character and condition of that language; but these writers both go too far in assigning to it an exclusive prevalence. This is the point, and the only one, which Hug aims to combat; and he shews, irrefragably as it would seem, that the Greek had obtained such a footing in Palestine, as to place it at least nearly on an equality with the Aramaean in respect to general prevalence. The essay of Hug is therefore in some sort supplementary to that of De Rossi and Pfannkuche. Both together present the argument in a complete form; and it is for this reason that these two essays have been selected, in order to lay before the readers of this work a full view of the subject. The article of Hug will be given in the next number. It may further be observed, that the opinion of Hug is also adopted by Binterim and Wiseman, in the works above referred to, as also by Paulus25 and Rettig.26 Professor Olshausen of Königsberg, in advocating the Hebrew original of the Gospel of Matthew,27 supposes the prevalence of the Greek to have been somewhat more limited; but does not assign his reasons for this opinion. ART. IV.-ON THE PREVALENCE OF THE ARAMAEAN LANGUAGE IN PALESTINE IN THE AGE OF CHRIST AND THE APOSTLES. By Henry F. Pfannkuche, Professor of Oriental Languages in the University of Giessen. Translated from the German by the Editor. $1. So long as the Jewish nation maintained its political independence in Palestine, the Hebrew continued to be the common language of the country; and so far as we can judge from the remains of it which are still extant, although not entirely pure, it was yet free from any important changes in those elements and forms by which it was distinguished from other languages. A few foreign words only had crept in, along with the products of foreign commerce, arts, and inventions; and these, in conse 25 Verosimilia de Judaeis Palaest. Jesu etiam et apostolis, non Aram. Dial. sola, sed Graeca quoque Aramaïzante locutis, 1803. 26 In Ephem. exegetico-theol. etc. Fascic. III. Gissae 1824. 27 Echtheit der vier canonischen Evangelien. p. 30. quence of the want of appropriate terms in the language of the country, received the right of citizenship; a fate common to most of the languages of the earth. Even in the time of Hezekiah, the Hebrew dialect differed so much from the BabylonishAramaean, chiefly it is probable in respect to the pronunciation,* that the latter sounded in the ears of the common people at Jerusalem like an entirely foreign language, and was intelligible only to the principal officers of the court; comp. 2 K. 18: 26. But at the period when the Assyrian and Chaldean rulers of Babylon subdued Palestine, every thing assumed another shape. The Jews of Palestine lost, with their political independence, also the independence of their language, which they had till then asserted. The Babylonish-Aramaeant dialect supplanted the Hebrew, and became by degrees in Palestine the prevailing language of the people. $2. The circumstances which must have combined, in order to render possible, and to effect, such a revolution of language in Palestine, were the following. 1. The Babylonish-Aramaean language was very closely allied to the Hebrew; and was related to it somewhat in the same manner, as the old Saxon dialect to that of Franconia, or the present Lower Saxon to the High German [or as the Scotch to the English]. Both were offspring of the original Shemitish language, which, from the Halys in Cappadocia to the regions beyond the Tigris, and from the sources of this latter river to Arabia, united into one great people, the inhabitants of Cappa Michaelis, Spicileg. Geogr. Hebr. exterae, Tom. II. p. 86. Linguam Aramaeam non intelligebant Judaei, qui ei non adsueverant, ut Saxoniae inferioris rustici Bavorum aut Suevum vix intellecturi erant. + This is still often called the Chaldee dialect; but "Chaldee language is an entirely erroneous appellation for Aramacan or Babylonish language. We know very well what was spoken in Babylon; but the proper Chaldee, which seems to have had more affinity with the Persian, Median, Armenian, and Kurd languages, is unknown to all." Schlözer in the Repert. für bibl. u. morgenl. Litteratur, Th. 8. Leipz. 1781, S. 118. Comp. Michaelis Spicileg. T. II. p. 86. [See the addition at the end of the next note.] Posidonius of Apamea in Strabo Lib. I. p. 111. ed. Siebenkees, Leips. 1796. Το τῶν Αρμενίων ἔθνος, καὶ τὸ τῶν Σύρων, καὶ τῶν Αράβων, πολλὴν ὁμοφυλίαν ἐμφαίνει κατά τε τὴν διάλεκτον, καὶ docia and Pontus, the Assyrians, Babylonians, Aramaeans, Hebrews, Phenicians, and Arabians. Both of them, as well as the other Shemitish dialects, had the same stock of ancient radical words, and essentially the same grammar; and they differed from one another chiefly in the following particulars. a) Many words of the old primitive language had remained current in the one dialect, which were lost in the other; e. g. the verb in Aramaean, from which only the derived noun remained in the Hebrew. τοὺς βίους, καὶ τοὺς τῶν σωμάτων χαρακτῆρας, καὶ μάλιστα καθό πλησιόχωροι εἰσί. Δηλοῖ δ' ἡ Μεσοποταμία ἐκ τῶν τριῶν συνεστώσα τούτων ἐθνῶν· μάλιστα γὰρ ἐν τούτοις ἡ ὁμοιότης διαφαίνεται. Εἰ δέ τις παρὰ τὰ κλίματα γίνεται διαφορὰ τοῖς προσβορέοις ἐπιπλέον, πρὸς τοὺς μεσημβρινούς, καὶ τούτοις πρὸς μέσους τοὺς ὅρους, ἀλλ' ἐπικρατεῖ γε τὸ κοινόν. Καὶ οἱ Ασσύρι οι δὲ, καὶ οἱ Αριανοὶ, καὶ οἱ ̓Αρμένιοι [prob. Δραμμαῖοι as some MSS. actually read] παραπλησίως πως ἔχουσι, καὶ πρὸς τούτους, καὶ πρὸς ἀλλήλους. The Armenians and Syrians and Arabians exhibit a great similarity in their language, modes of living, and form of body; and especially those who live near one another. And if there is a difference in different regions, according as they lie more North or South or in the midst, still there prevails a common resemblance. And the Assyrians, and the Arians, and the Armenians (Aramaeans) have also a resemblance, both to these and to one another.' Strabo also (Lib. II. p. 225) speaks of the dialénτου (Συριακῆς) μέχρι νῦν διαμενούσης τῆς αὐτῆς, τοῖς τε ἐκτὸς τοῦ Εὐφράτου καὶ τοῖς ἐντός, the (Syriac) language still remaining the same, to those without and within the Euphrates.' Compare also Heeren, Commentatio de linguarum Asiaticarum in Persarum imperio cognatione et varietate. [The usual representation at the present day is, that the Shemitish languages may be properly reduced to three great branches, viz. 1. The Aramaean, which originally prevailed in Syria, Babylonia, and Mesopotamia; and may therefore be subdivided into the Syriac or West-Aramaean, and the Chaldee or East-Aramaean, called also in the text the Babylonish-Aramaean. To this general branch belong also the dialects of the Samaritans, Zabians, and Palmyrenes. 2. The Hebrew, with which the fragments of the Phenician coincide. 3. The Arabic, under which also belongs the Ethiopic as a dialect.-The Aramaean introduced and spoken in Palestine has also been, and is still, often called the Syro-Chaldaic, because it was probably in some degree a mixture of both the Eastern and Western dialects; or perhaps the distinction between the two had not yet arisen in the age of Christ and the apostles. ED.] b) The same word was current in both dialects, but in different significations; because in the one it retained the original meaning, while in the other it had acquired a different one. So 72, Heb. to serve, Aram. to make; N (Un), Heb. to find, Aram. to come, etc. c) The Babylonish dialect had borrowed single expressions from the northern Chaldeans, who had made an irruption into the country, and who, like the Mongolian and Mandshu Tartars in China, adopted the cultivation and literature of their new subjects. These expressions were altogether foreign to the Shemitish dialects, and belonged to the Japhetian language, which prevailed among the Armenians, Medes, Persians, and Chaldeans, who were probably related to these.* Traces of such foreign words are found in the names of the officers of state, and expressions having reference to the government. d) The Babylonish pronunciation was easier and more sonorous than the Hebrew. It exchanged the frequent sibilants in Hebrew, and also other consonants that were hard to pronounce, for others less difficult; it dropped the long vowels that were not essential to the forms of words; preferred the more sonorous A to the long O, and assumed at the end of nouns, in order to lighten the pronunciation, a prolonged auxiliary vowel ;† it admitted contractions in pronouncing many words, and must have been, as the language of common life, far better adapted to the sluggish orientals, than the harsher Hebrew. For these reasons it could hardly fail to be the case, that a dialect so nearly kindred with the Hebrew, and so insinuating through its easier pronunciation, should get the upper hand in Palestine, so soon as the Hebrews of Palestine came to be in closer connexion with the Aramaeans of Babylon. 2. The numerous Aramaean colonies (2 K. 17: 24), which took the place of the subjects of the kingdom of Israel carried away to Assyria by Shalmaneser, retained their former language, and caused it to spread in the neighbourhood of their places of residence, even before the destruction of the kingdom of Judah. At a later period, the Babylonish-Chaldean governors who ruled over Palestine, the standing armed force which they had with them for the preservation of tranquillity and which was composed of Aramaeans and Chaldeans (2 K. 24: 2), the host of foreign officers in their train, and the transaction of all public business in the Babylonish-Aramaean dialect, must have limited very much the prevalence of the Hebrew national dialect; inasmuch as the Jews of Palestine who held public offices, or otherwise stood in any near connexion with the new rulers, were compelled to become familiar with the ordinary dialect of these rulers; which probably had also still earlier been the court language at Jerusalem; comp. 2 K. 18: 26. $3. During the dominion of the Persians over Palestine, the Aramaean dialect could not but obtain still firmer footing. The great multitudes of Palestine Jews, who, during an exile of seventy years in foreign lands, had become entirely Aramaean, and now returned with the permission of the Persian monarch to their ancient dwelling-place, must have fully accomplished the banishment of the few remains of the Hebrew national dialect, which here and there might still have been extant as the language of common life. The manifold connexions also, which they maintained from this time onward with their numerous countrymen who remained in the Persian dominions and spoke Aramaean, must have been to them the occasion of retaining the dialect common to both, and of cultivating and enriching this in as great a degree, at least, as the other. Besides this, the Aramaean dialect continued also during the rule of the Persians to be the government language, which both the Persians (Ezra 4: 7, 8) and their inferior officers, who were mostly Aramaean, employed in the ordinances and documents intended for the western part of their empire, and consequently also for Palestine. This dialect moreover suffered in the earlier periods no other changes, than that it now adopted from the Persians, as before from the barbarous Chaldeans, single words belonging to the language of government or of fashion; e. g. n, 1a, bano, and the like. At a later period, during the Greek and Persian war, in which nations speaking Shemitish,* and probably also Ara Fl. Josephus, c. Apion. I. 22. Xotolhos de dozαióτegos yeνόμενος ποιητὴς μέμνηται τοῦ ἔθνους ἡμῶν, ὅτι συνεστράτευται Ξέρξη τῷ Περσῶν βασιλεῖ ἐπὶ τὴν ̔Ελλάδα. καταριθμησάμενος γὰρ πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, τελευταῖον καὶ τὸ ἡμέτερον ἐνέταξε λέγων· Τῷ δ ἔπιθεν διέβαινε γένος θαυμαστὸν ἰδέσθαι, Γλῶσσαν μὲν Φοίνισσαν ἀπὸ στομάτων ἀφιέντες. Ωκέετ ̓ ἐν Σολύμοις ὄρεσι πλατέῃ ἐνὶ λίμνῃ. No. II. 41 |