Classical Syriac for Hebraists

by Takamitsu Muraoka

Classical Syriac for Hebraists is intended for people who already have a basic knowledge of Biblical Hebrew and want to study Syriac, an important ancient Semitic language, a dialect of Aramaic. Syriac is the official language of the Syriac-speaking churches and has a vast amount of literature representing diverse areas of human ancient translations of the Bible and related early documents, biblical commentaries, theological treatises, ecclesiastical histories, legends about saints, scientific texts covering philosophy, natural sciences, grammar, translations from Greek documents and many others. With previous knowledge of Hebrew assumed and related phenomenon in Hebrew frequently mentioned, the student can be expected to acquire reading knowledge of Syriac with reasonable ease and speed. The chrestomathy presents a selection of eleven documents including not only passages of the Bible, but also biblical commentaries and theological discussions, humorous fables and a grammatical treatise, all original Syriac compositions. The texts are fully or partly vocalised, provided with grammatical annotations with constant cross referencing to the appropriate sections of the grammar. A glossary to facilitate studying of these texts is appended.

131 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Professor Emeritus of Hebrew Language and Literature, Israelite Antiquities, and Ugaritic at the State University of Leiden, The Netherlands. His past publications deal with the Hebrew/Aramaic/Syriac linguistics and the ancient versions of the Old Testament.

Reviews

[Koen Crolla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Surprisingly weak showing from Muraoka. The idea behind the approach is sound enough—in the absence of a common Semitic program your average textbook can't assume someone who wants to learn Syriac has any particular background, but a lot of people will already know Hebrew, and knowing Hebrew can greatly speed up the learning of Syriac—but he seems weirdly averse to any kind of actual comparative linguistics, and so fails to take much advantage of the parallels that exist between the languages.

By way of example, when discussing noun patterns, he notes that nouns with the underlying pattern CVCVC surface as CCVC in the sg. abs. and cst. but as CVCC- in all other forms, and his examples include, among others, ܓܡܰܠ /gmal/ vs. ܓܰܡܠܳܐ /gamlā/, ܕܗܰܦܼ /dhaḇ/ vs. ܕܰܗܒܼܳܐ /dahḇā/, and ܟܬܼܶܦ /kṯep̄/ vs. ܟܰܬܼܦܳܐ /kaṯpā/, but also ܡܠܶܟܼ /mleḵ/ vs. ܡܰܠܟܿܳܐ /malkā/, ܟܣܶܦܼ /ksep̄/ vs. ܟܶܣܦܳܐ /kespā/, ܪܓܼܶܠ /rḡel/ vs. ܪܶܓܼܠܳܐ /reḡlā/, and ܩܕܼܘܿܫ /qḏoš/ vs. ܩܘܽܕܼܫܳܐ /quḏšā/. All of these have obvious Hebrew cognates, resp. גָּמָל /gāmāl/ < *gamal- 'camel', זָהָב /zāhāḇ/ < *ðahab- 'gold', כָּתֵף /kāṯēp̄/ < *katip- 'shoulder', מֶלֶךְ /meleḵ/ < *milk- 'king', כֶּסֶף /kesep̄/ < *kasp- 'silver', רֶגֶל /reḡel/ < *rigl- 'foot', and קֹדֶשׁ /qōḏeš/ < *quds- 'holiness'. Muraoka doesn't provide these cognates, of course, but notes in a footnote that "[s]tudents will recognise some nouns listed here as equivalent to Hebrew segholates"—but this means that underlying pattern there isn't CVCVC, but CVCC! And this does make a difference even in Syriac: it explains why ܕܰܗܒܼܳܐ /dahḇā/ has a spirantised b but ܟܶܣܦܳܐ /kespā/ doesn't have a spirantised p, for one. As it is, this pattern is left unexplained, and he notes elsewhere that spirantisation just can't fully be predicted from etymology.
(This aversion to histling also applies within Syriac itself: rather than write literally a single sentence explaining how the masculine plural ending developed, Muraoka suggests it's easier to pretend there are two sets of ten suffixed personal pronouns: one set for m. and f. sg. and f. pl. nouns, and one near-identical set for m. pl.)

Undoubtedly the culprit is Muraoka's reliance on Nöldeke's Kurzgefasste syrische Grammatik (or its English translation, Compendious Syriac Grammar)—he explicitly refers to it so often that by the time you get to the verb, it's not really optional that you get your own copy. Whatever its merits, it came out in 1880, which is a good twenty or thirty years before Brockelmann (Nöldeke's PhD student!) came up with the idea of comparing one Semitic language to another. You would think someone of Muraoka's stature could pick up the slack on his own, but if he could, he didn't.
(I expect Nöldeke is also to blame for a lot of the ever so slightly cumbersome terminology—beghadhkephath instead of begadkefat or just BGDKPT, Third-Yodh instead of III-y, &c.)

You can learn Syriac with this book, and it will probably go a little bit faster than with any of the broad-audience alternatives. There's still a real sense of missed opportunity.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good concise grammar of Syriac for the first section followed by a Chrestomathy in the second part with biblical texts and classical Syriac texts from patriotic sources. A useful introduction for Syriac studies that has a useful chrestomathy to train your Syriac with actual texts. The vocabulary in the Chrestomathy is contained in the footnotes and glossary.