Christian Palestinian Aramaic

No source gives CPA a name as a distinct dialect or language and all such names are modern scholarly inventions.[5] Names like "Palestinian Syriac" and "Syropalestinian Aramaic"[lower-alpha 2] reflect the fact that Palestinian Aramaic speakers often referred to their language as Syriac and made use of an alphabet based on the northern Syriac ʾEsṭrangēlā script.[5] Egeria, in the account of her pilgrimage to Palestine at the end of the 4th century, refers to Syriac,[8] which was probably what is now Christian Palestian Aramaic.[9]

The term syrica Hierosolymitana was introduced by J. D. Michaelis based on the appearance of the Arabic name of Jerusalem, al-Quds,[lower-alpha 3] in the colophon of a Gospel lectionary of 1030 AD (today Vat. sir. 19).[11] It was also used in the first edition by Miniscalchi Erizzo.[12] The term "Jerusalem Syriac" is sometimes said to emphasise the location where most of the first inscriptions were found,[5] although most of them come today from Transjordan.

The terms "Christian Palestinian Aramaic" and "Melkite Aramaic"[lower-alpha 4] emphasise the confessional identity of the speakers and the distinctness from any Syriac variety of Aramaic.[5]

CPA is preserved in inscriptions, manuscripts (mostly palimpsests in the early period) and amulets. The history of CPA writing can be divided into three periods: early (5th–7th/8th centuries), middle (8th–9th) and late (10th–13th). The existence of a middle period has only recently come to light.[1][5]

Only inscriptions, fragmentary manuscripts and the underwriting of palimpsests survive from the early period. Of the inscriptions, only one can be dated with any precision. The fragments are both Biblical and Patristic. The oldest complete (non-fragmentary) manuscript dates to 1030. All the complete manuscripts are liturgical in nature.[5][7]

CPA declined as a spoken language because of persecution and gradual Arabization following the early Islamic conquests. From the tenth century onwards it was mainly a liturgical language in the Melkite churches and the Melkite community mainly spoke Arabic.[5] Even as a written language, it went extinct around the fourteenth century and was only identified or rediscovered as a distinct variety of Aramaic in the nineteenth century.[13]

Deuteronomy 11:7–10 from the Lewis lectionary, 11th century (Westminster College, Cambridge)

The only surviving original compositions in CPA[5] are inscriptions in mosaics and rock caves (lavras),[14][15] magical silver amulets[16][17][18] and a single short magical booklet.[19] All other surviving manuscript compositions are translations of Greek originals.[5]

Many of the palimpsests come from Saint Catherine's Monastery in Sinai (e.g., the Codex Climaci Rescriptus),[20][21] but some also from Mar Saba (e.g., part of the Codex Sinaiticus Rescriptus),[20][21] the Cairo Genizah[lower-alpha 5][21][22] and the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.[23] They often transmit rare texts lost in the Greek transmission (e.g. the Transitus Mariae;[24][25] the hitherto unknown martyrdom of Patriklos of Caesarea, one of the eleven followers of Pamphilus of Caesarea;[25][26] and a missing quire of Codex Climaci Rescriptus[25][27][28][29]), or offer valuable readings for the textual criticism of the Septuagint.[30]

Inscriptions have been found in Palestine at ʿEn Suweinit,[31] near ʿAbūd,[32] at ʿUmm er-Rūs,[33] in the Church of Saint Anne in Jerusalem,[34] at Hippos in Galilee,[35] and at Khirbet Qastra near Haifa.[36] In Transjordan, inscriptions have been found on Mount Nebo (ʿAyūn Mūsa), in the vicinity of Amman (Khayyān el-Mushrif)[14] and on tomb stones in Khirbet es-Samra.[15]

The manuscripts include a short letter on papyrus from Khibert Mird[37] and at least one wooden board.[38] The parchment manuscript fragments are Biblical (mostly in the form of lectionaries), Patristic, theological (e.g. the catecheses by Cyril of Jerusalem and homilies by John Chrysostom), hagiographic (mostly martyrs' lives) or apocryphal (e.g., the Transitus Mariae). The only dated manuscript is the Gospel lectionary of 1030.[39]

CPA can be distinguished from JPA and SA by the lack of direct influence from Hebrew and new Hebrew loanwords, its Hebrew loanwords being retained from an earlier symbiosis of Hebrew and Aramaic.[1][40] It is also distinguished by the presence of Greek syntax (by partial retention in translation). Also, unlike JPA and SA, CPA is attested only in primary texts (mostly in palimpsests). There was no transmission of manuscripts after the language itself went out use as liturgical language. In comparison with its counterparts, therefore, the CPA corpus represents an older, more intact example of Western Aramaic from when the dialects were still living, spoken languages.[1]