Inscriptions.— Some Assyrian weights, which go back to the 7th and 8th century before our era, with some gems and seals of nearly the same age, furnish the oldest data as to the Aramaic alphabet. In the field of inscriptions the material is richer; the most ancient include the colossal statue of the god Hadad, found in 1890 near Zenjirli, in northwest Syria, from the first half of the 8th century B.c. with other writings in that vicinity of a slightly later date, and two in scriptions found in 1891 at Nerab, near Alepw, alleged by Cl. Ganneau to belong to the 6th century ac. Some Aramaic inscrip tions have been found in Egypt, of the Persian period, one bearing the date of the year of Xerxes, 482 B.C. A few ancient Aramaic in scriptions have been found in Arabia, at Tema, probably from the 5th century ac. Within recent decades valuable data have come to light from the 4th century, bearing upon Jewish military colonists and others who came to Egypt —the Judaco-Aramaic papyri are likely to be supplemented in time. Of special interest by reason of their number and con tents are the Palmyrene inscriptions, votive, honorary, sepulchral, etc., which began shortly before the Christian era, and extend to about the middle of the 3d century, as well as the Nabateap, whose kingdom was centred at Petra, in northern Arabia, and who were Arabs, but used Aramaic for writing and com merce. It was finally absorbed by Rome in
106 A.D. To this class belong the Sinitic in scriptions, written in Nabatean dialect and script and dating from the first four centuries A.D. They were found along trade routes in out-of-the-way valleys. Their number can be gathered from the fact that Euting has recorded 677 in his standard collection (1891). This fact would indicate the extent of Aramaic influence.
Characteristics.— Noldeke denies any pov erty in Aramaic, as has been asserted, and claims that, despite its larger borrowings from foreign languages, the proportion of really foreign words in older Aramaic writings is smaller than the proportion of Romance words in German or Dutch. With its special treatment of dentals, it is poorer in vowels than Hebrew. It is rich, however, in con junctions and adverbs, thus enabling it to express slight changes in meaning, and permits much freedom in the order of words, becom ing rather diffuse as well in its use of addi tional pronouns. One peculiarity may be men tioned; in the western dialect the prefix of the third person of the imperfect is y odh; in Syriac, with changes in other of the eastern dialects, it is nun.
Cooke, 'Text Book of North Semitic Inscriptions) (Oxford 1903); Wright, 'Comparative Grammar of Semitic (Cambridge 1890) ; Drivers, Samuel, 'Introduction) (Oxford 1913).