Aramaic: A History of the First World Language, HolgerGzella, Eerdmans, 2021 (ISBN 978‐0‐8028‐7748‐2), xii + 364 pp., hb $70

Abstract

Aramaic: A History of the First World Language, Holger Gzella, Eerdmans, 2021 (ISBN 978-0-8028-7748-2), xii + 364 pp., hb $70 Originally published in Dutch, Benjamin D. Suchard has successfully translated Gzella's De eerste wereldtaal: De geschiedenis van het Aramees (Athenaeum-Polak & van Gennep, 2017) for an anglophone audience. In the ten chapters of this volume, Gzella guides the reader on a tour through 3000 years of Aramaic use, the cultures and beliefs reflected in the surviving texts, and the history of Aramaic studies. Gzella succeeds in delivering a work that is simultaneously a comprehensive overview that will be a valued resource for the experienced linguist, but will also serve as a manageable introduction for the interested non-specialist. For the latter, there is a helpful glossary and a comparative table of the most important Aramaic scripts, and all Aramaic is transliterated into Latin script.The book begins with an introduction to Aramaic study, both in terms of the history of study and a very brief grammar. The historical account moves from fifteenth century Western study from religious contexts, through to the more secular study of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with the discovery and acquisition of documents and archaeological artifacts that have shaped the academic field. The non-specialist is given a quick walk through the fundamental characteristics of Aramaic grammar, which is accompanied by a noun table and a verb chart. In each chapter, Gzella notes the characteristic features of the different versions of Aramaic, so this is a useful reference guide for these comparisons.The subsequent chapter takes the reader back to the earliest days of Aramaic in the Iron Age. As the developing city states were subsumed within the Assyrian Empire, there was a bureaucratic necessity for a standardized written language. Whereas written Akkadian required myriad symbols to represent each syllable, Aramaic benefitted from the consonantal system. A handy table depicts the development from Proto-Canaanite symbols through different Semitic variations and into Greek and Latin. Due to the vulnerability of many early written texts, the only survivors are official stone-carved inscriptions. From the ninth century, there are a few hundred lines of Old Aramaic text. These bear