Syriac ( ) is a dialect of
Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across
much of the
Fertile Crescent.
Classical Syriac became a major literary language
throughout the
Middle East from the 4th
to the 8th centuries.
It was the classical language of Edessa
, preserved in a large body of Syriac literature.
It became
the vehicle of Eastern
Christianity and culture, spreading throughout Asia as far as Malabar and
Eastern China
and was the
medium of communication and cultural dissemination for Arabs and, to a lesser extent, Persians. Primarily a Christian medium
of expression, Syriac had a fundamental cultural and literary
influence on the development of
Arabic which
replaced it towards the end of the eighth century. Syriac remains
the
liturgical language of
Syriac Christianity.
Syriac is a
Middle Aramaic language,
and as such a language of the
Western
branch of the
Semitic
family.
Syriac is written in the
Syriac
alphabet, a derivation of the
Aramaic alphabet.
Geographic distribution
Syriac was originally a local Aramaic dialect in northern
Mesopotamia.
Before Arabic became the dominant language,
Syriac was a major language among Christian communities in the
Middle East, Central Asia and Kerala
.
History
The history of Syriac can be divided into three distinct periods:
- Old Syriac (the language of the kingdom of Osroene),
- Middle Syriac ( : Literary Syriac), which divided into:
- Western Middle Syriac (the literary and ecclesiastical language
of Syriac and Maronite Christians),
- Eastern Middle Syriac (the literary and ecclesiastical language
of Chaldean and Assyrian Christians).
Origins
Syriac began as an unwritten spoken dialect of
Old Aramaic in
northern Mesopotamia. The first
evidence we have of such dialects is their influence on the written
Imperial Aramaic from the 5th century BC. After the conquest of
Syria and Mesopotamia by
Alexander
the Great, Syriac and other Aramaic dialects became written
languages in a reaction to
Hellenism.Syriac orthography is
drawn from
Arsacid Aramaic.
In 132 BC,
the kingdom of Betnovin was founded in Edessa with Syriac as its official language.
Syriac-speakers still look to Edessa as the cradle of their
language.There are about eighty extant early Syriac inscriptions,
dated to the first three centuries AD. The earliest example of
Syriac, rather than Imperial Aramaic, is in an inscription dated to
6 AD, and the earliest parchment is a deed of sale dated to 243 AD.
Other
early inscriptions were found at Sumatar Harabesi
. All of these early examples of the language
are non-Christian. As an official language, Syriac was given a
relatively coherent form, style and grammar that is lacking in
other Old Eastern Aramaic dialects.
Literary Syriac
In the third century, churches in Edessa began to use Syriac as the
language of worship. There is evidence that the adoption of Syriac,
the language of the people, was to effect mission. Much literary
effort was put into the production of an authoritative translation
of the Bible into Syriac, the
Peshitta (
or). At the same time,
Ephrem the
Syrian was producing the most treasured collection of poetry
and theology in the Syriac language.
In 489, many Syriac-speaking Christians living in the Roman Empire
fled to Persia to escape persecution and growing animosity with
Greek-speaking Christians.
The Christological differences with the
Persian
church led to the bitter Nestorian schism in the Syriac-speaking
world. As a result, Syriac developed distinctive western and
eastern varieties. Although remaining a single language with a high
level of comprehension between the varieties, the two employ
distinctive variations in pronunciation and writing system, and, to
a lesser degree, in vocabulary.
Western Syriac is the official language of the
West Syrian rite, practiced by the
Syriac Orthodox Church, the
Syrian Catholic Church, the
Maronite Church, the
Malankara Orthodox Syrian
Church, the
Malankara Syrian Orthodox
Church, the
Mar Thoma Church
and the
Syro-Malankara
Catholic Church.
Eastern Syriac is the liturgical language of the
East Syrian rite, practiced by the
Assyrian Church of the East
(including the
Chaldean Syrian
Church), the
Ancient
Church of the East, the
Chaldean Catholic Church, and the
Syro-Malabar Church.
Syriac literature is by far the most prodigious of the various
Aramaic languages. Its corpus
covers poetry, prose, theology, liturgy, hymnody, history,
philosophy, science, medicine and natural history. Much of this
wealth remains unavailable in critical editions or modern
translation.
From the 7th century onwards, Syriac gave way to
Arabic as the spoken language of the region.
The
Mongol invasions of the 13th century
further contributed to the rapid decline of the language. In many
places, even in liturgy, it was replaced by Arabic.
Revivals of Syriac in recent times have led to some success with
the creation of newspapers in literary Syriac (
Kthābānāyā), and the translation of many Arabic and
western books into Syriac.
Among the
Syriac churches of
Kerala,
Malayalam often replaces
Syriac. Literary Syriac is often used as a spoken language by
clerics who do not speak the vernacular dialects.
Grammar
Syriac words, as with those in other
Semitic languages, are built out of
triliteral roots, permutations of three
Syriac consonants. For example, the root ܫܩܠ,
ŠQL, has the
basic meaning of
taking, and so we have the following
words that can be formed from this root:
- ܫܩܠ — šqal: "he has taken"
- ܢܫܩܘܠ — nešqûl: "he takes"
- ܫܩܠ — šaqqel: "he has lifted/raised"
- ܐܫܩܠ — ašqel: "he has set out"
- ܫܩܠܐ — šqālâ: "a taking, burden, recension, portion or
syllable"
- ܫܩ̈ܠܐ — šeqlē: "takings, profits, taxes"
- ܫܩܠܘܬܐ — : "a beast of burden"
- ܫܘܩܠ — šûqālâ: "arrogance"
Nouns
Most Syriac
nouns are built from
triliteral roots. Nouns carry
grammatical gender (masculine or
feminine), they can be either singular or plural in number (a very
few can be dual) and can exist in one of three grammatical states.
These states correspond, in part, to the role of
grammatical cases in some other languages.
- The absolute state is the basic form of the noun — ܫܩܠܝ̈ܢ,
šeqlîn, "taxes".
- The emphatic state usually represents a definite noun — ܫܩ̈ܠܐ,
šeqlē, "the taxes".
- The construct state marks a noun in relationship to another
noun — ̈ܫܩܠܝ, šeqlay, "taxes of...".
However, very quickly in the development of Classical Syriac, the
emphatic state became the ordinary form of the noun, and the
absolute and construct states were relegated to certain stock
phrases (for example, ܒܪ ܐܢܫܐ/ܒܪܢܫܐ,
bar nāšâ, "man",
literally "son of man").
In Old and early Classical Syriac, most
genitive noun relationships are built using
the construct state. Thus, ܫܩܠܝ̈ ܡܠܟܘܬܐ, , means "the taxes of the
kingdom". Quickly, the construct relationship was abandoned and
replaced by the use of the relative particle ܕ,
d-. Thus,
the same
noun phrase becomes ܫܩ̈ܠܐ
ܕܡܠܟܘܬܐ, , where both nouns are in the emphatic state. Very closely
related nouns can be drawn into a closer grammatical relationship
by the addition of a pronominal suffix. Thus, the phrase can be
written as ܫܩܠܝ̈ܗ ܕܡܠܟܘܬܐ, . In this case, both nouns continue to
be in the emphatic state, but the first has the suffix that makes
it literally read "her taxes" ("kingdom" is feminine), and thus is
"her taxes, those of the kingdom".
Adjectives always agree in gender and
number with the nouns they modify. Adjectives are in the absolute
state if they are
predicative,
but agree with the state of their noun if
attributive. Thus, ܒܝܫܝ̈ܢ ܫܩ̈ܠܐ,
bîšîn šeqlē, means "the taxes are evil", whereas ܫܩ̈ܠܐ
ܒܝ̈ܫܐ, , means "evil taxes".
Verbs
Most Syriac verbs are built on
triliteral
roots as well. Finite verbs carry
person,
gender (except in the first person) and
number, as well as
tense and
conjugation. The non-finite verb forms are the
infinitive and the
active and
passive
participles.
Syriac has only two true
morphological tenses: perfect and
imperfect. Whereas these tenses were originally
aspectual in
Aramaic, they have become a truly temporal
past and
future tenses respectively. The
present tense is usually marked with the
participle followed by the
subject pronoun.
However, such pronouns are usually omitted in the case of the third
person. This use of the participle to mark the present tense is the
most common of a number of
compound tenses that can be
used to express varying senses of tense and aspect.
Syriac also employs verb
conjugations such as are present
in other
Semitic languages. These
are regular modifications of the verb's root to express other
changes in meaning. The first conjugation is the ground state, or
Pə`al (this name models the shape of the root). form of
the verb, which carries the usual meaning of the word. The next is
the intensive state, or
Pa``el, form of the verb, which
usually carries an
intensified meaning,
The third is the extensive state, or , form of the verb, which is
often
causative in meaning. Each of these
conjugations has its parallel
passive
conjugation: the , and respectively. To these six cardinal
conjugations are added a few irregular forms, like the and , which
generally have an extensive meaning.
Pə`al
| Person & gender |
Perfect |
Imperfect |
| Singular |
Plural |
Singular |
Plural |
| 3rd m. |
kəṯaḇ |
kəṯaḇ(w)/kəṯabbûn |
neḵtoḇ |
neḵtəḇûn |
| 3rd f. |
keṯbaṯ |
kəṯaḇ(y)/kəṯabbên |
teḵtoḇ |
neḵtəḇān |
| 2nd m. |
kəṯaḇt |
kəṯaḇton |
teḵtoḇ |
teḵtəḇûn |
| 2nd f. |
kəṯaḇt(y) |
kəṯaḇtên |
teḵtuḇîn |
teḵtəḇān |
| 1st m./f. |
keṯḇeṯ |
kəṯaḇn |
eḵtoḇ |
neḵtoḇ |
Phonology
Phonologically, like the other Northwest Semitic languages, Syriac
has 22 consonants and 3 vowels. The consonantal phonemes are:
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Phonetically, there is some variation in the pronunciation of
Syriac in its various forms. The various Modern Eastern Aramaic
vernaculars have quite different pronunciations, and these
sometimes influence how the classical language is pronounced, for
example, in public prayer. Classical Syriac has two major streams
of pronunciation: western and eastern.
Consonants
Syriac shares with
Aramaic a set of
lightly contrasted
plosive/
fricative pairs. In different variations
of a certain lexical root, a root consonant might exist in plosive
form in one variation and fricative form in another. In the
Syriac alphabet, a single letter is
used for each pair. Sometimes a dot is placed above the letter ( ,
or
strengthening; equivalent to a
dagesh in
Hebrew) to
mark that the plosive pronunciation is required, and a dot is
placed below the letter ( , or
softening) to mark that the
fricative pronunciation is required. The pairs are:
As with other
Semitic languages,
Syriac has a set of five
emphatic
consonants. These are consonants that are articulated or
released in the
pharynx or slightly higher.
The set consists of:
Syriac also has a rich array of
sibilant consonants:
Vowels
As with most
Semitic languages,
the vowels of Syriac are mostly subordinated to consonants.
Especially in the presence of an
emphatic consonant, vowels tend to become
mid-centralised.
Classical Syriac had the following set of distinguishable vowels:
In the western dialect, has become , and the original has merged
with . In eastern dialects there is more fluidity in the
pronunciation of
front vowels, with some
speakers distinguishing five qualities of such vowels, and others
only distinguishing three. Vowel length is generally not important:
close vowels tend to be longer than
open vowels.
The
open vowels form
diphthongs with the
approximants and . In almost all
dialects the full sets of possible diphthongs collapses into two or
three actual pronunciations:
See also
References
- Journal of Sacred Literature, New Series [Series 4] vol. 2
(1863) pp. 75-87, The Syriac Language and
Literature
- Beyer, Klaus (1986). The Aramaic language: its distribution
and subdivisions. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht. ISBN
3-525-53573-2.
- Brock, Sebastian (2006). An
Introduction to Syriac Studies. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press.
ISBN 1-59333-349-8.
- Brockelmann, Carl (1895).
Lexicon Syriacum. Berlin: Reuther & Reichard;
Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.
- Healey, John F (1980). First studies in Syriac.
University of Birmingham/Sheffield Academic Press. ISBN
0-7044-0390-0.
- Maclean, Arthur John (2003). Grammar of the dialects of
vernacular Syriac: as spoken by the Eastern Syrians of Kurdistan,
north-west Persia, and the Plain of Mosul: with notices of the
vernacular of the Jews of Azerbaijan and of Zakhu near Mosul.
Gorgias Press. ISBN 1-59333-018-9.
- Nöldeke, Theodor and Julius
Euting (1880) Kurzgefasste syrische Grammatik. Leipzig:
T.O. Weigel. [translated to English as Compendious Syriac
Grammar, by James A. Crichton. London: Williams & Norgate
1904. 2003 edition: ISBN 1-57506-050-7].
- Payne Smith, Jessie (Ed.) (1903). A compendious Syriac
dictionary founded upon the Thesaurus Syriacus of Robert Payne Smith. Oxford
University Press, reprinted in 1998 by Eisenbraums. ISBN
1-57506-032-9.
- Robinson, Theodore Henry (1915). Paradigms and exercises in
Syriac grammar. Oxford University Press. ISBN
0-19-926129-6.
- Thackston, Wheeler M. (1999). Introduction to Syriac: An
Elementary Grammar With Readings from Syriac Literature.
Bethesda, MD: Ibex Publishers, ISBN 0936347988.
Footnotes
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