Editing Palaeography (section)

== Aramaic palaeography ==
{{See also|Aramaic alphabet|Hebrew alphabet|Mandaic script|Sogdian alphabet|Syriac alphabet}}
[[File:Mandaic Alphabet.jpg|thumb|right|180px|Table showing the [[Mandaic alphabet]] with some of the mysteries represented by the letters]]

The [[Aramaic language]] was the international [[trade language]] of the [[Ancient Middle East]], originating in what is modern-day [[Syria]], between 1000 and 600&nbsp;BC. It spread from the [[Mediterranean coast]] to the borders of India, becoming extremely popular and being adopted by many people, both with or without any previous writing system. The [[Aramaic script]] was written in a [[Abjad|consonantal form]] with a direction from right to left. The [[Aramaic alphabet]], a modified form of [[Phoenician alphabet|Phoenician]], was the ancestor of the [[Arabic alphabet|modern Arabic]] and [[Hebrew script]]s, as well as the [[Brahmi script]], the parent writing system of most modern [[abugida]]s in India, Southeast Asia, Tibet, and Mongolia. Initially, the Aramaic script did not differ from the Phoenician, but then the [[Aramaeans]] simplified some of the letters, thickened and rounded their lines: a specific feature of its letters is the distinction between {{angbr|d}} and {{angbr|r}}. One innovation in Aramaic is the {{lang|la|[[matres lectionis]]}} system to indicate certain vowels. Early Phoenician-derived scripts did not have letters for vowels, and so most texts recorded just consonants. Most likely as a consequence of phonetic changes in North Semitic languages, the Aramaeans reused certain letters in the alphabet to represent long vowels. The letter ''[[aleph]]'' was employed to write /ā/, ''he'' for /ō/, ''yod'' for /ī/, and ''vav'' for /ū/.

Aramaic writing and language supplanted Babylonian [[cuneiform]] and [[Akkadian language]], even in their homeland in [[Mesopotamia]]. The wide diffusion of Aramaic letters led to its writing being used not only in monumental inscriptions, but also on [[papyrus]] and [[potsherds]]. Aramaic papyri have been found in large numbers in Egypt, especially at [[Elephantine papyri|Elephantine]]—among them are official and private documents of the [[Jewish military history|Jewish military settlement]] in 5&nbsp;BC. In the Aramaic papyri and potsherds, words are separated usually by a small gap, as in modern writing. At the turn of the 3rd to 2nd centuries BC, the heretofore uniform Aramaic letters developed new forms, as a result of dialectal and political fragmentation in several subgroups. The most important of these is the so-called [[Hebrew square script|square Hebrew block script]], followed by [[Palmyrene dialect|Palmyrene]], [[Nabataean alphabet|Nabataean]], and the much later [[Syriac script]].

Aramaic is usually divided into three main parts:<ref name="Bey" />
# Old Aramaic (in turn subdivided into Ancient, Imperial, Old Eastern and Old Western Aramaic)
# Middle Aramaic, and
# Modern Aramaic of the present day.

The term Middle Aramaic refers to the form of Aramaic which appears in pointed texts and is reached in the 3rd century AD with the loss of short unstressed vowels in open syllables, and continues until the triumph of [[Arabic]].

Old Aramaic appeared in the 11th century BC as the official language of the first [[Syro-Hittite states|Aramaean states]]. The oldest witnesses to it are inscriptions from northern [[Syria]] of the 10th to 8th centuries BC, especially extensive state treaties ({{c.|750 BC}}) and royal inscriptions. The early Old Ancient should be classified as "Ancient Aramaic" and consists of two clearly distinguished and standardised written languages, the Early Ancient Aramaic and the Late Ancient Aramaic. Aramaic was influenced at first principally by [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]], then from the 5th century BC by [[Persian language|Persian]] and from the 3rd century BC onwards by [[Greek language|Greek]], as well as by [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]], especially in [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]].<ref name="Bey">Cf. Klaus Beyer, [https://books.google.com/books?id=pZ53zpMQNLEC ''The Aramaic Language''], Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986, pp. 9- 15; Rainer Degen, [https://books.google.com/books?id=nrRcQwAACAAJ ''Altaramäische Grammatik der Inschriften des 10-8 Jh.v.Chr.''], [[Wiesbaden]], repr. 1978.</ref> As Aramaic evolved into the imperial language of the [[Neo-Assyrian Empire]], the script used to write it underwent a change into something more cursive. The best examples of this script come from documents written on papyrus from Egypt.<ref>This script was also used during the reign of King [[Ashoka]] in his edicts to spread early [[Buddhism]]. Cf. [http://www.ancientscripts.com/aramaic.html "Ancient Scripts: Aramaic"]. Accessed 05/04/2013</ref> About 500&nbsp;BC, [[Darius I|Darius&nbsp;I]] (522–486) made the Aramaic used by the imperial administration into the official language of the western half of the [[Achaemenid Empire]]. This so-called "[[Imperial Aramaic]]" (the oldest dated example, from Egypt, belonging to 495&nbsp;BC) is based on an otherwise unknown written form of Ancient Aramaic from [[Babylonia]]. In orthography, Imperial Aramaic preserves historical forms—[[alphabet]], [[orthography]], [[morphology (linguistics)|morphology]], [[pronunciation]], [[vocabulary]], [[syntax]] and [[Style (sociolinguistics)|style]] are highly standardised. Only the formularies of the private documents and the [[Ahiqar|Proverbs of Ahiqar]] have maintained an older tradition of sentence structure and style. Imperial Aramaic immediately replaced Ancient Aramaic as a written language and, with slight modifications, it remained the official, commercial and literary language of the [[Near East]] until gradually, beginning with the fall of the Achaemenids in 331 BC and ending in the 4th century AD, it was replaced by Greek, Persian, the eastern and western dialects of Aramaic and Arabic, though not without leaving its traces in the written form of most of these. In its original Achaemenid form, Imperial Aramaic is found in texts of the 5th to 3rd centuries BC. These come mostly from Egypt and especially from the [[Jewish temple at Elephantine#Jewish temple at Elephantine|Jewish military colony]] of [[Elephantine]], which existed at least from 530 to 399&nbsp;BC.<ref>Cf. Noël Aimé-Giron, [http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/syria_0039-7946_1931_num_12_2_8304_t1_0180_0000_2 ''Textes araméens d’Égypte''], Cairo, 1931 (Nos. 1–112); G.R. Driver, [https://books.google.com/books?id=AQ7QtgAACAAJ ''Aramaic Documents of the Fifth Century B.C.''], [[Oxford]]: Clarendon Press, repr. 1968; [http://www.vst.edu/main/files/pdf/cvs/CV_Lindenberger_2012.pdf J.M. Lindenberger] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029203506/http://www.vst.edu/main/files/pdf/cvs/CV_Lindenberger_2012.pdf |date=29 October 2013 }}, ''The Aramaic Proverbs of Ahiqar'', Baltimore, 1983.</ref>