Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk" <Peter_Kirk AT sil.org>]

Use to the present day is not all that limited. SIL Ethnologue (www.sil.org)
estimates 200,000 speakers of Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and 70,000 speakers of
Turoyo or Suryani, which are just two of a considerable number of languages
in current use directly descended from classical Syriac. Of course these
languages have changed in 2000 years.

Peter Kirk


-----Original Message-----
From: Trevor & Julie Peterson [mailto:spedrson AT netzero.net]
Sent: 21 December 2000 09:29
To: Biblical Hebrew
Subject: RE: wa, fa, and questions about pronunciation


Again, speaking out of my ignorance, I don't think Syriac (a popular dialect
of Aramaic during the early Christian period and continuing in limited use
to the present day) uses any comparable construction.  Of course, Syriac has
lost or buried a lot of elements that historically were a part of Aramaic,
so that may not be saying a lot anyway.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jonathan Bailey [mailto:jonathan.bailey AT gmx.de]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2000 2:43 PM
> To: Biblical Hebrew
> Subject: Re: wa, fa, and questions about pronunciation