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Languages of the Bible and their speakers | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Al-Irelandi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5537 days ago 111 posts - 177 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 17 of 53 22 March 2010 at 6:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
Is this proven somewhere? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| dmaddock1 Senior Member United States Joined 5435 days ago 174 posts - 426 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Esperanto, Latin, Ancient Greek | Message 18 of 53 22 March 2010 at 6:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hey all, long-time lurker, first-time poster. Just wanted to chime in here since I began my language study with Koine Greek so I could read the New Testament (and other early Christian writings) in the original. I became interested in doing so after reading several books on textual criticism.
I'd like to point out the distinction between the language(s) spoken by people referred to in the Bible and the language spoken by the people who wrote it, as they are often not the same (neither the language nor the people). I don't think a knowledge of Aramaic is going to help all that much in reading the NT excepting a few small cases of Hebrew or Aramaic transliterated into Greek mostly attributed to Jesus, such as his last words in Mark. The large majority of the early surviving works of Christian literature is in Greek, which also happens to be basically the NT. Also notable post-NT works (ie. 2nd c. onwards) are the apostolic fathers which you can get in Greek from the Loeb Classical Library. The Latin Vulgate was a very important translation historically and there are some interesting church fathers who wrote in Latin, but if your goal is to get access to a rich literary tradition as close to the beginnings of early Christianity as possible, you want Greek. There are some things that are definitely lost in translation, such as the exchange between Jesus and Nicodemus in John regarding one being "born again"--a pun based on the Greek word ανωθεν which can mean "again" or "from above" (which is interesting since Jesus didn't speak Greek...) A more esoteric option would be Coptic. Some early authors deemed heretical are preserved in Coptic (though scholarly consensus is that these are translations from lost Greek originals). But with all of the above, you are reading what people who weren't there thought decades or centuries after the fact--no offense intended to those who believe otherwise. Sadly, I don't think there exists any significant body of Christian Aramaic literature prior to the Syriac material of the 4th century. 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5383 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 19 of 53 22 March 2010 at 7:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
It can't be. It goes beyond recorded history. But it only makes sense (you don't have to take my word for it and you are free to present a different hypothesis) that as humans' brain capacity increased, a more and more intricate method of communication developed over time, likely over a looong time. Somewhere, we went from no language ability to complex language ability. It had to be gradual. The opposite view would be extremely unlikely. Humans would have had to have the brain capacity for language -- yet, without speaking any language at all -- only to decide all of a sudden, out of the blue, to create an intricate grammatical system and a vocabulary of a few thousand words that everyone would have to agree on and that everyone would have to learn. Edited by Arekkusu on 22 March 2010 at 7:36pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5558 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 20 of 53 22 March 2010 at 7:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
Was Aramaic Jesus' mother tongue - most probably. Jesus (or "Yeshua" in Aramaic as some scholars claim his name to be) is reported to have spoken Aramaic in a number of places in the Bible. This would certainly be in line with growing up in Nazareth and moving about Galilee a couple of thousand years ago when Aramaic was in its prime in this part of the world. Phrases in the New Testament reported to have been spoken directly by Jesus include "eli eli lama sabachthani" ("my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?", Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34), "talitha kum" (“little girl, arise!”, Mark 5:41), and "ephatha" ("be opened!", Mark 7:34). Interestingly, Aramaic tends to pop up during tense key moments concerning resurrection, healing and direct conversation between Jesus and God. As to the current status of Aramaic... Well, it's still spoken today in the form of modern Aramaic by over 2 million people across the world. I don't know much about other groupings, but I've helped support linguistic work with 135 North Eastern Neo-Aramaic dialects. Most of these are rapidly facing extinction, with the last remaining Jewish and Christian communities in Northern Iraq, North West Iran and South Eastern Turkey. Just small pockets of native speakers really, and most of them well on in years. Aramaic used to be a major lingua franca, much like its successor Latin used to be and English seems to be today. One of the main reasons why it's facing extinction now is because many of the native speakers have been forced to leave their homes and settle in émigré communities throughout the world due to ethnic cleansing, and younger generations have consequently lost touch with their language over the years. Altogether it's a fascinating language, with a rich 3000-year-old history. It makes me wonder sometimes where English and other lingua francas used around the world today will be in 3000 years' time ;) Edited by Teango on 22 March 2010 at 11:00pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| staf250 Pentaglot Senior Member Belgium emmerick.be Joined 5699 days ago 352 posts - 414 votes Speaks: French, Dutch*, Italian, English, German Studies: Arabic (Written) | Message 21 of 53 22 March 2010 at 10:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I recently read an interesting book on Aramaic. Ariel Sabar, My Father's Paradise, A Son's Search for His Jewish
Past in Kurdish Iraq, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, New York, 2008, ISBN 978 90 499 5125 2. I did read it in Dutch translation. Edited by staf250 on 22 March 2010 at 10:14pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5558 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 22 of 53 23 March 2010 at 11:31am | IP Logged | |||||
Koine Greek and Classical Hebrew are essential to really understand what's going on in the Bible. Modern translations are great, but they only go so far in revealing the true underlying meaning (which is often debatable anyway), and this is why many Bibles also include footnotes to the original Greek or Hebrew or further possible translations. Whereas Hebrew is the key to the Old Testament (with some parts written in Aramaic too), Greek is the predominant language of the New Testament (most of the earliest original surviving codices being written in Greek). Both of these languages are also useful in translating the non-canonical gospels, papyri and vast amount of early supporting texts as well as the later works of the Church Fathers. Old Latin, Syriac (a dialect of Middle Aramaic) and Coptic (Sahidic and Bahairic - successors to Ancient Egyptian) are also very useful, as many of our earliest versions of the New Testament along with other important biblical works and commentaries not included in the Bible were translated from Greek into these three languages that were prevalent at the time. Other less important yet still enlightening versions (from a textual point of view) included Ethiopic, Gothic, Armenian, Georgian, Arabic, Slavonic and Persian. So as you can see, the study of theology and the Bible can be a linguist's dream... ;) Edited by Teango on 23 March 2010 at 11:41am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5840 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 23 of 53 25 March 2010 at 9:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
Wow, in awe of the knowledge posessed by many here. This is very, very interesting.
LOL.... I admit that I wrote both the original post and my comment about Hebrew strictly from memory and did not verify it. Here is what it's based on: OK, I am a Christian. But as it happens, I attended a Jewish course called "Discovery" while staying with some Jewish relatives in Jerusalem. Perhaps someone has heard of this, it's a pretty famous course. The course made a big issue of how the Torah hadn't changed for several thousand years and gave some example, like the Dead Sea scroll and whatever the Somalian Jews had (which had been preserved by them in separation from the rest of Judaism). After that the course jumped straight onto the Bible Code. The idea was to prove the divine nature of the Torah with these examples. I had (have) no information to contradict what they were saying, and I doubt they were lying on purpose.. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| spanishlearner Groupie France Joined 5456 days ago 51 posts - 81 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 24 of 53 26 March 2010 at 5:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Anyone know of a good polyglot Bible? Do they even make those anymore (given the progressive dumbing down of everything)?
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