Aramaic

For over a thousand years, Aramaic was the lingua franca everywhere between the Indus and the Nile. More than that: through powerful networks of officials and scribes, it shaped politics, law, literature and religion in the ancient world. Important parts of the Old Testament are written in Aramaic; it was Jesus’s mother tongue; most rabbinical Jews were Aramaic speakers; and the Oriental Churches used Aramaic as the language of literature and the liturgy – some still use it to this day. In the 7^th century, Aramaic was finally replaced by Arabic, the language of the Koran, as the primary language of the Orient. The Aramaic language has been unfairly neglected in research and the public discourse. Holger Gzella’s fascinating overview reveals a ‘forgotten global empire’ which lives on in world religions to this day.

*‘Talitha koum!’ – ‘Little girl, I say to you, get up!’

*Aramaic words spoken by Jesus according to Mark 5,41

*The forgotten lingua franca between India and North Africa

*1500 years of the cultural history of the ancient world, from a new perspective

*Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Islam: how Aramaic shaped world religions

*Aramaic is still spoken today in Western Anatolia and parts of Syria