Saadia Gaon

[Paul Younan]

Shlama Akhi Paul,


So you're saying that both Hebrew and Arabic were weened from the same mother, Aramaic. You're also saying that these sisters separated with Ishmael and Issac. Finally, you're saying the variation between the two languages is consequential to centuries of long distance. As a result, they developed their own characteristics. Right? I can accept this. But why do philologists compare Arabic and Hebrew to Akkadian if they descended from Aramaic?

Shlama Akhi bar-Khela,

Philologists also compare the Aramaic NT to the Greek NT, which they presume is the ancestor to the Aramaic NT. <!-- s --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s -->

Abraham knew Akkadian - about that there is no doubt. He couldn't have survived in Mesopotamia if he didn't. And like Aramaic has been influenced by Akkadian, both Hebrew and Arabic have been too. There are a lot of Akkadian loan-words in Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic.

The native language of Babylonia and Assyria was Akkadian. Therefore, the language of the Babylonians and the Assyrians was Akkadian.

However, the Chaldeans were neither Babylonians nor Assyrians. They were invaders from Aram who spoke Aramaic. (c.f., Paul E. Dion. "Aramaean Tribes and Nations of First-Millennium Western Asia." Jack M. Sasson. Editor. Civilizations of the Ancient Near East. Peabody, Mass. Hendrickson. 1995, Vol. 2. p. 1282)

The three principle tribes were Bit-Dakkuri, Bit-Amukkani, and Bit-Yakin, and there were also two smaller ones, Bit-Sha'alli and Bit-Shilani. The Bit-Dakkuri and Bit-Amukkani tribes occupied the region along the Euphrates southwards from Babylon, and the Bit-Yakin tribe lived from around Ur to the marshes which stretched as far as the Persian Gulf. This is why the Bible describes Abraham as coming from "Ur of the Chaldees."

King Sennacherib of Assyria wrote:

"The people of Chaldea, Aramaeans and Manneans ... who had not submitted to the yoke, I removed from hither, and made them carry the basket and mold bricks".

Sennacherib's Palace Without Rival at Nineveh (Uni. of Chicago Press, 1991)

More importantly, GOD says:

"And you shall make response before the Lord your God, 'A wandering Aramean was my father; and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number; and there he became a nation great, mighty and populous."

The Chaldeans were not the only Aramean tribes in Mesopotamia - they were spread out all over. Genesis 25:20 speaks of Isaac's wife Rebekah being the daughter of an Aramean of Paddan-aram (in the Haran, "northern Assyria", area.) This is because Abraham wanted him to marry from his "own people." How is it that the Arameans were "his own people", Akhi, if Abraham wasn't an Aramean?

Arameans spoke Aramaic - the language named after them.