Palmyrene Aramaic | |
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Region | Syrian Desert |
Extinct | 1st millennium |
Early forms | |
Palmyrene alphabet | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | – |
qhy-pal | |
Glottolog | None |
Palmyrene Aramaic was a primarily Western Aramaic dialect, exhibiting Eastern Aramaic grammatical features and hence often regarded as a dialect continuum between the Eastern and Western Aramaic branches.[1][2][3] It was primarily documented in Palmyra itself, but also found in the western parts of the Roman Empire, extending as far as Britannia. Dated inscriptions range from 44 BCE to 274 CE, with over 4,000 known inscriptions, mostly comprising honorific, dedicatory, and funerary texts. The dialect still retains echoes of earlier Imperial Aramaic. The lexicon bears influences from both Koine Greek and, to some extent, Arabic.[4][5][6]
The dual had disappeared from it.[4]
The written Palmyrene language was composed in a rounded script that later exhibited resemblances to the Syriac Estrangela script.[7]
While the East Aramaic Palmyrene language seamlessly supplanted Imperial Aramaic as the language of Palmyra, likely in the second century BCE.…
…Palmyrene was a continuation of Official Aramaic and a close reflection of the spoken language of the Palmyrene region, with eastern Aramaic features….
…Palmyrene Aramaic has preserved many old Aramaic features; on the other hand, it also shows isoglosses with the eastern dialects…
... Palmyrene characteristics detectable in its forms. He wrote (1962, 61) that this script may be seen as "a Syriac type evolved from an early form of Aramaic alphabet, of Palmyrene type, and which enjoys independence from the Edessene ..