Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

Following up on our recent discussion, I noticed that the Aramaic word 
"sahaduta" (testemony) in Gen. 31:47 is spelled with a Sin, while in standard 
Aramaic it would be spelled with Samekh. Is this a "Hebraized" spelling, or 
does it reflect use of Sin in early Aramaic. In the Tel Dan inscription 
(apparently early 8th century), not only is "Israel" spelled with a Sin (not 
surprising) but also the word ")sm" in line 9 of fragment A - at least, 
that's how Naveh read it - like Hebrew for "put".

Does anyone have any other examples of Sin in Aramaic?

Yigal
>From abuian AT access4less.net  Sat Nov 20 19:23:30 2004
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Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 19:23:49 -0500
From: Trevor Peterson <abuian AT access4less.net>
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Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Samekh/Sin
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Yigal Levin wrote:
> Following up on our recent discussion, I noticed that the Aramaic word 
> "sahaduta" (testemony) in Gen. 31:47 is spelled with a Sin, while in 
> standard Aramaic it would be spelled with Samekh. Is this a "Hebraized" 
> spelling, or does it reflect use of Sin in early Aramaic. In the Tel Dan 
> inscription (apparently early 8th century), not only is "Israel" spelled 
> with a Sin (not surprising) but also the word ")sm" in line 9 of fragment A 
> - at least, that's how Naveh read it - like Hebrew for "put".
>
> Does anyone have any other examples of Sin in Aramaic?

This particular word is attested in Nabatean with sin, and the related
&hd all over the place in older Aramaic evidence (see DNSI). There is
also a lot of variation between sin and samekh in Qumran Aramaic
material. I've personally cataloged several variants in the Enoch mss
where one ms has sin and another samekh. Generally speaking, I think the
later Aramaic dialects tend to replace sin with samekh, although
Sokoloff's DJPA shows significant occurrence of sin.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics