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SYRIAC LANGUAGE
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See also:SYRIAC See also:LANGUAGE . Syriac is the eastern See also:dialect of the Aramaic language which, during the See also:early centuries of the See also:Christian era, prevailed in See also:Mesopotamia and the adjoining regions. Its See also:main centres were at See also:Edessa and See also:Nisibis, but it was the See also:literary language of practically all the Christian writers in the region See also:east of See also:Antioch, as well as of the Christian subjects of the See also:Persian See also:empire. All the Semitic See also:languages' are built up from triliteral roots: that is, the See also:great See also:majority of the words are derived from a See also:simple verbal See also:form, of which the essential elements are three consonants. This form is seen in the 3rd pers. sing. perf. of the verb, e.g. See also:Aram. q`tal or See also:Pal (" he killed "), which corresponds to Heb. gatal and Arab. gatala. The vowels See also:play no See also:part in differentiating the roots, for the vowels are practically the same in the corresponding forms of every See also:root. The form q`tal illustrates one main peculiarity of Aramaic, as opposed to the other Semitic languages, viz. its paucity of vowels: for where See also:Hebrew has two full vowels—a See also:long and a See also:short— in Mal, and Arabic has three short vowels in gatala, Aramaic has only one short vowel, the See also:sound ` between q and t being merely a See also:half vowel which is not indicated in Syriac See also:writing. Another See also:chief characteristic of Aramaic appears in nouns, viz. the entire See also:absence of a prefixed definite See also:article. Aramaic gives to the noun instead an ending a, ' On the See also:place of Aramaic among the Semitic languages, and of Syriac among the various dialects, see SEMITIC LANGUAGES. making the so-called " emphatic " See also:state. In the older Aramaic dialects this is used exactly as the noun with prefixed article is used in other languages; but in Syriac the emphatic state has lost this See also:special See also:function of making the noun definite, and has become simply the normal state of the noun. The main grammatical distinction between Syriac and all the See also:west Aramaic dialects is that in Syriac the 3rd See also:person of the imperfect (singular and plural) of the verb begins with it, but in west Aramaic, as in the other Semitic languages, it begins with y. When, in the nth See also:century A.D., owing to theological See also:differences the Syriac-using Christians became divided into See also:Nestorians or East Syrians and See also:Jacobites (See also:Monophysites) or West Syrians, certain differences of See also:pronunciation, chiefly in the vowels, began to develop themselves. The East Syrians in most cases kept the more See also:primitive pronunciation: e.g. the old Semitic a with them remained a, but with the Jacobites passed into o. One very tangible difference appears in the fact that the name Jesus was by the East Syrians written and pronounced Isho`, by the West Syrians Yeshu. The Syriac See also:alphabet, which derived its letters from forms ultimately akin to those of the Old Hebrew and Phoenician alphabets, has the same twenty-two 4etters as the Hebrew. And as in Hebrew, the six letters b g d k p t are aspirated when immediately preceded by any vowel sound. On the other See also:hand, the guttural letters affect the vowels much less than in Hebrew: their chief effect is when final to See also:change the preceding vowel, if other than a or a, into a, but even this is not always the See also:case.' The vowels, which are ten in number (a a e e i i o off u), were, as usual in the Semitic languages, indicated only partially by the use of consonants as vowel-letters 2 and by means of certain diacritical points, so long as Syriac remained a living language. But about the See also:time when it began to be supplanted by Arabic, two systems of vowel-signs were invented, one for the West Syrians, who borrowed the forms of See also:Greek vowels, and the other more elaborate for the East Syrians, who used combinations of dots. Neither See also:system completely differentiates long and short vowels; the Nestorian See also:scheme is the more satisfactory, though more cumbrous. Where the same root exists in Arabic, Syriac and Hebrew, its fundamental consonants are usually the same in all three languages. But letters belonging to the same See also:group occasionally interchange. As regards the dentals and sibilants there are one or two rules which govern the interchange, in the manner of a See also:Grimm's See also:Law. (1) Where Arabic has an See also:ordinary dental, Syriac and Hebrew have the same; but where Arabic has an aspirated dental (e.g. th), Syriac has an ordinary dental t, but Hebrew has a sibilant (sh). (2) Hebrew has one more sibilant than Arabic or Syriac: thus, as corresponding to s (samekh), s (See also:sin) sh in Hebrew, Arabic has only s (sin) sh, while Syriac has a different pair s (samekh) sh. Hebrew samekh is represented by Ar. sin and Syr. samekh; but Heb. sin (Syr. samekh) is represented by Ar. sh, while Heb. and Syr. sh is represented by Ar. sin. As regards this See also:crossing of s and sh, Arabic has with it the other See also:south Semitic language, Ethiopic: the See also:evidence as to the other See also:north Semitic language, See also:Assyrian, is conflicting. In vowel-sounds Syriac is clearly more primitive than Hebrew (as pointed by the Massoretes), less so than Arabic. Thus Ar. and Syr. a is often thinned in Hebrew into i (e when accented), as in the first syllable of Ar. gattala=Syr. gaga a--Heb. qittel. But the second syllable of the same word shows Syriac siding with Hebrew against Arabic. Again the primitive a of Arabic is in the older (Nestorian) pronunciation of Syriac maintained, while in Jacobite Syriac and in Hebrew it passes into o: thus Ar. gatil Nestorian VW .= Jacobite and Hebrew gotel. Again Syriac i It may indeed be remarked that Syriac, which is generally more primitive in its sounds than Hebrew, shows a more advanced See also:stage of weakening as regards the gutturals: thus in a See also:good many forms it has substituted (Lief for initial he, and often shows a dislike for the presence of two gutturals in the same word, weakening one of them to clef. A much more advanced stage of weakening is seen in some of the other dialects. 2 With regard to this, Syriac has one great difference from Hebrew, viz, that final a is indicated not by he, but by clef.maintains the diphthongs ai and au, which in Hebrew have usually passed into e and 5. The See also:accent plays much less part in lengthening and altering the vowels in Syriac than in Hebrew, but there are well-marked cases of lengthening from this cause. A few words may now be said about the three main parts of speech—pronouns, nouns and verbs. r. Pronouns.—As in the other Semitic languages, these stand almost entirely outside the system of triliteral roots, being mainly derived from certain See also:demonstrative letters or particles. Each of the See also:personal pronouns (except the 3rd plur.) exists in a longer and a shorter form: the one is used as a nominative and is a See also:separate word, the other is attached to verbs and (in a slightly different form) to nouns to See also:express the See also:accusative or genitive. These pronominal suffixes are of much the same form as in Hebrew, but produce less change in the vowels of the words to which they are attached. Demonstrative adjectives and adverbs are formed by prefixing the syllable ha (=ecce, " behold ") to other pronominal elements, and interrogatives similarly by prefixing the interrogative syllable ay; but there are other interrogative pronouns. The relative consists only of the See also:letter d (indeclinable) prefixed to words. 2. Nouns and Adjectives.—The Syriac noun has three states—the See also:absolute (used chiefly in adjectival or participial predicates, but also with numerals and negatives, in adverbial phrases, &c.), the construct (which, as in Hebrew, must be immediately followed by a genitive), and the emphatic (see above). There are only two genders and two See also:numbers: the neuter gender is entirely wanting, and the dual number is not recognized in Syriac See also:grammar, though there are See also:plain traces of it in the language. The fem. sing. ending is absolute a, construct See also:ath, emphatic to or 'Ma: thus the See also:fern. sing. abs. is always identical in form with the masc. sing. emph. The plural endings are—masc. abs. in, const. ai, emph. e; fern. abs. an, const. ath, emph. alha. Syriac is not, like Arabic and Hebrew, confined to the use of the construct for the ordinary expression of the genitive or possessive relation: for it has a pre-position (d) which expresses ' of," " belonging to." The noun preceding this preposition may be in the emphatic state or may (as is usually the case when the noun is definite) have a pleonastic suffix. Thus " the son of the See also: See also:Oki, " he kills," " he is killing " (sometimes " he is about to kill "). Impf. gatel wa, " he was killing." Fut. negtol, " he will kill." Pf. or Aor. q'tal " he has killed," " he killed." Plup. or Aor. q'tal wa, " he had killed," " he killed." The same progress towards flexibility in syntax is seen in the copious See also:supply of conjunctions possessed by Syriac. No doubt the tendency towards a more flowing construction of sentences was helped by the See also:influence of Greek, which has also supplied a large stock of words to the Syriac vocabulary. (N. 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