Jewish Babylonian Aramaic is the form of Middle Aramaic employed by Jewish writers in Babylonia between the 4th century and the 11th century CE. It is most commonly identified with the language of the Babylonian Talmud (which was completed in the seventh century) and of post-Talmudic (Geonic) literature, which are the most important cultural products of Babylonian Jewry. The most important epigraphic sources for the dialect are the hundreds of Aramaic magic bowls written in the Jewish script.

The language is closely related to other Eastern Aramaic dialects such as Mandaic and the Eastern Syriac of the Assyrian Church. Its original pronunciation is uncertain, and has to be reconstructed with the help of these kindred dialects and of the reading tradition of the Yemenite Jews. (The vocalized Aramaic texts with which Jews are familiar, from the Bible and the prayer book, are of limited usefulness for this purpose, as they are in a different dialect.)

Talmudic Aramaic bears all the marks of being a specialist language of study and legal argumentation, like Law French, rather than a vernacular mother tongue, and continued in use for these purposes long after Arabic had become the language of daily life. It has developed a battery of technical logical terms, such as tiyuvta (conclusive refutation) and teyku (undecidable moot point), which are still used in Jewish legal writings, including those in other languages, and have influenced modern Hebrew.

The language has received considerable scholarly attention, as shown in the Bibliography below. However, the majority of those who are familiar with it, namely Orthodox Jewish students of Talmud, are given no systematic instruction in the language, and are expected to "sink or swim" in the course of Talmudic studies, with the help of some informal pointers showing similarities and differences with Hebrew. For this reason, insights based on grammar or philology tend to be received with bewilderment in Orthodox Talmudic circles (see Chaim Potok's novels The Chosen and The Promise).

[edit] Bibliography

• Ethnologue entry for Jewish Babylonian Aramaic
• Frank, Yitzhak, Grammar for Gemara: An Introduction to Babylonian Aramaic: Jerusalem, Ariel Institute, 2000 ISBN 087306612X
• Jastrow, Marcus, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (reprinted many times) ISBN 1565638603
• Klein, Hyman, An Introduction to the Aramaic of the Babylonian Talmud: London 1943
• Kutscher, Eduard Yechezkel, Hebrew and Aramaic Studies, ed. Z. Ben-Hayyim, A. Dotan, and G. Sarfatti: Jerusalem, The Magnes Press / The Hebrew University, 1977
• Levias, Caspar, A grammar of the Aramaic idiom contained in the Babylonian Talmud: 1900 (reprints available)
• Marcus, David, A Manual of Babylonian Jewish Aramaic: University Press of America, Paperback ISBN 0819113638
• Margolis, Max Leopold, A manual of the Aramaic language of the Babylonian Talmud; grammar chrestomathy & glossaries: Munich 1910 (reprints available)
• Melamed, Ezra Zion, Dictionary of the Babylonian Talmud, Feldheim 2005 ISBN 1583307761
• Morag, Shelomo, Babylonian Aramaic: The Yemenite Tradition - Historical Aspects and Transmission Phonology: the Verbal System : Jerusalem, Ben Zvi Institute, 1988 (in Hebrew)
• Sokoloff, Michael, A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic of the Talmudic and Geonic Periods: Bar Ilan and Johns Hopkins University Press 2003, Hardcover ISBN 0801872332

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