Aramaic Peshitta
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Introduction
I.-
THE MANY COUNTRIES IN WHICH SYRIAC WAS SPOKEN.
Syriac is a very ancient language. It belongs to the same family of languages as
the ancient Hebrew. In the time of the Redeemer it was spoken, in slightly
different dialects, in many countries.
SYRIAC BECAME THE LANGUAGE OF PALESTINE.- Dr. Frederic Delitzsch, Professor of
Assyriology, in the University of Leipzic, in a work on "The Hebrew
Language Viewed in the Light of Assyrian Research, 1883," pg. 2, says,
"The transportation of the ten tribes from Palestine to Mesopotamia and
Media, and the close intercourse of those left behind with people of different
nations, as the Elamites, Babylonians, and Arabs, who supplied the places of the
exiled Israelites, struck a deadly blow at the ancient language of the kingdom
of Israel. Nor was it destined to flourish much longer in the kingdom of
Judah.....The termination of the Babylonian exile marks the beginning of tha
process," that is, as to Judah, "by which Hebrew gradually disappeared
from among living languages. It is true that a small portion of the nation,
those who availed themselves of the permission to return to the holy land, still
wrote and spoke Hebrew; but the Aramaic [the Syriac] dialect, which had been
favoured by the Persian kings, and was almost regarded as the official language
of the western portion of the Persian empire, had already begun to bring its
deteriorating influence to bear upon it; and, rapidly advancing, was conquering
one portion of Palestine after another. This process continued under the
dominion of the Greeks.....At the time of the Maccabees, Hebrew had already
ceased to be a spoken language.....The learned among the Jews, during the last
two centuries before Christ, even preferred to WRITE in Aramaic; and at the time
of Christ, Aramaic reigned supreme as the adopted language of the country."
Those of the ten tribes who were "CARRIED AWAY INTO ASSYRIA," (2 Kings
xvii. 6), adopted the Syriac language also, as well as those of them who
remained in Palestine. We have proof in holy Scripture that Aramaic, now called
Syriac, was spoken by some of the Assyrians, when the king of Assyria sent
Rabshakeh against Jerusalem. For the elders of the Jews asked him to speak to
them in Aramaic, that the rest of the Jews might not know what he said. (2 Kings
xviii. 26; Isa. xxxvi. 11) The language then called Aramaic, and now called
Syriac, was not the most ancient language of Assyria. The Rev. A. H. Sayce says,
in his "Assyrian Grammar,1872," pages 1 and 10, that the original
Assyrian language was more like Hebrew and Phoenician than it was like Syriac.
But by degrees the old Assyrian language gave place to Syriac. Mr. Sayce says at
page 18, "Assyrian passed away before the encroaching influence of Aramaean."