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Eastern vs. Western dialects of 1st century Aramaic
#2
bknight Wrote:In a discussion regarding the primacy of Peshitta over GNT at another forum, I was met with this argument:

Quote:The Peshitta is written in Syriac, an Aramaic dialect from the East, whereas in the West (Jerusalem counts as West), Palestinian Aramaic would have been the common dialect. This would mean that, if the originals of those 22 books of the NT were originally written in Aramaic, they would have had to be translated into the Syriac dialect

I know its not quite right but I'm having trouble articulating why.

For one, it is not accurate to speak of "translating" from one dialect to another; I'm an American but I don't need a translator to communicate with Australian, even though we both speak different dialects of english.

I also know that "syriac" is a made-up word never used by native speakers of Aramaic, but what I'm not clear on is whether the word was made up to describe the entire Aramaic language, or, as my opponent suggests, to describe a particular eastern dialect of Aramaic.

Appreciation to anyone who can point me in the right direction, I'm just trying to share what I've learned and its becoming evident I have a lot more to learn still.

Ask the poster if the supposed "Palestinian Aramaic" that is preserved in the Greek ("Talitha Qumi", "Maran Atha", etc.) needed any translating into "Syriac."

Sit back and watch your opponent dance around your question. It's fun. <!-- sWink --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/wink1.gif" alt="Wink" title="Wink" /><!-- sWink -->

+Shamasha
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Re: Eastern vs. Western dialects of 1st century Aramaic - by Paul Younan - 04-09-2013, 04:03 AM

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