The Alphabet

Some time in the eleventh or tenth century bce, the Aramaeans adopted the alphabet from the Phoenicians. From the eighth century onward, the letters of the Aramaic alphabet took on their characteristic forms (see the chapter “The Alphabet” above, Section 3.2). During the subsequent Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Achaemenid administrations, the Ara-maic cursive script was widely distributed but nevertheless remained uniform in character. Only after the collapse of the Achaemenid empire were Aramaic and the Aramaic script able to develop local forms in sev-eral places in the Hellenistic world where they were used, as they were no longer propagated and controlled by a powerful central administration.

The Aramaic alphabet contains 22 characters. Their primary func-tion is to indicate consonants. In addifunc-tion, some of the signs can be used as vowel letters to indicate long vowels (also called matres lectionis).

Originally only final long vowels were indicated by these vowel letters, probably in an inconsistent manner:

Final h, w, and y: already in OA, final h is used as a vowel letter for /-ā/ and /-ε̄/, w for /-ū/, and y for /-ī/. In addition, -h and -w sporadically indicate /-ō/ in IA (Muraoka and Porten 2003 [GEA]: 29–30). After the contrac-tion of /ay/ > /ē/, -y was also used for /-ē/ (in the ending of the m.pl./

du.cstr.). It is uncertain, however, when this contraction took place.

Final ʾ: the loss of this consonant at the end of a syllable (end 6th c. bce;

see Section 3.2c) made it possible to use final ʾ as a vowel letter for /-ā/ and /-ē/ even in those instances where there was no etymologi-cal ʾ; as for instance in the deviant spelling znʾ of the demonstrative pronoun (Section 4.4).

Medial w and y: in early inscriptions, medial vowel letters are a rare phe-nomenon, but in the course of time their use gradually increased.

Already in the oldest OA inscriptions, medial vowel letters (espe-cially in the Tell Fekheriye inscription, KAI 309: e.g. line 1 dmwtʾ /damūtaʾ/ ‘statue, image’; line 12 yšym /yaśīm/, 3m.sg.impf. Peʿal of šym ‘to put, to set up’). In medial position y is used for /-ī-/ and w for /-ū-/; after the contraction of the diphthongs /ay/ and /aw/, y and w are also used as vowel letters for /-ē-/ and /-ō-/. It remains uncertain, however, when this contraction should be dated.

Medial ʾ: in some rare instances, non-etymological medial ʾ is used for /-ā-/ and /-ē-/ (GEA 34). This is only found in texts from the end of the sixth century bce onward (see Section 3.2c).

The letter h, on the other hand, is not used as a vowel letter in medial position. In OA /-ā/ is not regularly indicated, and in IA this vowel is not always written with a vowel letter (“plene spelling”) (ATTM 1: 88; Cook 1990: 66; Folmer 1995 [ALAP]: 155–161; see also GEA 29). The same prob-ably holds for /-ī/ (ALAP 161–172; Cook 1990). This phenomenon may be connected with word stress: unstressed final long vowels in a number of cases were written without a vowel letter (“defective spelling”), whereas stressed long final vowels were normally written with a vowel letter (e.g.

ʾnḥn for /ʾanaḥnā/ ‘we’). Beyer’s assumption that unstressed /-ā/ was only written to avoid ambiguity (ATTM 1: 88) cannot explain every instance.

3. Phonology

3.1. Vowels

Due to the restraints set by the writing system, our knowledge of the OA and IA vowel system is very limited (GEA 26f.). Since only long vow-els are indicated by vowel letters, and very inconsistently, we need to supplement our knowledge of the vowel system with information from other sources: vocalized text traditions, such as the Masoretic text, tran-scriptions of Aramaic words and names in writing systems which do indicate vowels (such as cuneiform texts, of which the Uruk incantation text from the mid 2nd c. bce is especially informative, New Testament Greek, and Comparative Semitics). For IA, the following long and short phonemes are reconstructed: short /a/, /e/ (usually < */i/), /o/ (< */u/); long /ā/, / ī/, /ū/, /ē/ (derived from contraction of a diphthong or loss of ety-mological ʾ at the end of a syllable), /ε̄/, and /ō/ (derived from contrac-tion of a diphthong or < */ā/). For OA, /a/, /i/, /u/ and /ā/, / ī/, /ε̄/, /ū/ can be reconstructed. The actual phonetic inventory may have been far more complicated than this concise outline suggests. It is, however, impossible

to reconstruct the complete phonetic reality from the materials that we have. In what follows, reconstructed vocalized forms are presented within phoneme slants, while the Masoretic vocalization of BA forms is added in italics after the consonant transliteration.

3.2. Consonants

The Aramaic alphabet contains 22 letters. In both OA and IA the letter š indicates two phonemes, namely /ś/ and /š/. OA has a larger number of phonemes than IA because in OA (a) the interdentals /ð/, /θ/, and /θ̣/

have not yet merged with the dentals; /ś/ and /s/ have not completely merged (see Section 3.3c), and (c) q was also used to indicate /ṣ́/, which in pronunciation was probably close to q (see ATTM 2: 51). Taking into account some phonological changes, it is likely that the 22 letters repre-sent at least 23 IA phonemes, but in OA, at least 27. The IA phonemes can be grouped according to their likely place of articulation (manner of ar-ticulation in parentheses; + indicates “voiced”): bilabials: /b/ (stop +), /p/

(stop), /m/ (nasal +), /w/ (semivowel); dentals and alveolars: /d/ (stop +), /t/

(stop); /s/ (fricative sibilant), /ś/ (fricative sibilant), /z/ (fricative sibilant +), /l/ (lateral +), /r/ (rolled /r/ +), /n/ (nasal +); postalveolars: /ṭ/ (emphatic stop), /ṣ/ (emphatic fricative sibilant), and /š/ (fricative sibilant); palatals:

/y/ (semivowel; velars: /g/ (stop +), /k/ (stop); uvular: /q/ (stop); pharyngeals:

/ḥ/ (fricative), /ʿ/ (fricative +); laryngeals: /ʾ/ (stop), /h/ (fricative).

In general, the orthography can be characterized as extremely con-servative. Often, however, it is impossible to define the limits of a given sound change because of the limited distribution of innovative spellings which reflect these changes. The orthography in IA texts nevertheless documents some sound changes. The most important are the following:

(a) The interdentals have merged with dentals: */ð/ > /d/, */θ/ > /t/, and /θ̣/ > /ṭ/. Beyer assumes the same date for all three sound changes (9th c., visible in the spelling only in documents from the 7th c. on-ward; ATTM 1: 100), but this is not very likely. In OA the spellings z for /ð/, š for /θ/, and ṣ for /θ̣/ are the rule (in the Tell Fekheriye inscription [KAI 309], however, s for /θ/, e.g. line 5 ysb /yāθib/ ‘in-habitant’). Examples: OA zhb ‘gold’, ʾḥz ‘to hold’, yšb ‘to sit, live’, nṣr ‘to preserve’, as against IA spellings dhb, ʾḥd, ytb, nṭr. In IA, old and new spellings co-occur. The regular spelling with z in fre-quently used pronouns, such as zy, znh, zʾ, and zk (see Section 4.4) is remarkable. The hypercorrect spelling zyn wzbb /dīn wa-dabāb/

‘process’ in TAD B3 4:17, instead of the expected spelling dyn wdbb, is further evidence that the sound change */ð/ > /d/ was a fact in IA.

(b) The emphatic voiced velar or uvular fricative /g̈/, which arose from the Proto-Semitic sibilant /ṣ́/ (according to GEA 8 an interdental), has merged with /ʿ/ (ATTM 1: 101: ca. 600 bce, cf. also 99; and ATTM 2: 51). In OA, the sound is always represented with q (e.g.

qmr ‘wool’, ʾrq ‘land’), in IA with ʿ ^{and q (}ʿmr and qmr; ʾrʿ and ʾrq), in BA withʿ ^only.

(c) /ʾ/ at the end of a syllable has lost its consonantal value. This is clear from the frequent spellings without ʾ (this paves the way for the use of ʾ in places where it is not etymological). According to Beyer this sound change should be dated as early as the 9th century, on the basis of the transcription of names in cuneiform texts (ATTM 1: 104–106). In Aramaic texts, however, this phenomenon is docu-mented only from the end of the sixth century on (the emphatic state mlkh in KAI 203, a graffito from Ḥama, 8th c., is doubtful; the form also can be interpreted differently).

(d) Diphthongs /ay/ and /aw/ have contracted into /ē/ and /ō/ respec-tively. This change may have been completed by the IA period. The evidence for this, however, is scanty. In the language of the HP the monophthongization is a fact. Beyer dates the contraction of /ay/

and /aw/ to ca. 200–150 bce (ATTM 1: 119) and thus needs other explanations for earlier spellings without etymological w and y (as scribal conventions, as abbreviations, or as mistakes; see ATTM 1:

120, 2: 55).¹

(e) Regressive assimilation of */n/ before a consonant. In such cases, OA normally does not represent n in writing. The Tell Fekheriye inscription, however, does have an example of this spelling (KAI 309:2 mhnḥt /mahanḥit/, Hafʿel participle of nḥt). In IA, on the other hand, spellings with n predominate. Spellings without n also occur in IA. Most of these substandard spellings are found in letters, mainly in private letters (particularly HP). The evidence strongly suggests that */n/ at the end of a syllable was assimilated and was no longer pronounced in IA. Examples: ʾpq /ʾappeq/ and ʾṣl /ʾaṣṣel/

(1sg.imperf. Afʿel of npq and nṣl respectively).

(f) Representation of a “doubled” (strictly speaking, “long” in artic-ulation, with one onset and release) consonant CC by nC. The n in these instances is not etymological. An example is mndʿ /mandaʿ/

1 Since the contraction of diphthongs cannot be dated with any certainty, w and y in original diphthongs have been treated as consonants (with the exception of HP). See also ALAP 173–188.

or /maddaʿ/ ‘knowledge’. This phenomenon is not found in Ara-maic texts antedating the Achaemenid period. It is impossible to tell with any certainty whether this phenomenon represents nothing more than a scribal practice to indicate for instance gemi-nated consonants, or whether the spelling represents phonetic re-ality, namely degemination of geminates through nasalization – a phenomenon known from the Babylonian dialect of Akkadian.

The answer is also of importance for the interpretation of the spellings of n for */n/ mentioned in (e) above (ALAP 74–94;

GEA 10–16).

(g) Dissimilation of emphatic consonants, usually regressive dissimi-lation of /q/ > /k/ before /ṣ/ or /ṭ/ (e.g. TAD C 1:127 kṣyr /kaṣīr/ ‘har-vest’ instead of qṣyr). Examples of this can be found in the Nerab (KAI 226:11) and Barrakib (KAI 216:19) inscriptions. OA qtl is an uncertain case. Either it is an instance of dissimilation (< qṭl) or it reflects the original form of the verb (cf. ALAP 101). Dissimilation of emphatic consonants is a limited phenomenon in IA, which is mainly found in the proverbs of Aḥiqar. In BA, this phenomenon is not attested.

3.3. Later sound changes

Some of the sound changes characteristic of later Aramaic had not yet taken place in IA. Nevertheless, sound changes which were com-pleted by the time of Middle Aramaic may have started in IA. The most important are:

(a) Resolving a doubly closed syllable by means of an auxiliary vowel, such as in the nomina segolata (according to ATTM 1: 112, word-final consonant clusters were preserved at least until the end of the 5th c. bce, perhaps even longer).

(b) Undoubling of doubled consonants in word-final position (ATTM 1: 120–122; between 200 and 150 bce).

(c) Merging of */ś/ and */s/ (ATTM 1: 103; 2nd c. bce). Already in IA

*/ś/ is sometimes written with s, e.g. sb /sab/ ‘old man’ (GEA 6f.). Al-ready in an early period, the fact that the two phonemes sounded similar may have led to confusion.

(d) Elision of unstressed long final vowels (ATTM 1: 122–125; ca.

100 bce).

(e) Aspiration of unvoiced stops /k/, /p/, and /t/ (ATTM 1: 125–126; ca.

250 bce).

(f) Spirantization of labial, dental, and velar stops /b/, /g/, /d/, /k/, /p/, and /t/ to [v], [ɣ], [ð], [x], [f], and [θ] following a vowel (ATTM 1:

126–128; between the 1st c. bce and the 3rd c. ce).

(g) Elision of unstressed short vowels in open syllables (ATTM 1: 128–

136; completed in the 1st half of the 3rd c. ce).