11-25-2013, 07:59 PM
shalom 'aleykhem
Steve, you're not alone.
I am not using the term "Syriac" in its strictest academic sense. "Syriac" was the term used before the 4 Century, to refers to all colloqual dialects of (what we call now) Aramaic language spoken in the territory of Palestina, syria ON THIS SIDE Euphrates. The term "Aramaic" refered to the Bablilonian Aramaic.
Edessa was in the middle (between the Euphrates and Tigris), but its dialect didn't belong to "Syriac" Aramaic. I know it's weird: our Syriac isn't that one that was called Syriac before.
In the first century, the tongue used in Edessa was what we call "OLD SYRIAC". It deffers a little from an another written language used in the Mesopotamia and called East- mesopotamian. Our earlist testimony of Old Syriac tongue is given by the the so-called "Inscription of Birecik", coming from Birecik (6 CE), on the Euphrates.
Here an extract "kl ?n? dy?t? b[byt qbwr?] hn?" [...]everyone who will come to this [tomb]. You can see that the 3rd masc sing afformative is "y" in "y-?-t-?".
We found the "y" preformative still in two other stone inscriptions dated from 73 AD and 165 AD. As a matter of fact, the first appearance of the "CLASSICAL SYRIAC" - n preformative goes back to "I don't know because I don't want to read Harviainen to know it" but I konw a 240 AD inscription. So. The Peshitta is not written in Old Syriac the only one state of the langue known in Edessa in 1st Century, but in post Old Syriac " classical Aramaic".
There's a old text however, that we have in classical Syriac which was without a doubt composed in Old syriac: The Edessene Chronicle. So it is not impossible to convert old syriac in classical syriac (it has been done)...
Steve, you're not alone.
I am not using the term "Syriac" in its strictest academic sense. "Syriac" was the term used before the 4 Century, to refers to all colloqual dialects of (what we call now) Aramaic language spoken in the territory of Palestina, syria ON THIS SIDE Euphrates. The term "Aramaic" refered to the Bablilonian Aramaic.
Edessa was in the middle (between the Euphrates and Tigris), but its dialect didn't belong to "Syriac" Aramaic. I know it's weird: our Syriac isn't that one that was called Syriac before.
In the first century, the tongue used in Edessa was what we call "OLD SYRIAC". It deffers a little from an another written language used in the Mesopotamia and called East- mesopotamian. Our earlist testimony of Old Syriac tongue is given by the the so-called "Inscription of Birecik", coming from Birecik (6 CE), on the Euphrates.
Here an extract "kl ?n? dy?t? b[byt qbwr?] hn?" [...]everyone who will come to this [tomb]. You can see that the 3rd masc sing afformative is "y" in "y-?-t-?".
We found the "y" preformative still in two other stone inscriptions dated from 73 AD and 165 AD. As a matter of fact, the first appearance of the "CLASSICAL SYRIAC" - n preformative goes back to "I don't know because I don't want to read Harviainen to know it" but I konw a 240 AD inscription. So. The Peshitta is not written in Old Syriac the only one state of the langue known in Edessa in 1st Century, but in post Old Syriac " classical Aramaic".
There's a old text however, that we have in classical Syriac which was without a doubt composed in Old syriac: The Edessene Chronicle. So it is not impossible to convert old syriac in classical syriac (it has been done)...