Sunday, February 28, 2010

Arguments to rename the #Aramaic #Wikipedia

In a comment on a previous blog Maurice concludes with: "The current Aramaic Wikipedia is written in Syriac".

I also received a mail commenting on my blog in translation it says:

The Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and the Chaldean differ only slightly in pronunciation. They are considered to be Syriac as an overarching language as they are both written in the Syriac script. Even though the pronunciation may differ slightly, it does not matter for the reading and writing. The difference is in the pronunciation of the vowels. In Syriac the vowels are not written and consequently the difference in pronunciation is possible.

Someone who writes Assyrian Neo-Aramaic can read what a Chaldean writes and vice versa. Only the pronunciation differs, but this is not noticed by either. They understand each other. There is no question of a difference between the two languages in their written form, but there is a linguistic difference in the spoken form.

Consequently even though Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and Chaldean are two languages, in their writing they are one, Syriac.

My impression of all this is that it is best to rename the Aramaic Wikipedia and call it the Syriac Wikipedia or syr.wikipedia.org. The language policy of the WMF allows in my opinion for such exceptions.
Thanks,
GerardM

1 comment:

Aramaic Scholar said...

Aramaic is the general term for the whole language, without making any reference to which dialect or which time period. Syriac refers to a specific dialect of Aramaic.