ARAMAEAN LANGUAGE
354
ARAMAEAN LANGUAGE
according to the text, the Aramaeans are spoken of as possessing Elath on the Red Sea ; but the Masoretic marginal reading has "the Edomites," which is also found in many manuscripts, in the Septuagint and Vulgate, and it is obviously the correct reading (Ge- senius, Thes. ffeb. s. vv.).
It appears from the ethnographic table in the tenth chapter of Genesis ( ver. 22, 23) that Aram was a son of Shem, and that his own sons were Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. If these gave names to districts, Uz was in the north of Arabia Deserta, unless its name was derived rather from Huz, son of Nahor, Abraham's brother (Gen. xxii, 21). Hul was probably Ccele- Syria ; Mash, the Mons Masius north of Nisibis in Mesopotamia; Gether is unknown. Another Aram is mentioned (Gen. xxii, 21) as the grandson of Nahor and son of Kemuel, but he is not to be thought of here. The descent of the Aramxans from a son of Shem is con- firmed by their language, which was one of the branches of the Semitic family, and nearly allied to the Hebrew. Many writers, who have copied without acknowledg- ment the words of Calmet, maintain that the Ara- maeans came from Kir, appealing to Amos ix, 7 ; but while that passage is not free from obscurity, it seems evidently to point, not to the aboriginal abode of the people, but to the country whence God would recover them when banished. The prophet had said (Amos i. 5) that the people of Aram should go into captivity to Kir (probably the country on the River Kur or Cyrus), a prediction of which we read the accomplish- ment in 2 Kings xvi, 9 ; and the allusion here is to their subsequent restoration. Hartmann thinks Ar- menia obtained its name from Aram. (See generally Michaelis, Spicileg. ii, 121 sq. ; Wahl, Alt. v. X. Asien, i. 299 sq. ; Gatterer, Handb. i, 248; Rosenmiiller, Altherth. I, i, 232 sq. ; Ritter, Erdkunde, x, 16; Len- gerke, Kaiaan, i, 218 sq.). — Kitto. See Syria.
2. The first named son of Kemuel and grandson of Nahor (Gen. xxii, 21), B.C. cir. 2000. He is incor- rectly thought by many to have given name to Syria, hence the Sept. translates Stmoi. By some he is re- garded as same with Ram of Job xxxii, 2.
3. The last named of the four sons of Simmer or Shomer of the tribe of Asher (1 Chron. vii, 34), B.C. cir. 1618.
4. The Greek form among the ancestors of Christ (Matt, i, 3, 4 ; Luke iii, 33) of the Heb. Ram (q. v.), the son of Hezron and father of Amminadab (1 Chron. ii, 9, 10).
Aramaean Language (Ileb. Aramith', In>1"2^X) 2 Kin^s xviii, 26; Ezra iv, 7; Isa. xxxvi, 11; Dan. ii, 4; Sept. Supiori, Vulg. Syriace) is the northern and least developed branch of the Syro-Arabian family of tongues, being a general term for the whole, of which the Chaldce and Syriac dialects form the parts, these list differing very slightly, except in the forms of the in which they are now written (see the Introd. to Winer's Chaldee Gramm. r. ed. tr. by Prof. Hackett, X. Y. 1851). See Chaldee Language. > probably on the banks of the Cyrus, ac-
cording t the best interpretation of Amos ix, 7; but Mesopotamia, Babylonia, and Syria form what may ii home and proper domain. Political events, b iwever, subsequently caused it to supplant i Palestine, and then it becamethe prevailing
form of S] Ii from the Tigris to the shore oftheMed-
Iterram n, and, in a transverse direction, from Armenia down to the confines of Arabia. After obtaining such a wide dominion, it was forced, from the ninth century onward, I • give way before the encroaching ascend- ency of Lrabic; and it now only survives as a living tongue ai 14 the Syrian Christians in the neighbor- hood of Mosul. According to historical records which trace the migrations of the Syro-Arabians from the east to the south-west, and also according to the com- paratively ruder form of the Aramaic language itself,
we might suppose that it represents, even in the state in which we have it, some image of that aboriginal type which the Hebrews and Arabians, under more favorable social and climatical influences, subsequent- ly developed into fulness of sound and structure. But it is difficult for us now to discern the particular ves- tiges of this archaic form ; for, not only did the Ara- maic not work out its own development of the original elements common to the wdiole Syro-Arabian sister- hood of languages, but it was pre-eminently exposed, both by neighborhood and by conquest, to harsh col- lision with languages of an utterly different family. Moreover, it is the only one of the three great Syro- Arabian branches which has no fruits of a purely national literature to boast of. We possess no monu- ment whatever of its own genius ; not any work which may be considered the product of the political and re- ligious culture of the nation, and characteristic of it — as is so emphatically the case both with the He- brews and the Arabs. The first time wc see the lan- guage it is used \>y Jews as the vehicle of Jewish thought; and although, when we next meet it, it is employed by native authors, j'et the}- write under the literary impulses of Christianity, and under the Greek influence on thought and language which necessarily accompanied that religion. These two modifications, which constitute and define the so-called Chaldee and Syriac dialects, are the only forms in which the nor- mal and standard Aramaic has been preserved to us. It is evident, from these circumstances, that up to a certain period the Aramaic language has no other history than that of its relations to Hebrew. Tho earliest notice we have of its separate existence is in Gen. xxxi, 47, where Laban, in giving his own name to the memorial heap, employs words which are gen- uine Aramaic both in form and use. The next in- stance is in 2 Kings xviii, 26, where it appears that the educated Jews understood Aramaic, but that the common people did not. A striking illustration of its prevalence is found in the circumstance that it is em- ployed as the language of official communication in the edict addressed by the Persian court to its subjects in Palestine (Ezra iv, 17). The later relations of Aramaic to Hebrew consist entirely of gradual en- croachments on the part of the former. The Hebrew language was indeed always exposed, particularly in the north of Palestine, to Aramaic influences ; whence