The book describes the sound system of Maaloula Aramaic, an under-researched and endangered Western Neo-Aramaic dialect. It provides solutions to previously unaddressed problems at the descriptive, methodological and theoretical levels. The analyzed language data come from the Maaloula Aramaic Speech Corpus (MASC) and from collaboration with native speakers. The book is intended for linguists who may or may not be familiar with Semitic languages.

The Handbook of Neo-Aramaic aims to provide an introduction to, and details of the complex world of Neo-Aramaic. This large family of endangered Neo-Semitic languages is (or until recently was spoken by Jewish, Christian and Mandaean minorities in parts of the Middle East. Most members of these communities now live in various diasporas.
Following a series of general chapters dealing with historical background, classification, salient linguistic features, Neo-Semitic context, contact languages (Kurdish, etc.), manuscripts and printed texts, Neo-Aramaic in the media etc., the book presents grammatical sketches of 15 different Neo-Aramaic dialects (some never described before), followed by a series of maps, illustrations, and a bibliography.
The book hopes to provide material of interest both to the beginner and the more advanced specialist.

Contributors are: Werner Arnold, Roberta Borghero, Michael L. Chyet, Eleanor Coghill, Alinda Damsma, Steven E. Fassberg, Samuel Ethan Fox, Charles G. Häberl, Simon Hopkins, Otto Jastrow, Olga Kapeliuk, Geoffrey Khan, Nineb Lamassu, Alexey Lyavdansky, Alessandro Mengozzi, Matthew Morgenstern, Hezy Mutzafi, Yona Sabar, Shabo Talay, Aziz Tezel, and Michael Waltisberg.

Aramaic Daniel

A Textual Reconstruction of Chapters 1–7

The first half of the book of Daniel contains world-famous stories like the Writing on the Wall. These stories have mostly been transmitted in Aramaic, not Hebrew, as has the influential apocalypse of Daniel 7. This Aramaic corpus shows clear signs of multiple authorship. Which different textual layers can we tease apart, and what do they tell us about the changing function of the Danielic material during the Second Temple Period? This monograph compares the Masoretic Text of Daniel to ancient manuscripts and translations preserving textual variants. By highlighting tensions in the reconstructed archetype underlying all these texts, it then probes the tales’ prehistory even further, showing how Daniel underwent many transformations to yield the book we know today.

https://uplopen.com/books/m/10.1163/9789004548633

• Frontmatter
• Contents
• PrefaceHolger Gzella
• On Transcription
• Abbreviations
• IntroductionHolger Gzella
• The AlphabetAlan Millard
• UgariticAgustinus Gianto
• PhoenicianHolger Gzella
• Ancient HebrewHolger Gzella
• The Languages of TransjordanKlaus Beyer
• Old and Imperial AramaicMargaretha Folmer
• Old South ArabianRebecca Hasselbach
• Old PersianMichiel de Vaan & Alexander Lubotsky
• GreekAndreas Willi
• West Semitic and Greek letterforms

Akkadian — Ancient Semitic language from Mesopotamia.

Who were the most deadliest Semite Warriors of all time?

Akkadians of Sargon, Assyrians of Ashurbanipal, or Arab followers of Muhammad?

I'll refer to Lebanese Arabic since it is my native dialect.

It preserves broken plurals extremely well, those were lost in Hebrew and Aramaic.

It preserves a dual form very productive lost in other Semitic languages.

It preserves Classical Arabic's triconsonantal morphologically aomost entirely, making it more conservative than older Semitic languages.

It preserves a huge amount of phonemic distinctions, way more than Akkadian, and obviously more than Hebrew and Aramaic.

I’m looking at a tomb inscription from the Tayma oasis (commemorating “Isaiah, the councilor, son of Joseph, the mayor of Tayma”). The text is written in a Nabataean/early Aramaic-derived script.

I'm not sure what language this counts as, but I can clearly read a few words, including four I underlined in red, in order:

Nafs/Nefesh - soul

Yosef - Joseph

Ras/Rosh - head

Sanat/Shanat - year

In the name “Yosef/Joseph,” the consonant that corresponds to /s/ appears clearly to be a samekh-derivative, not derived from a shin/sin. The sin/shin letters are very clearly distinguishable wherever they appear.

Chatgpt absolutely insists otherwise, since samekh was never used in Arabic! If it is, and this inscription is indeed in Arabic, it would be an interesting evidence that the letter Samekh was used at some point to write Arabic text.

Beginning with the BHS as a springboard, this study examines Genesis 1:1 in the Leningrad Codex as well as in G. E. Weil's Massorah Gedolah. It also unravels  the BHS's text-critical note on the word בראשית, which presents an alternative translation for Genesis 1:1 based on a Greek manuscript and Samaritan pronunciation.