Lessons

From Aramaic to Arabic

In previous lessons, we have seen that Aramaic was spoken throughout the centuries prior to New Testament times, and was the language of the New Testament. But Aramaic continued to be spoken in common use for centuries afterwards, and is even spoken in small pockets across the Middle East and the Assyrian diaspora today.

However, in the centuries after Jesus, slowly Aramaic started to lose its foothold, to be steadily replaced by Arabic. In fact, you saw in the previous lesson how the Arabic Bible was partly translated from the Aramaic tradition - the Aramaic New Testament - and not from the Greek New Testament at all.

It is important to understand that, although Aramaic always was a hugely important language in the Middle East, it did (eventually) gave way to Arabic, and Arabic has become the predominant language of the Middle East, as spoken by Moslems today.

It is important to understand this transition from Aramaic to Arabic, because every history of Arabic will tell you all about it. It is important because Greek was not the dominant language of the Middle East when Arabic won the day. Greek was only ever used by small pockets of speakers, of those who had succumbed to Hellenistic ideas and, to a lesser extent, the Greek language.

And so, in this lesson, we examine the transition from Aramaic to Arabic, and what it meant for Aramaic. In the centuries after Jesus, slowly Aramaic started to lose its foothold, to be steadily replaced by Arabic.

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