Tag Archives: bad aramaic

Repeat after me: Abba does not mean Daddy.

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I’m glad to see that I am not the only person who is habitually troubled with the whole “‘Abba’ means ‘Daddy'” meme. (Keep fighting the good fight, Doug!)

You may have heard on the Internet, or through a sermon, or even may have read in a number of books that the Aramaic word “abba” is akin to the English word “daddy.”

Unfortunately, this anecdote is just as true as “the eye of the needle” being a gate in Jerusalem or a rock formation where one had to dismount their camel in order to get through. (Read: It’s a myth. It’s false. It’s not the case.)

If you’d like to learn more, please check out my earlier post on this issue, here where everything is dealt with in greater detail.

Peace,
-Steve

Odd Aramaic Floating About YouTube

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Today, following one of my news feeds, I came across two very odd videos on YouTube. Here’s the first one:

When I was reading the title and watching the verb forms it was going over, I began scratching my chin in puzzlement. In Imperial Aramaic, Pe’il and Pu’al forms are *extremely* rare (in fact they tend to only show up in participle forms if at all) and are not the direct passives of Pe’al and Pa’el.

The three forms this video *should* have been going over were Hithpa’al, Hithpe’el and Hoph’al.

Now here’s the second one:

Among other things, notice how they use “merci” for “thanks.” This immediately struck me as odd, as “merci” is distinctly French, not Assyrian Neo-Aramaic.

I would have expected “basima/basimta” or even “taude,” and I was not the only one judging by the comments; however, one of the comments mentioned:

[…] One thing, though is like a little scratch to my ear.”Merci’ , which is used mainly by Lebanese and Iranian Assyrians. Other Assyrians, who went from Atra to different countries, like Russia, and were not subjected to Western influence, don’t use it. It is French, […]

The rest of the comments (especially on the 4th page) also reveal some interesting regional differences.

Curious. 🙂

Peace,
-Steve

Another Translation From My-Aramaic-Tattoo.com

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As long-time readers know, I am not happy with My-Aramaic-Tattoo.com.

This sentiment I feel is re-enforced every once and a while when I get emails from individuals who have ordered from their website and wish to have their translations verified. Most of what I see are, in my opinion, what I’d call “dictionary translations” — that is to say, individual words that are looked up in a dictionary without a greater understanding of the language, itself to discern between forms.

As such, very much like with the “Tattoo eBook” they offer, I’ve seen rare forms of words that bear specific connotations, ambiguous forms of words that could mean one or another, words that are typeset in the scripts inappropriate to their dialect, etc.

This time, however, I have seen a translation that seems like a “dictionary translation” even moreso than before, because the manner in which it was executed was distinctly not what their customer had requested:

(Images utilized under the doctrine of Fair Use for critique and educational purposes.)

I was told by the customer that they had requested, “Love to dance” but were instead, given the above.

It is simply the two words “love” (khuba) and “dancing” (reqda; both nouns) in Syriac, not the simple verbal phrase “love to dance”. Furthermore, instead of using the unambiguous word for “dance” (raqadutha [1]) they chose a word that could mean either “dancing” (reqda) or “dancer” (reqada) due to lack of disambiguating vowels.[1][2]

If either of these words were to have been used in separate context, I would not find this odd at all. However, “love, dancing” is not the phrase that was requested (i.e. “love to dance”) to the point that their customer even noticed the disparity upon receipt of their order and decided to contact me.

Caveat venditor.

Peace
-Steve

NOTE: The Aramaic Blog is not affiliated with My-Aramaic-Tattoo. Statements about My-Aramaic-Tattoo and their services are opinions. Permission was granted by the customer to share their experience on The Aramaic Blog.

1) LS2 743
2) J. Payne-Smith 549.

Victor Alexander’s Aramaic Bible Translation– or How To Tell Apart Syriac From Galilean Aramaic

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I’ve been aware of Victor Alexander’s website V-A.com for quite some time now. It was one of the very first places on the Internet which sported an Aramaic Bible translation, and it today has a significant amount of web traffic each month.

As of late, however, I’ve noticed links popping up often on Twitter, sporting that Alexander’s work comes from “Galilean” Aramaic and sure enough when clicking through (at least as of March 7th) I found claims that it was from “the Galilean dialect of the Ancient Aramaic.”

However, listening to the audio recordings, such as his recording of the Lord’s Prayer, it is immediately evident that there is little “Galilean” (such as Jesus’ dialect of Old Galilean, a Western ‘Old Aramaic’ dialect) about his work, and that it instead rests very heavily upon the Syriac Peshitta (a work composed in Classical Syriac, an Eastern ‘Middle Aramaic’ dialect).

An an example of this, allow me to provide his rendition of the Lord’s Prayer:

Galilean transliteration of the Lord’s Prayer
(from v-a.com)

Avvon d-bish-maiya, nith-qaddash shim-mukh.
Tih-teh mal-chootukh. Nih-weh çiw-yanukh:
ei-chana d’bish-maiya: ap b’ar-ah.
Haw lan lakh-ma d’soonqa-nan yoo-mana.
O’shwooq lan kho-bein:
ei-chana d’ap kh’nan shwiq-qan l’khaya-ween.
Oo’la te-ellan l’niss-yoona:
il-la paç-çan min beesha.
Mid-til de-di-lukh hai mal-choota
oo khai-la oo tush-bookh-ta
l’alam al-mein. Aa-meen.

First of all when listening to the audio recording, the first red flag to stick out was his pronunciation:

  • He pronounces soft kaf like “CH” in “choo-choo-train.”
  • Endings that were classically pronounced “-akh” he pronounces as “-ukh.”
  • He pronounces soft beyt as “W” in all contexts rather than a mixture of “V” and “W“.

These are not Galilean features.
They are features seen in Neo-Aramaic dialects.

Secondly, there are matters of morphology. Where there are many more, these are the most obvious and glaring:

  • What he shows as “nith-qaddash” and “nih-weh” would have been closer to “yith-qaddash” and “yih-weh” in Jesus’ dialect.
  • “kh’nan” would have been, at least in written form, “enan” although the gutturals overall would have been softened in Galilean and sometimes written differently.


These are Eastern Aramaic (specifically Syriac) features, but this is no surprise as upon further examination what he was trying to call “Galilean” Aramaic was simply taken verbatim from the Syriac Peshitta.

As far as I am able to ascertain, there is nothing about this translation that places it closer to Jesus’ language than any of the other “Aramaic Bible” Translations out there. 🙂

So, when you read over his website (or any other website that sports “original Aramaic” claims), keep this information in mind and compare the language features. If you see one “nethqadash” (or something like it in the Lord’s Prayer) you know you’re probably looking at Syriac.

Peace,
-Steve

Michael Beckwith Gets “Crazy Thought” In His Head

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“In Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus, the word satan meant ‘crazy thought.’ When you are tempted to believe that you are not enough, that’s crazy thinking. Seducing yourself into believing you are superior to others is not sane thinking. We must free ourselves from the limitation of inferiority or superiority by rising to the realm of a clear perception of our true nature. Gently, and sometimes not so gently, the angel of change is telling us that it is time to trust in our capacity to let go, unfold, expand, evolve, awaken.” – Michael Beckwith – [source]

Wouldn’t it be nice if New Age mystics would cite their sources? Sadly, a thorough search didn’t turn up a single corroborating source, which is pretty much what we expected. For three thousand years, “satan” (in Aramaic “sāṭānā”) has meant “adversary”* stemming from a root that means “to be hostile.”* But for comparison’s sake, in Jesus’ dialect these terms are likely:

Peace,
-Steve

* – As attested by Brockelmann, Sokolof, Jastrow, Levy and many, many others.