Chapter 4
ARAMAEANS
ARAMAEANS IN LATE SASANIAN IRAQPeople speaking various dialects of Aramaic were by far the most
numerous linguistic group in Iraq in both periods. At least three di-
alects were used in Iraq. The people in northern Iraq spoke and wrote
the Syriac dialect based on the spoken language of Edessa. The Aramaic
dialect used in the Babylonian Talmud was spoken in central Iraq. In
the southeast, the Aramaic population spoke a dialect derived from
Chaldaean, which had already become the language of the Mandaic
texts by the seventh century. The differences among these dialects do
not seem to have been great enough to prevent or to inhibit com-
munication and the geographical boundaries between them were not
very clear. All three dialects have been found on magical incantation
bowls at Nippur (Niffar) belonging to this period. The Mandaic of
these bowl texts was identical to the language of the later Mandaic
scripture and was already being written in its distinctive alphabet. The
Talmudic dialect was written in Hebrew characters but was being
influenced by spoken Mandaic. The Syriac dialect was written in an
unjoined Estrangelo script which resembles early Edessene inscriptions
and gives the impression of an intrusive linguistic element, reminding
one of the farmers whom Khusraw Aniishirvan carried off from Cal-
linicus in 642. It is worth noting that this was the dialect and script
that served as a literary vehicle for Manichaeans, and that the Syriac
dialect was also being influenced by Mandaic speech. The mixed lin-
guistic situation in late Sasanian Nippur is also indicated by the fact
that some of the same people are named as the beneficiaries of magical
charms written in different dialects but probably by the same family
of sorcerers.^3
Arabic tradition only distinguished two forms of Aramaic: the Na-
bati dialect of lower Iraq and Syriac. According to Mas'iidi, the dif-
ference between them was only a matter of a few words.^4 The general
term in Arabic for Aramaeans was Anba~ (sg. Naba~), which identified
them as a sedentary, agricultural population. Although it is clear that
3 J. Montgornery, Aramaic Incantation Texts from Nippur (Philadephia, 1913), pp.
15,26,27,29,30-35,39.
4 Mas'iidI, Muruj, I, 253.