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Introduction
to Syriac Syriac is
the Aramaic dialect of Edessa in Mesopotamia. Today it is the classical
tongue of the Nestorians and Chaldeans of Iran and Iraq and the liturgical
language of the Jacobites of Eastern Anatolia and the Maronites of Greater
Syria. Syriac is also the language of the Church of St Thomas on the Malabar
Coast of India. Syriac belongs to the Levantine group of the central branch
of the West Semitic languages. Syriac played an important role as the
intermediary through which Greek learning passed to the Islamic world.
Syriac translations also preserve much Middle Iranian wisdom literature that
has been lost in the original. Here, the language is presented both in the
Syriac script and in transcription, which is given so that the pronunciation
of individual words and the structure of the language may be represented as
clearly as possible. The majority of the sentences in the exercises -- and
all of the readings in later lessons -- are taken directly from the Pšitta,
the Syriac translation of the Bible. Most students learn Syriac as an
adjunct to biblical or theological studies and will be interested primarily
in this text. Biblical passages also have the advantage of being familiar,
to some degree or other, to most English speaking students.
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W M Thackston
9780936347981
155x230mm
228 pages
IBEX Publishers
£29.99 pb
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Introduction to Syriac :
Key to Exercises and English-Syriac Vocabulary
Syriac is the Aramaic dialect of Edessa in Mesopotamia. Today it is
the classical tongue of the Nestorians and Chaldeans of Iran and Iraq and
the liturgical language of the Jacobites of Eastern Anatolia and the
Maronites of Greater Syria. Syriac is also the language of the Church of St,
Thomas on the Malabar Coast of India. Syriac belongs to the Levantine group
of the central branch of the West Semitic languages. Syriac literature
flourished from the third century on and boasts of writers like Ephraem
Syrus, Aphraates, Jacob of Sarug, John of Ephesus, Jacob of Edessa, and
Barhebraeus. After the Arab conquests, Syriac became the language of a
tolerated but disenfranchised and diminishing community and began a long,
slow decline both as a spoken tongue and as a literary medium in favour of
Arabic. Syriac played an important role as the intermediary through which
Greek learning passed to the Islamic world. Syriac translations also
preserve much Middle Iranian wisdom literature that has been lost in the
original. Here, the language is presented both in the Syriac script and in
transcription, which is given so that the pronunciation of individual words
and the structure of the language may be represented as clearly as possible.
The majority of the sentences in the exercises -- and all of the readings in
later lessons -- are taken directly from the P'itta, the Syriac translation
of the Bible. Most students learn Syriac as an adjunct to biblical or
theological studies and will be interested primarily in this text. Biblical
passages also have the advantage of being familiar, to some degree or other,
to most English-speaking students. For many of those whose interest in
Syriac stems from Biblical studies or from the history of Eastern
Christianity, Syriac may be their first Semitic language. Every effort has
been made in the presentation of the grammar to keep the Semitic structure
of the language in the forefront and as clear as possible for those who have
no previous experience with languages of that family. Syriac is structurally
perhaps the simplest of all the Semitic languages. A chart of
correspondences among Arabic, Hebrew, and Syriac is given.
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9781588140456
Deniel M Gurtner
155x230mm
114 pages
£16.99
IBEX Publishers |
