at Steve's site? And which Aramaic Peshitta manuscript or printed text of The Aramaic Peshitta NT do you say he is "utilizing" for his work?

And the fact is, Steve can't say with any certainty, what dialect of Aramaic Jesus and His Apostles used as their main dialect. And as far as I know, there has never been said to exist, or a shred of a NT manuscript written in what Steve thinks Jesus and His Apostles may have used.

I, like Shamasha Paul Younan, say that Jesus and His Apostles were able to converse in a number of Aramaic dialects. When Steve answers "No", it certainly doesn't mean that his opinions are true.

Also, if you do spend any time over at Steve's site, learning his newly constructed dialect, which he thinks Jesus and His Apostles might have used in the 1st century, then compare the text he has created there, with the text that is found in The Holy Scriptures of The Aramaic Peshitta New Testament, and see if there is any difference of meaning for the words, and also, check and see if there are any additions or deletions in the text he has there against the text of The Holy Aramaic Scriptures of The Peshitta.
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