10-17-2014, 09:47 PM
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. <!-- s--><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="
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