Statement

At the start of late antiquity most Jews in the Near East spoke Aramaic, a Semitic language close to Hebrew. Already in the Persian period Aramaic changed Hebrew itself: the Canaanite script was replaced by the Aramaic square script. The need for Aramaic translations of the Bible (targumim) appears as early as the Dead Sea Scrolls; the most important targum, Onkelos, is Babylonian. Today Aramaic survives among Kurdish Jews and in texts such as the Zohar, the ketubah and the Kaddish.

References

1. p. 139

   supports · boxed feature · ch. 5

   Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman. The Jews: A History. 3rd edition. New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 2019.

   Section: The Other Ancient Jewish Language

   Verification anchor recorded · checked against the page text

2. p. 139

   supports · boxed feature · ch. 5

   Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman. The Jews: A History. 3rd edition. New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 2019.

   Section: The Other Ancient Jewish Language

   Verification anchor recorded · checked against the page text

3. p. 139

   supports · boxed feature · ch. 5

   Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman. The Jews: A History. 3rd edition. New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 2019.

   Section: The Other Ancient Jewish Language

   Verification anchor recorded · checked against the page text

4. p. 139

   supports · boxed feature · ch. 5

   Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman. The Jews: A History. 3rd edition. New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 2019.

   Section: The Other Ancient Jewish Language

   Verification anchor recorded · checked against the page text