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Looking for a good Aramaic book?
Aramaic was the lingua franca (common language) of the ancient near east.
Not originally a Jewish language, it now exists mostly in Jewish books. There is some Aramaic in the Hebrew Bible (especially in
Daniel), and the Talmud is primarily in Aramaic. Some
prayers we recite to this day are in Aramaic - most notably the Kaddish. Aramaic
and Hebrew share the same alphabet.
Today, Aramaic is not much of a living language. It's spoken by a small
number of - believe it or not - Jews, Moslems, and Christians from various parts
of the Middle East.
However, Aramaic lives on in Jewish books. If you're not sure if a text is
Hebrew or Aramaic, try this quick rule-of-thumb: Hebrew words have the letter
hay in the beginning for a definite article ("the"). The Aramaic equivalent
is to put an aleph at the end of the word. For example, "father" in
Aramaic is abba. Wait a minute, you say? That's Hebrew? No, it's really
Aramaic. The Hebrew word for "father" is av. But just to confuse you, or
so you might be excused for thinking, modern Hebrew borrows abba and
ima ("mother") from Aramaic!
Here are more books to help you learn, or learn about, Aramaic. Many of them
are for serious scholars of Aramaic texts.
A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament: Based upon the
Lexical Work of Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner
by William Lee Holladay |
Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Babli, Yerushalmi, and Midrashic
Literature
by Marcus Jastrow |
Student's Vocabulary for Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic
by Larry A. Mitchel |
The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Unabridged
2-Volume Study Edition) by Ludwig Koehler, Walter
Baumgartner |
Aramaic Made EZ by Daniel Jon Mahar |
A Grammar of Neo-Aramaic: The Dialect of the Jews of Arbel
by Geoffrey Khan |
Ritual Practices to Gain Power: Angels, Incantations, and
Revelation in Early Jewish Mysticism by Rebecca Macy
Lesses |
Grammar of Palestinian Jewish Aramaic by William
B. Stevenson |
A Key-Word-In-Context Concordance to Targum Neofiti: A Guide to
the Complete Palestinian Aramaic Text of the Torah
by Stephen A. Kaufman, Michael Sokoloff |
Qumran and Apocalyptic: Studies on the Aramaic Texts from Qumran
by Florentino Garcia Martinez |
Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek Documentary Texts from Nahal Hever and
Other Sites: With an Appendix Containing Alleged Qumran Texts
by Hannah M. Cotton, Ada Yardeni |
A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine
Period (Publications of the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Project)
by Michael Sokoloff |
Literature of Formative Judaism: The Targumim and Other Jewish
Writings in Late Antiquity (Origins of Judaism, Vol. 12)
by Jacob Neusner |
A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic of the Talmudic and
Geonic Periods (Publications of the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Project)
by Michael Sokoloff |
A Manual of Babylonian Jewish Aramaic by David
Marcus |
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Studies in Targum Jonathan to the Prophets by
Pinchas Churgin, Leivy Smolar, Moses Aberbach |
Grammar of Palestinian Jewish Aramaic by William
B. Stevenson |
Targum Studies, Volume One by Paul V.M. Flesher |
The Targum of Judges by Willem F. Smelik |
Classical Aramaic: Book 1 by Rocco A. Errico,
Michael Bazzi |
A Grammar of Egyptian Aramaic by T. Muraoka,
Bezalel Porten |
The Elephantine Papyri in English: Three Millennia of
Cross-Cultural Continuity and Change by J. Joel
Farber, Cary J. Martin, Gunter Vittmann, Leslie S. B. MacCoull, Sarah
Clackson, Simon Hopkins, Ramon Katzoff, Bezalel Porten |
Al Kanfei Yonah: Collected Studies of Jonas C. Greenfield on
Semitic Philology by Jonas C. Greenfield, Shalom M.
Paul, Michael E. Stone, Avital Pinnick |
Studies in the Aramaic legal papyri from Elephantine
by Yochanan Muffs |
Studia Aramaica: New Sources and New Approaches
by Markham J. Geller, J. C. Greenfield, M. P. Weitzman |
Can't find it here? Try a search on Amazon:
Aramaic
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