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The prepositions 'ad/'al in Aramaic and Hebrew

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Jonas C. Greenfield
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Extract

In a recent issue of the Bulletin, Mr. Sims-Williams argued that in the Sogdian ‘Ancient letters’ the ideogram usually read 'R, found in the address formula, is to be read 'D. Mr. Sims-Williams's arguments were based on palaeographic and on inner Sogdian linguistic considerations. At first glance the Aramaist might be reluctant to accept this reading for the ideogram since in the address formula of letters in the Arsham correspondence, both the material published by G. R. Driver and that found earlier at Elephantine, and in later texts such as the Bar Kokhba letters, the standard form before the addressee is 'L ‘to’. The purpose of this note is to show that there is ample evidence for the interchange of 'D and 'L in both Aramaic and Hebrew to make the use of 'D for the more usual 'L in a branch of the Achaemenian chancery plausible and the use of 'D in the ‘Ancient letters’ probable.

Type
Notes and Communications
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , June 1977 , pp. 371 - 372
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1977

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References

1 BSOAS, XXXVIII, 1, 1975, 134–9.Google Scholar

2 cf. Fitzmyer, J. A., ‘Some notes on Aramaic epistolography’, JBL, XCIII, 2, 1974, 210–25, for references.Google Scholar

3 Massora Magna, ed. Frensdorff, S., Hannover und Leipzig, 1876, 257.Google Scholar

4 Fraenkel, S., ‘Verwechselung der Partikeln 'al mit 'ad’, MGWJ, xxx, 1881, 218–35Google Scholar; Weiss, I. H., Beth Talmud, Vienna, 1881, 16–17.Google Scholar

5 Mābō' lěnusaḥ ha-Mišnā, Jerusalem, 1948, 90–1.Google Scholar

6 In Biblical Hebrew one finds the gradual replacement of 'el by 'al in the later books and then hyper-correct forms with 'el.

7 op. cit., 1227–8.

8 Sokoloff, M., Lěšonénu, XXXIII, 2–3, 1969, 140.Google Scholar

9 cf. Nöldeke, T., Compendious Syriac grammar, London, 1904, 293Google Scholar. It was my encounter with this form which led to the collection of other instances of 'al—'ad.

10 Nöldeke, T., Mandäische Grammatik, Halle, 1875, 209–10.Google Scholar