Pronunciation

[metal1633]

I am still in a pre Aramaic 101 stage when it comes to knowledge and my question is..."Where does the stress typically go--last syllable?"

[Paul Younan]

Hi Metal,

Yes, in Aramaic the stress is on the last syllable (as opposed to Hebrew where it is on the first syllable.)

"Hello" is "Shla*ma*" instead of "*Shla*ma".

[bar Sinko]

Hi, Paul.

This has me a little confused. Way back when I learned a little Hebrew, I seem to remember that Hebrew words usually have stress on the last syllable (eg. shaLOM, shaBBAT, aDAM, bereSHIT, eloHIM, toRAH, etc).

Also, the book I got to try to learn some Aramaic in advance of Mari seems to stress the first syllable quite often. The book, "The Syriac Primer" by George Anton Kiraz, uses Western pronunciation as well as the Serto script, so perhaps it's different for the Eastern dialects?

bar Sinko

[abudar2000]

shlomo bar Sinko,

This has me a little confused. Way back when I learned a little Hebrew, I seem to remember that Hebrew words usually have stress on the last syllable (eg. shaLOM, shaBBAT, aDAM, bereSHIT, eloHIM, toRAH, etc).

Also, the book I got to try to learn some Aramaic in advance of Mari seems to stress the first syllable quite often. The book, "The Syriac Primer" by George Anton Kiraz, uses Western pronunciation as well as the Serto script, so perhaps it's different for the Eastern dialects?

In West-Syriac we use the following rules of pronunciation:

a-lo-ho <= You stress on the before last syllable ("lo")
a-bo <="a"
shlo-mo <= "shlo"
a-vun <= You stress on the last syllable ("vun")
mo-ran <= "ran"

push bashlomo,
keefa-morun

[bar Sinko]

Thanks, Abudar.

I see, so in Western Aramaic/Syriac, you stress on the vowel before the last consonant. This is what I thought intuitively.

It seems that Eastern Aramaic is different. I'll have to wait for Paul or someone else to confirm and clarify the rule for Eastern pronunciation.

bar Sinko

[abudar2000]

shlomo bar Sinko,

I see, so in Western Aramaic/Syriac, you stress on the vowel before the last consonant. This is what I thought intuitively.

You kind of got one of them, please see below!

There's two types of stresses, as mentioned before:
1) If we have a closed syllable at the end of a word we stress on the last syllable => ex: mo-ran => "ran"
2) If we have a open syllable at the end of a word we stress on the before last syllable => ex: a-lo-ho => "lo"

P.S. The dominant sound in any syllable is its vowel; that is why if you ever look at Syriac sheet music, you'll notice that each note corresponds to a vowel and never to a consonant.

push bashlomo,
keefa-morun

[Karl]

In Eastern Neo-Aramaic, the stress is always on the penult (second-last syllable), even if it's a closed syllable:

• SHLA-ma ("peace")
• MAR-an ("our lord")
• mal-PA-na ("teacher")
• mal-PA-nan ("our teacher")
• hay-man-OO-tha ("faith")

Side note: for words with three or more syllables, there's a secondary stress on the first syllable:

• mal-pa-na
• hay-man-oo-tha

Exceptions:

• emphasis (as in English and most other languages): mal-pa-NAN ("OUR teacher")
• some foreign words (e-wan-gley-ON, "Bible," from Greek)
• the word "alaha," which can be stressed regularly (a-LA-ha), but is usually stressed "A-la-ha"

I'm not sure what the rules are for the old language, but I think I read somewhere that no one is entirely sure. It could have ranged from dialect to dialect.