I. THE EAST ARAMAIC or CHALDEE.—TIIiS is not to be confounded with the language of the Chaldees ' (Dan. i. 4), which was probably a Medo Persic dialect ; but is what is denominated Aramaic ' (ITV%) in Dan. ii. 4. This was properly the language of Babylonia, and was acquired by the Jews during the exile, and carried back with them on their return to their own land.
The existence of this language, as distinct from the Western Aramaic or Syriac, has been denied by many scholars of eminence (Michaelis, Abhandl, von der Syr. spr. § 2 ; Jahn, Aramaeische Sprach lehre ; Hupfeld, Meal. Stud. and Krit. 183o, p. 290 ff.; De \Vette, Ein1. § 32 • Furst, Lehrgeb. der Aram. Idionte, p. 5) ; who diink that in what is called the Chaldee we have only the Syriac with an infusion of Hebraisms. The answer to this, however, is that some of the peculiarities of the Chaldee are such as are not Hebraistic, so that it cannot have derived them from this source. Thus, the prefix in the future of the third person fern. pl. in Chaldee is 4, whilst in Syriac it is and in Heb. n ; the pron. this in Chaldee is and 11, whilst the Syr. has cm and the Heb. n:r ; the passives in Chaldee are formed by an internal vowel change different from the Hebrew, whereas in Syriac the passive is formed by the addition of syllables ; the Chaldee has the statusemphaticuspher. in Ns—,whilst the Syr. has a simple and to these may be added the use of peculiar words, such as Nn5n Nr&I (Dan. v. 7, 16), tzt= (Ezra iv. 8 ; v. 9, I1 ; vi. 13) 11377 (Ezra iv. to, II, etc.) M17} (Dan.
v. 2, 23) ; the use of S for 1 in such words as NTT, 11',R, etc. There are other differences be tween the Chaldee and Syriac, such as the absence from the former of otiant consonants and diph thongs, the use of dagesh-forte in the former and not in the latter, the formation of the infin, without the prefixing of n except in Peal ; but as these are common to the Chaldee with the Hebrew, they cannot be used as proofs that the Chaldee was a dialect independent of the Hebrew, and not the Syriac modified by the Hebrew ; and the same may be said of the difference of pronunciation be tween the Syriac and Chaldee, such as the preva lence of an a sound in the latter where the former has the o sound, etc. It may be added, however, to the evidence above adduced, as a general re mark, that when we consider the wide range of the Aramaic language from east to west, it is in the highest degree probable that the dialect of the people using it at the one extremity should differ considerably from that of those using it at the other. (See Aurivillius, Dissertt. ad Sac. Literas et Philol. Orient. pertinentes, p. ro7 ff.; Hoffmann, Gram. Syr., Proleg. , p. II; Dietrich De Sernz. Chala'. proprielate, Lips. 1839 ; Havernick, General Intro duction, p. 91 ff. ; Bleek, Einl. irz des A. T., p. 53 ; Winer, Chaldaische Grammatik, p. 5.) It may be further added that not only are the alphabetical characters of the Chaldee different from those of the Syriac, but there is a much greater prevalence of the Scriptio plena in the former than in the latter.
As, however, the Chaldee has come down to us only through the medium of Jewish channels, it is not probable that we have it in the pure form in which it was spoken by the Shemitic Babylonians. The rule of the Persians, and subsequently of the Greeks in Babylonia, could not fail also to infuse into the language a foreign element borrowed from both these sources.
The Chaldee, as we have it preserved in the Bible (Ezra iv. 8 and 18 ; vii. 12-26 ; Dan. ii. 4 vii. 28 ; Jer. x. II) and in the Targums has been, as respects linguistic character, divided into three grades : 1. As it appears in the Targum of Onke los, where it possesses most of a peculiar and inde pendent character ; 2. As it appears in the biblical sections, where it is less free from Hebraisms ; and 3. As it appears in the other Tarp/us, in which, with the exception to some extent of that of Jona than Ben Uzziel on the Prophets, the language is greatly corrupted by foreign infusions (Winer, De Onkeloso slusque Paraphr. Chala'., Lips. 1819 ; Luzzato, De Onkelosi Chala'. Pent. versione, Vienn. IS3o; Hirt, Dc Chaldaismo Biblico, Jen. 1751). [TARGUM.] The language which is denominated in the N. T. Hebrew, and of which a few specimens are there given, seems, as far as can be judged from the scanty materials preserved, to have been substan tially the same as the Chaldee of the Targums (Pfannkuche, On the Language of Else Palestine in the Age of Christ and his Apostles, translated in the Biblical Cabinet, vol. ii.) In this language some of the Apocryphal books were written (Hiero nymi Prat": in Tobit, yudith, I _Mace.), the work of Josephus on the Jewish war (De Bello Yucl. praef. § 1), and, as some suppose, the original Gospel by Matthew. It is designated by Jerome the Syro Chaldaic (Contr. Pelag. iii. 1), and by this name it is now commonly known. The Talmudists intend this when they speak of the Syriac or Aramaic (Lightfoot, Hon. Heb. on Matt. v. IS; Winer, Realworterb. ii. 587, note).
The Chaldee is written in the square character in which the Hebrew now appears. This seems to have been the proper Chaldee character, and to have superseded the old Hebrew or Samaritan character after the exile. The Palmyrean and the Egypto-Aramaic letters [see table of Alphabets] much more closely resemble the square character than the ancient Hebrew of the coins (Kopp. Bilder urzd Schriften, ii. 164 fr. ) (Cellarius, Clsala'airnzus, Sive Gram. Ling. Chard. Cizae 1684 ; Opitius, Clealdaismus Targ. Talus. Rabb. Hebraismo harmonicus, Kil. 1696 ; Michaelis, Gram. Chald, Gott. 1771 ; Winer, Gram. des Bib/. :rod Targuns. Chaldaismus, Leipz. 1842, sec. ed.; Rigg, Manual of the Chaldee Language, Lond. 1858, sec. ed.)