!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> Aramaic
next up previous contents
Next: Beat Mary Dungan at Up: Semitic Languages Previous: Classical Hebrew (including Biblical   Contents

Aramaic

Grammars:

For Biblical Aramaic, there are several good grammars:

  1. Rosenthal, Franz. 2006. A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic
  2. Johns, Alger F. 1972. A Short Grammar of Biblical Aramaic, which also has an answer key.
I would recommend the Johns grammar for beginners, as it has graded exercises.

For Palestinian Jewish Aramaic, there is one grammar that I am aware of:

  1. Stevenson, William B. 1999. Grammar of Palestinian Jewish Aramaic

For the Aramaic of the Babylonian Talmud and other Jewsih literature, there are several grammars, although I would not recommend them to those unfamiliar with other dialects of Aramaic:

  1. Frank, Yitzhak. 2003. Grammar for Gemara and Targum Onkelos
  2. Marcus, David. 1981. A Manual of Babylonian Jewish Aramaic

For the Aramaic of the Zohar, there is one grammar that I am aware of, but it is out of print, and in Hebrew:

  1. Kaddari, Menahem Zevi. 1971. The Grammar of the Aramaic of the Zohar.
I am currently working on a translation into English, and am planning to add my own comments and revisions. Zohar Grammar.pdf

For Syriac, there is a good pedagogical grammar:

  1. Thackston, Wheeler M. 1999. Introduction to Syriac

Dictionaries: Both BDB and HALOT mentioned above in the Biblical Hebrew dictionaries section also cover Biblical Aramaic. For later Jewish dialects, a reliable and inexpensive dictionary is Jastrow.

next up previous contents
Next: Beat Mary Dungan at Up: Semitic Languages Previous: Classical Hebrew (including Biblical   Contents
Jeff Berry 2008-04-29