Hatran Aramaic

Aramaic of Hatra, Hatran Aramaic or Ashurian designates a Middle Aramaic dialect, that was used in the region of Hatra and Assur in northeastern parts of Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), approximately from the 3rd century BC to the 3rd century CE.^[2][3] Its range extended from the Nineveh Plains in the centre, up to Tur Abdin in the north, Dura-Europos in the west and Tikrit in the south.

Most of the evidence of the language comes from inscriptions within the cities dating between 100 BC and the mid-3rd century AD, coinciding with Shapur I's destruction of Hatra in 241 AD and Assur in 257 AD.^[4][5] As a result of Hatra being the site with the most attestation, Hatran Aramaic is a more common name. It is attested by inscriptions from various local sites, that were published by Walter Andrae in 1912 and were studied by S. Ronzevalle and P. Jensen. The excavations undertaken by the Iraqi Department of Antiquities brought to light more than 100 new texts, the publication of which was undertaken by F. Safar in the journal Sumer. The first four series were the subject of reviews in the journal Syria. The texts range in date from the 2nd or 3rd century BCE to the destruction of the city c. 240 CE; the earliest dated text provides a date of 98 BCE.

For the most part, these inscriptions are short commemorative graffiti with minimal text. The longest of the engraved inscriptions does not have more than 13 lines. It is therefore difficult to identify more than a few features of the Aramaic dialect of Hatra, which shows overall the greatest affinity to Syriac.

The stone inscriptions bear witness to an effort to establish a monumental script. This script is little different from that of the Aramaic inscriptions of Assur (possessing the same triangular š, and the use of the same means to avoid confusion between m, s, and q). The ds and the rs are not distinguished from one another, and it is sometimes difficult not to confuse w and y.

Having conquered the Aramean city-states to the west, the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC) adopted Old Aramaic as the official language alongside the Assyrian Akkadian language. With the Achaemenid Empire succeeding them and adopting Old Aramaic, it rose to become the lingua franca of Iran, Mesopotamia and the Levant.^[6]

Development

Hatran Aramaic developed through dialectic deviation as well as producing its own script. Various dialects of Aramaic developed around major cities or regions including the sister dialect of

Hatran Aramaic and Syriac have been heavily influenced by Akkadian, partly due to the proximity to the heartland as well as the native Assyrians having adopted these two dialects. Many commonly-used nouns such as month names were burrowed from Akkadian as well as being influenced phonologically, morphologically and syntactically.[8]

History

The city of

The dialect of Hatra is no more consistent than that of Palmyra in its use of matres lectiones to indicate the long vowels ō and ī; the pronominal suffix of the 3rd person plural is written indiscriminately, and in the same inscription one finds hwn and hn, the quantifier kwl and kl "all", the relative pronoun dy and d, and the word byš and bš "evil".

Phonology

The following features are attested:

Lenition

A weakening of ‘ayn; in one inscription, the masculine singular demonstrative adjective is written ‘dyn (‘dyn ktb’ "this inscription") which corresponds to Mandaic and Jewish Babylonian Aramaic hādēn. Similar demonstratives, ‘adī and ‘adā, are attested in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic.

Dissimilation

• The surname ’kṣr’ "the court" (qṣr) and the proper name kṣy’, which resembles
  Old Aramaic, rather than a loss of the emphasis of q, which is found in Mandaic and Jewish Babylonian Aramaic
  .
• Dissimilation of geminate consonants through n-insertion: the adjective šappīr "beautiful" is regularly written šnpyr; likewise, the divine name gadd "Tyché" is once written gd, but more commonly appears as gnd. This is a common phenomenon in Aramaic; Carl Brockelmann, however, claims that it is a characteristic feature of the northern dialect to which Armenian owes its Aramaic loans.

Vocalism

The divine name Nergal, written nrgl, appears in three inscriptions. The pronunciation nergōl is also attested in the

Syntactic phonology

The Hatran b-yld corresponds to the Syriac bēt yaldā "anniversary". The apocope of the final consonant of the substantive bt in the construct state is not attested in either Old Aramaic or Syriac; it is, however, attested in other dialects such as Jewish Babylonian Aramaic and Jewish Palestinian Aramaic.

Morphology

Verbal morphology

• The perfect: The first person singular of the perfect appears only in one inscription: ’n’ ... ktbyt "I ... wrote"; this is the regular vocalization elsewhere among those Aramaic dialects in which it is attested.
• The causative perfect of qm "demand" should be vocalized ’ēqīm, which is evident from the written forms ’yqym (which appears beside ’qym), the feminine ’yqymt, and the third person plural, ’yqmw. This detail distinguishes Hatran as well as Syriac and Mandaic from the western Jewish and Christian dialects. The vocalization of the preformative poses the same problem as the Hebrew hēqīm.
• The imperfect: The third person of the masculine singular is well attested; it consistently has the preformative l-.

1. In the jussive: lṭb bꜥšym "that Ba^cl Šemēn may announce it" (Syriac ’aṭeb(b)), l’ ldbrhn ... bqṭyr’ "that he not oppress them" (Syriac dəbar baqəṭīrā "to oppress," lit. "to carry away with force").
2. In the indicative: mn dy lšḥqh "whoever strikes him" (Syriac šəḥaq), mn dy lqrhy wl’ ldkrhy "whoever reads it and does not make mention of it", mn dlꜥwl mhk’ bmšn "whoever goes from here to Mesene", kwl mn dl^cbwr ... wlktwb lꜥlyh "whoever passes ... and writes over".
3. The preformative l- is employed identically in the Aramaic of Assur. The dialect of Hatra is thus further distinguished from Syriac (which uses an n- preformative) and also from Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, in which the use of the l- preformative for the indicative is not consistent.

Nominal morphology

The distinction between the three states is apparent. As in Syriac, the masculine plural form of the emphatic state has the inflection -ē, written -’. The confusion of this form with that of the construct state may explain the constructions bn’ šmšbrk "sons of Š." and bn’ ddhwn "their cousins." The absolute state is scarcely used: klbn "dogs" and dkyrn "(that they may be) remembered."

Numbers

The ancient

Syntax

As in Syriac, the analytical construction of the noun complement is common. The use of the construct state appears to be limited to kinship terms and some adjectives: bryk’ ꜥh’. In the analytical construction, the definite noun is either in the emphatic state followed by d(y) (e.g. ṣlm’ dy ... "statue of ...", spr’ dy brmryn’ "the scribe of (the god) Barmarēn") or is marked by the anticipatory pronominal suffix (e.g. qnh dy rꜥ’ "creator of the earth," ꜥl ḥyyhy d ... ’ḥyhy "for the life of his brother," ꜥl zmth dy mn dy ... "against the hair (Syriac zemtā) of whomever ..."). The complement of the object of the verb is also rendered analytically: ...l’ ldkrhy lnšr qb "do not make mention of N.", mn dy lqrhy lꜥdyn ktb’ "whoever reads this inscription."

Likewise, the particle d(y) can have a simple declarative meaning: ...l’ lmr dy dkyr lṭb "(a curse against whomever) does not say, 'may he be well remembered'" which can be compared with l’ lmr dy dkyr.

Vocabulary

Practically all of the known Hatran words are found in Syriac, including words of Akkadian origin, such as ’rdkl’ "architect" (Syriac ’ardiklā), and Parthian professional nouns such as pšgryb’ / pzgryb’ "inheritor of the throne" (Syriac pṣgryb’); three new nouns, which appear to denote some religious functions, are presumably of Iranian origin: hdrpṭ’ (which Safar compares with the Zoroastrian Middle Persian hylpt’ hērbed "teacher-priest"), and the enigmatic terms brpdmrk’ and qwtgd/ry’.

Alphabet

Hatran script Hatran Aramaic script
Script type	Abjad
Time period	c.98 BCE — c.257 AD
Related scripts
Parent systems	Unicode range	U+108E0–U+108FF Final Accepted Script Proposal

The Hatran alphabet is the script used to write

The script is written from right to left, as is typical of Aramaic scripts and of most abjads. Numerals are also written from right to left (bigger place value on the right), and there are two known punctuation marks as well. Some common ligatures also exist, and they do not appear to be necessary, and are rather just a shorthand form of writing. Some 600 texts are known to exist.^[16]

The Ashurian alphabet consists of the following letters. Ligatures have been used in certain inscriptions, although it appears to be optional.^[17]

Name	Letter	Sound Value		Numerical Value	Syriac Equivalent	Phoenician Equivalent	Hebrew Equivalent	Arabic Equivalent
	Inscription Form	Transliteration	IPA
ʾĀlap̄*		ʾ or nothing	[ʔ] or silent	1		‎	א	ا
Bēṯ		hard: b soft: ḇ (also bh, v, β)	hard: [b] soft: [v] or [w]	2		‎	ב	ب
Gāmal		hard: g soft: ḡ (also g̱, gh, ġ, γ)	hard: [ɡ] soft: [ɣ]	3		‎	ג	ج
Dālaṯ*		hard: d soft: ḏ (also dh, ð, δ)	hard: [ d] soft: [ð ]	4		‎	ד	د, ذ
Hē*		h	[h]	5		‎	ה	ه
Waw*		consonant: w mater lectionis: ū or ō (also u or o)	consonant: [w] mater lectionis: [u] or [o]	6		‎	ו	و
Zayn*		z	[z]	7		‎	ז	ز
Ḥēṯ		ḥ	[ħ], [x], or [χ]	8		‎	ח	ح, خ
Ṭēṯ		ṭ	[tˤ]	9		‎	ט	ط, ظ
Yōḏ		consonant: y mater lectionis: ī (also i)	consonant: [j] mater lectionis: [i] or [e]	10		‎	י	ي
Kāp̄		hard: k soft: ḵ (also kh, x)	hard: [k] soft: [x]	20		‎	כ ך	ك
Lāmaḏ		l	[ l ]	30		‎	ל	ل
Mīm		m	[m]	40		‎	מ ם	م
Nūn		n	[ n ]	50		‎	נ ן	ن
Semkaṯ		s	[s]	60		‎	ס
ʿĒ		ʿ	[ʕ]	70		‎	ע	ع, غ
Pē		hard: p soft: p̄ (also p̱, ᵽ, ph, f)	hard: [p] soft: [f]	80		‎	פ ף	ف
Ṣāḏē*		ṣ	[sˤ]	90		‎	צ ץ	ص, ض
Qōp̄		q	[q]	100		‎	ק	ق
Rēš*		r	[ r ]	200		‎	ר	ر
Šīn		š (also sh)	[ʃ]	300		‎	ש	س, ش
Taw*		hard: t soft: ṯ (also th, θ)	hard: [ t] soft: [θ ]	400		‎	ת	ت, ث

Unicode

Hatran/Ashurian script was added to the Unicode Standard in June, 2015 with the release of version 8.0.

The Unicode block for Hatran/Ashurian is U+108E0–U+108FF:

See also

• Aramaic language
• Arabic alphabet
• Aramaic studies
• Palmyra
• Roman-Persian Wars
• Syriac

References

Sources

• Beyer, Klaus (1986). The Aramaic Language: Its Distribution and Subdivisions. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
  ISBN 9783525535738
  .
• Beyer, Klaus (1998). Die aramäischen Inschriften aus Assur, Hatra und dem übrigen Ostmesopotamien. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
  ISBN 9783525536452
  .
• Caquot, André. "L'araméen de Hatra." Comptes rendus du groupe linguistique d'études Chamito-Sémitiques 9 (1960–63): 87–89.
• Gzella, Holger (2012). "Late Imperial Aramaic". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 574–586.
  ISBN 9783110251586
  .
• Gzella, Holger (2015). A Cultural History of Aramaic: From the Beginnings to the Advent of Islam. Leiden-Boston: Brill.
  ISBN 9789004285101
  .
• Brugnatelli, Vermondo, "Osservazioni sul causativo in aramaico e in semitico nord-occidentale", Atti del Sodalizio Glottologico Milanese 25 (1984), p. 41-50.(text online)
• Micheau, Françoise (2006). "Eastern Christianities (eleventh to fourteenth century): Copts, Melkites, Nestorians and Jacobites". In
  ISBN 978-0-521-81113-2
  .

External links

Aramaic edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Alphabets of Yesterday and Today: Hatra