Language Studies

Aramaic Thoughts

The Characteristics of Syriac

Syriac is a later form of Aramaic (compared to Official Aramaic) that became the basis of the primary language of the church in western Asia. This is the language in which the Peshitta version of the Bible is written. It is much more closely related, however, to Official Aramaic than it is to the Modern Syriac that is still spoken in some regions of Asia Minor. The latter has been greatly influenced by the other languages of the region, primarily Arabic, Turkish, and Kurdish. For that reason, it is dangerous to make the assumption that Modern Syriac is as closely related to “the language Jesus spoke” as is, for example, Modern Hebrew to Biblical Hebrew. In the case of Modern Hebrew, it is essentially an artificial language, constructed on the basis of Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew, with the addition of a great deal of vocabulary from especially English and German. Modern Syriac, on the other hand, grew and developed over the centuries, affected in part by the liturgical use of the language in the churches of western Asia; in part by the influence of other regional languages; and in part by the slowly decreasing size of the population using the language. We will later discuss the relationship between Official Aramaic and Peshitta Syriac in some greater detail, but for now, it should suffice to note that the two are fairly close dialects of the same language.

Syriac, as it now exists in written texts from the early part of the Christian era, is written in three different scripts, which also differ from the square script of Official Aramaic. The oldest of these is Estrangelo (sometimes spelled Estrangela). It is essentially a square script, but for the most part not readily recognizable from a comparison with the square script of Official Aramaic. Estrangelo is the script used for the earliest inscriptions (dating back to the first century of the Christian era) and for the earliest manuscripts of Syriac. These texts, however, are largely secular or pagan in content. Estrangelo is currently often used for the modern printing of ancient texts, particularly when these texts do not include the vowel pointings.

The other two Syriac scripts are referred to by various names, depending in part on the location. These two scripts seem to have developed out of differences that arose in the Eastern churches, with the separations that occurred. The more commonly used of the two, Jacobite, is also occasionally referred to as Serta or Marionite. Jacobite is a more cursive character than Estrangelo, looking something like Arabic at first sight. Jacobite is the script most commonly used for printing Syriac books.

The other script is referred to sometimes as Chaldean, but more commonly as Nestorian. The characters of Nestorian Syriac are between Jacobite and Estrangelo, being more square than the Jacobite characters (looking less like Arabic), but more cursive than Estrangelo. With both Jacobite and Nestorian, each of the letters may have as many as four forms: when the letter stands alone, when the letter occurs at the beginning of a word, when joined to both the preceding and following letters, and when joined to the preceding but not to the following letter. This variation in forms does not occur with all letters, but it does occur with most. In this, Syriac is much like Ethiopic, in which language the characters (consonants) vary in form depending on what the following vowel is. However, in the Syriac scripts the vowels are written with a pointing system similar to that of Biblical Hebrew, with the vowels indicated by markings above or below the consonantal characters.

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