Since I’m still typesetting modern reconstructions of the Lord’s Prayer in what we know exists of Jesus’ dialect, I figure that I’ll post what I’ve put together thusfar between these two dialects. Here is the Lord’s Prayer as it is spoken in the dialect of Ma’loula, and how it appears in the Syriac Peshitta. Classical Syriac is an Eastern dialect of Aramaic, this version of the prayer approximately from 200-300AD. Ma’loula’s dialect is Western, and is how the prayer is recited today.

As you can see, the dialects are extremely different. Vocabulary, stress, and phonetic inventory tend to be very dissimilar. However, one can pick out similarities here and there (for example, the first three lines aren’t too horribly different).

What the heck do these symbols mean?

b = B like “boy”
v = V like “vet”
g = G like “go”
gh = a voiced “gh” sound in the back of the throat.
d = D as in “dog”
dh = TH as in “this”
h = H as in “hey”
h = CH as in the exclaimation “och!” like one clearing one’s throat unvoiced but lightly.
w = W as in “wow”
z = Z as in “zed”
zh = Z as in “azure”
x = like h only stronger.
t = like a cross between “x” above and the English letter T. (“tkh”)
y = Y as in “yes”
k = K as in “kick”
kh = like “h” above
l = L as in “like”
m = M as in “mom”
n = N as in “norm”
s = S as in “sane”
^c = like an “ugh” at the very back of the throat
p = P as in “peach”
f = PH as in “phone”
ç = CE as in “quince”
q = like a very hard “k” in the back of the throat
r = R in “ring” rolled/flapped once
sh = SH as in “shin”
t = T as in “toe”
th = TH as in “thin”
j = J as in “jump”
ch = CH as in “church”

a = A as in “father”
â = AW as in “awe”
é or e = EY as in “hey”
ê = A as the first “a” in “nasal”
i = I as in “in”
î = EE as in “knee”
o = O as in “opt”
ô = O as in “over”
u = U as in “up”
û = OO as in “goo”