11-28-2013, 03:31 PM
Thank you Akhay for all your contributions and please edit anything you re-read and regret articulating in a certain way.
Today we are celebrating thanksgiving in America, and although it is rooted in a secular tradition, let us all give thanks to God for each other.
Akhi Stephen - thanks for stepping in and willing to be a moderator.
Akhi Steve - next time I'm at Montrose cemetery in Chicago, I'll take a photo of all three of my grandparents' gravestones and post them here. They are bilingual in both Estrangelo Aramaic script and in English.
I can assure you, that of the three grandparents who lived here for an average of twenty years, they knew maybe 20 English words they absolutely had to learn to get by. I mean like "hello", "yes", "no", etc. The level of English they knew was about the amount a 2-year old would need.
However they were trilingual in Aramaic, Arabic and Kurdish. One even was fluent also in Turkish.
Inscriptions on gravestones are for the benefit of later generations, not the deceased.
Outside every parish in Chicago is inscribed the name of the church in English characters, and also the street number of the address in Arabic numerals. We even purchased a building from former Presbyterians who had beautiful stained glass mosaics already installed in the windows, with English of course as the language in the stained glass. But inside the church, Aramaic stands as King.
Back in the homeland, gravestones might be bi lingual in Aramaic and either Arabic, Turkish, Kurdish or Persian, depending on the country. But very few of those people were proficient in those other languages. The gravestones may carry the marking of the language of the rulers of the area, for obvious reasons. But it may not represent the language of the person lying in the grave.
Gravesite and religious building inscriptions are certainly found in Greek in first century Israel and many other locations as well. But that is a poor indicator of the status of Greek as the common language of any area.
I would certainly put more weight into the first-person account of a historian of the stature that Josephus had, instead of brushing it off as a mere exaggeration. I personally think that is of much greater value in this debate, than conclusions drawn largely out of conjecture surrounding the significance of graveyard inscriptions or mosaics in synagogues.
+Shamasha Paul
Today we are celebrating thanksgiving in America, and although it is rooted in a secular tradition, let us all give thanks to God for each other.
Akhi Stephen - thanks for stepping in and willing to be a moderator.
Akhi Steve - next time I'm at Montrose cemetery in Chicago, I'll take a photo of all three of my grandparents' gravestones and post them here. They are bilingual in both Estrangelo Aramaic script and in English.
I can assure you, that of the three grandparents who lived here for an average of twenty years, they knew maybe 20 English words they absolutely had to learn to get by. I mean like "hello", "yes", "no", etc. The level of English they knew was about the amount a 2-year old would need.
However they were trilingual in Aramaic, Arabic and Kurdish. One even was fluent also in Turkish.
Inscriptions on gravestones are for the benefit of later generations, not the deceased.
Outside every parish in Chicago is inscribed the name of the church in English characters, and also the street number of the address in Arabic numerals. We even purchased a building from former Presbyterians who had beautiful stained glass mosaics already installed in the windows, with English of course as the language in the stained glass. But inside the church, Aramaic stands as King.
Back in the homeland, gravestones might be bi lingual in Aramaic and either Arabic, Turkish, Kurdish or Persian, depending on the country. But very few of those people were proficient in those other languages. The gravestones may carry the marking of the language of the rulers of the area, for obvious reasons. But it may not represent the language of the person lying in the grave.
Gravesite and religious building inscriptions are certainly found in Greek in first century Israel and many other locations as well. But that is a poor indicator of the status of Greek as the common language of any area.
I would certainly put more weight into the first-person account of a historian of the stature that Josephus had, instead of brushing it off as a mere exaggeration. I personally think that is of much greater value in this debate, than conclusions drawn largely out of conjecture surrounding the significance of graveyard inscriptions or mosaics in synagogues.
+Shamasha Paul