The Syriac Dialect of Aramaic

Launch Interactive Lesson

In this lesson, we examine the Syriac dialect of Aramaic. Syriac is the most extensive and most important dialect of Aramaic. Here are the key facts about Syriac:

• About 90% of the existing Aramaic literature is in Syriac.
• Syriac goes back to Assyrian Aramaic, to around the 5th century B.C.
• Syriac was used, written and spoken right through Crusader times, until at least the 1400s.
• Syriac was spoken as far north and west as Ancient Britain - in fact, some of the Roman soldiers at Hadrian's Wall in Britain left Syriac remains!
• Syriac went as far east as India, China and Mongolia, brought there by the early Christian missionaries.
• As early Christian missionaries went east, they took the Aramaic New Testament with them, rather than the Greek New Testament.
• Syriac is still used today, in the liturgy and service of the many Aramaic-speaking churches around the world today.
• Syriac is the language in which the Peshitta Old Testament and the Peshitta New Testament were written.

The link for the CAL is:

http://cal1.cn.huc.edu

Watch the Video Lesson (Part 1)

Watch the Video Lesson (Part 2)

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