Learn Aramaic, Part 3

By mid-semester, we have reached a consensus.

I'm beginning to see some of the reasons for my professor's inductive teaching methods. Biblical Aramaic was not organized by the Babylonian grammar police, if there were any. Aramaic words may be spelled more than one way, or they may be borrowed from another language (like Persian) which means they don't always follow Aramaic patterns. Also, margin notes on differences between what is written (ketiv) and how it should be pronounced (qere) occur frequently. Today, the corpus of Biblical Aramaic literature is slim, leaving scholars a comparatively small collection to analyze. Given this particular situation, a standardized vocabulary glossary or grammar guide is less helpful than we might expect.

At the same time, I am a Language Design Diva. I maintain that language usually has a design, because people create conventions for effective communication. Although active language is always changing, linguistic alterations serve a common purpose of expressing ideas, feelings, events, and needs. There are also issues of honesty, concealment, and deception to consider, because people use language to obscure as often as to reveal. But every aspect of language has purpose; even concealment and deception require order.

Grammar and syntax are part of language design. We are limited in our understanding of any language when we don't understand how its grammar and syntax are organized. So I'm pushing back on the class curriculum with my questions about structure. For example, is the vav letter used to connect clauses AND show relationships between them? Could a vav indicate emphasis or even intensification? Might the vav show condition, subordination, or purpose from one clause to the next? If so, it would be translated with more options than simply and, or, and but. A vav could be rendered in English as also, even, when, that, and so to express various relationships between clauses. I asked about this possibility in class last night, and after some initial hedging by the professor, I was finally rewarded with a "yes," supported by the Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT) and some reflective discussion.

My professor understands me better now. He knows that I'm not just being difficult. He recognizes that my desire to comprehend Aramaic propels me to ask such questions. After the third class, we briefly discussed my dissertation work (which will include the book of Daniel), so he knows I'm serious. He is patient with my mistakes and my pursuit of orderliness, while he functions by a fluid style of language learning which I don't quite grasp. Even so, I'm faithfully doing all the assignments he prescribes. I have found that there are benefits in simply reading a passage repeatedly, even when everything in it is not completely clear.

For my midterm, I practiced reading Daniel 2 and 3. I was surprised I could do this after six weeks of study. My professor's fluid, inductive style does work---especially with a little help from supplementary references. I suspect that I will never find it comfortable, but now I'm convinced that it has some strong points. He's right that we can't learn a new language only by drilling with vocabulary lists and grammars: we must use language in order to learn it. All to say, I'm beginning to establish a personal sense of equilibrium between order and spontaneity.

Then a new wilderness appeared on my horizon. Last night in class, our professor asked us if we were feeling more comfortable with Aramaic. We gave him a tentative "yes." He replied, "Good. Because I'm trying to decide how fast we can go forward from here and when we will start the Targums." In case you're wondering, these other ancient Aramaic documents use a different set of vowel markings. All I know is that the words look like Hebrew letters with little tree branches lying across the top of them.