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19 A CASE OF LINGUISTIC TRANSITION: THE NERAB INSCRIPTIONS 1 ILSUNG ANDREW YUN THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY Abstract Since the publication of the editio princeps by C. Clermont-Ganneau in 1897, two funerary inscriptions from Nerab have received the at- tention of relatively few scholars. It has been acknowledged that the Nerab inscriptions stand at a major juncture for the development of the Aramaic language, as well reflected in the divided scholarly opin- ions on the classification of the language of the Nerab inscriptions, either as Old Aramaic (OA) or as Official Aramaic (OfA). This paper explores the possible contribution of the Nerab inscriptions to the discussion of the phases of the Aramaic language by putting the Nerab inscriptions in the wider perspective of developing Aramaic, with special focus on comparison between OA and OfA. It is argued that the Nerab inscriptions are rare examples of the inscriptions that clearly represent the transition from OA to OfA, though they still cat- egorically belong to OA. The complexity involved in the discussion of the phases of the Aramaic language is well reflected by the fact that there is still no consensus on the chronological and dialectal boundary between Old Aramaic (OA) and Official Aramaic (OfA), let alone the terminologies for them. Thus, for the linguistic phase represented by OA, various other terms such as Ancient Aramaic or Early Aramaic are also used, and instead of OfA, some scholars use Imperial Ara- maic or Standard Aramaic. Even the term ‘Old Aramaic’ is used by scholars in various senses. To the surveys of the many different schol- arly opinions already made by Degen (1969: 1–3) and Fitzmyer 1  This paper grew out of my study of Old Aramaic with Professor Paul-Eugène Dion to whom I am deeply grateful for warm memories of him as an exemplary scholar and benevolent teacher. List of abbreviations: Fek (Fekherye), Zk (Zakkur), Sf (Sefire), H (Hadad), P (Panammu), Barr (Barrakkib), Nrb (Nerab), Herm (Hermopolis papyri), OA (Old Aramaic), OfA (Official Aramaic), EA (Elephantine Aramaic), BH (Biblical Hebrew), BA (Biblical Aramaic), OSA (Old South Arabian). Journal of Semitic Studies LI/1 Spring 2006 doi:10.1093/jss/fgi081 © The author. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the University of Manchester. All rights reserved. at Jewish National and University on December 31, 2012 http://jss.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from

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Page 1: Yun - 2006 - Nerab Inscriptions

THE NERAB INSCRIPTIONS

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A CASE OF LINGUISTIC TRANSITION:THE NERAB INSCRIPTIONS1

ILSUNG ANDREW YUN

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

Abstract

Since the publication of the editio princeps by C. Clermont-Ganneauin 1897, two funerary inscriptions from Nerab have received the at-tention of relatively few scholars. It has been acknowledged that theNerab inscriptions stand at a major juncture for the development ofthe Aramaic language, as well reflected in the divided scholarly opin-ions on the classification of the language of the Nerab inscriptions,either as Old Aramaic (OA) or as Official Aramaic (OfA). This paperexplores the possible contribution of the Nerab inscriptions to thediscussion of the phases of the Aramaic language by putting theNerab inscriptions in the wider perspective of developing Aramaic,with special focus on comparison between OA and OfA. It is arguedthat the Nerab inscriptions are rare examples of the inscriptions thatclearly represent the transition from OA to OfA, though they still cat-egorically belong to OA.

The complexity involved in the discussion of the phases of theAramaic language is well reflected by the fact that there is stillno consensus on the chronological and dialectal boundary betweenOld Aramaic (OA) and Official Aramaic (OfA), let alone theterminologies for them. Thus, for the linguistic phase represented byOA, various other terms such as Ancient Aramaic or Early Aramaicare also used, and instead of OfA, some scholars use Imperial Ara-maic or Standard Aramaic. Even the term ‘Old Aramaic’ is used byscholars in various senses. To the surveys of the many different schol-arly opinions already made by Degen (1969: 1–3) and Fitzmyer

1 This paper grew out of my study of Old Aramaic with Professor Paul-EugèneDion to whom I am deeply grateful for warm memories of him as an exemplaryscholar and benevolent teacher.

List of abbreviations: Fek (Fekherye), Zk (Zakkur), Sf (Sefire), H (Hadad),P (Panammu), Barr (Barrakkib), Nrb (Nerab), Herm (Hermopolis papyri), OA (OldAramaic), OfA (Official Aramaic), EA (Elephantine Aramaic), BH (Biblical Hebrew),BA (Biblical Aramaic), OSA (Old South Arabian).

Journal of Semitic Studies LI/1 Spring 2006 doi:10.1093/jss/fgi081© The author. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the University of Manchester.All rights reserved.

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(1979: 57–60),2 further opinions can be added as follows. Kaufmanputs the partition of OA and Imperial Aramaic at the end of theeighth century BCE, while utilizing another terminology, ‘Mesopota-mian Aramaic’, to include all the Aramaic texts from Mesopotamiaup until the cuneiform Aramaic incantation from Uruk, probably ofthe early Seleucid period (1974: 7–11). In his later works, Kaufmanadopts Fitzmyer’s fivefold division, but with a different chronologicaldelimitation, i.e. OA (c. 850 – c. 612 BCE) and OfA (c. 612 – c. 200BCE) (1992: 173–4; 1997: 114–15). Gibson separates OA fromOfA, and the earliest examples of OfA are the Barrakkib inscriptionsand the Nerab inscriptions (1975: 88, 94). Greenfield’s fourfold divi-sion, i.e. Early Aramaic which includes both OA and OfA, MiddleAramaic, Late Aramaic, and Modern Aramaic (1976: 39), empha-sizes the similarity between OA and OfA. According to him, OfA isattested as early as in the Barrakkib and Nerab inscriptions (1976:40). But in his subsequent article, he connects the Barrakkib inscrip-tions and the Nerab inscriptions to ‘Mesopotamian Aramaic’ which‘emerged in the area of Aram-Naharaim along the banks of theHabur and Balikh rivers’, and ‘naturally spread into Assyria proper’and ‘into Aram proper with the Assyrian conquests’ (1978: 95).Beyer uses the term ‘Old Aramaic’ to cover Ancient Aramaic, Impe-rial Aramaic, Old Eastern Aramaic and Old Western Aramaic, andAncient Aramaic is divided into early Ancient Aramaic (tenth–eighthcenturies BCE) and late Ancient Aramaic (seventh–sixth centuriesBCE) (1986: 10–14). Hoftijzer and Jongeling take c. 700 BCE as thepoint of demarcation between OA and OfA (DNWSI: xii). TheBarrakkib inscriptions belong to the latest phase of OA and theNerab inscriptions to the earliest phase of OfA (DNWSI: 113 andpassim, where lexical items from the Nerab inscriptions are listed un-der OfA).

2 When Fitzmyer devised the fivefold division of the Aramaic language, i.e. OA(925–700 BCE), OfA (700–200 BCE), Middle Aramaic (200 BCE–200 CE), Late Ara-maic (200–700 CE), Modern Aramaic (700 CE – ) (1979: 57–84), he sought primarily‘a purely chronological division’ (Italics his), within which one could make further‘local or geographical subdivisions’ accounting for dialectal differences (1979: 60).Thus, the primarily chronological division is supplemented with dialectal linguisticfeatures. The following are the linguistic characteristics of the OA phase, as presentedby Fitzmyer: ‘the widespread preservation of the Proto-Semitic phonemes’, ‘the devel-opment of orthographic habits from the initial Phoenician starting-point’, the use of’nh, the Peal infinitive without preformative m-, the Peal passive forms in yuqtal, theprefixed negative la-; the 3rd sg. masc. suffix on plural nouns in –wh, the use of theintensifying infinitive, the use of the waw-consecutive, the post-positive article (1979:65–6).

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Though the list could be much longer, enough has been said toillustrate the diversity of scholarly opinions concerning the term-inologies and the classification of epigraphic materials with regard tothe historical-linguistic phases of the Aramaic language of the firstmillennium BCE.

One point of contention among scholars is the issue of the classifi-cation of the language of the Nerab inscriptions. Even after Fitzmyerrightly deplored Degen’s exclusion of the Nerab inscriptions fromOA on the basis of certain forms in them, i.e. nÒr (I:12–13), qdmwh(II:2), the prefixed negative l- (II:4, 6, 8), the intensifying infinitive(II:6) (1979: 66–7), scholarly opinions have been divided. Thus, it isimportant to investigate the linguistic characteristics of the Nerab in-scriptions in detail.

The Texts of the Nerab Inscriptions with Epigraphic Notes

The funerary inscriptions of Sinzeribni (Nrb I) and Si’gabbar (Nrb II),priests of the moon-god at ancient Nerab, are incised on two basaltstelae (respectively 0.93m x 0.35m and 0.95m x 0.45m), which werefound accidentally at a small tumulus at Nerab, approximately 7kmsouth-east of Aleppo. They were acquired by Clermont-Ganneau andbrought to the Louvre in Paris. Each stele has, besides its inscription,a priestly figure in relief who is to be identified with the priest ineach of the inscriptions, respectively Sinzeribni and Si’gabbar — forthe pictures and facsimiles of the stelae, see KAI I pl. 24, 25; ANEPnos 280, 636; Naveh 1982: fig. 76.

The Inscription of Sinzeribni

Transcription Vocalization 1. snzrbn kmr  1. sinzeribni kumr 2. shr bnrb mt  2. sahr banerab mat 3. wznh Òlmh  3. wa∂anâ Òalmih 4. w’rÒth  4. wa’erÒitih 5. mn ’t  5. man ’att(a) 6. thns Òlm’  6. tihanis Òalma’ 7. znh w’rÒt’  7. ∂anâ wa’erÒita’ 8. mn ’srh  8. min ’aqrih 9. shr wsms wnkl wnsk ysÌw  9. sahr wasamas wanikkal wanusk yissaÌû10. smk w’srk mn Ìyn wmwt lÌh 10. sumak wa’aqrak min Ìayyin wamawt laÌê11. yk†lwk wyh’bdw zr¨k whn 11. yik.†ulûk wayiha’bidû zar¨ak wahin12. tnÒr Òlm’ w’rÒt’ z’ 12. tinqur Òalma’ wa’erÒita’ ∂a’13. ’Ìrh ynÒr 13. ’aÌarâ yunqar14. zy lk 14. ∂î lik

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Translation 1. Sinzeribni, priest 2. of Sahr at Nerab, died. 3. And this is his image 4. and his remains. 5. Whoever you are, 6. who remove this image 7. and these (lit. this) remains 8. from their (lit. its) place, 9. may Sahr and Shamash and Nikkal and Nusk tear away10. your name and your vestige from the living, and with evil death11. may they kill you, and may they cause your offspring to perish. But if12. you guard these (lit. this) image and these remains13. in the future may yours be guarded.

The Inscription of Si’gabbar

Translation 1. Si’gabbar (is) a priest of Sahr at Nerab, 2. This is his image. Because of my righteousness before him, 3. he established a good name for me and prolonged my days. 4. On the day I died, my mouth was not closed from (speaking) words, 5. and with my eyes I was looking at children of the fourth generation. They

wept for 6. me and were greatly disturbed. And they did not place with me any vessel 7. of silver or bronze. With my garment they placed me, so that 8. in the future my remains would not be taken away. Whoever you are who

do wrong 9. and take me away, may Sahr and Nikkal and Nusk make his death odious,10. and may his posterity perish.

First, I will briefly discuss a few perennial cruxes of the texts that stillremain without any satisfactory solutions.

Transcription Vocalization 1. s’gbr kmr shr bnrb  1. si’gabbar kumr sahr banerab 2. znh Òlmh bÒdqty qdmwh  2. ∂anâ Òalmih baÒidqatî qudmawih 3. smny sm †b wh’rk ywmy  3. samnî sum †ab waha’rik yawmî 4. bywm mtt pmy l’t’Ìz mn mln  4. bayawm matit pumî la’it’aÌiz min milan 5. wb¨yny mÌzh ’nh bny rb¨ bkwn  5. waba¨aynî miÌzâ ’anâ binay rabi¨ bakûnî 6. y whwm ’thmw wlsmw ¨my m’n  6. wahûm ’ithamû walasamû ¨immî ma’n 7. ksp wnÌs ¨m lbsy smwny lm¨n  7. kasp wanuÌas ¨im lubusî samûnî lima¨n 8. l’Ìrh lthns ’rÒty mn ’t t¨sq  8. li’aÌarâ latihunas ’erÒitî man ’att(a) ti¨suq 9. wthnsny shr wnkl wnsk yhb’sw  9. watihanisnî sahr wanikkal wanusk yihab’isû10. mmtth w’Ìrth t’bd 10. mamotatih wa’aÌratih ti’bud

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’rÒth (I:4): the most common translation for this word is ‘sar-cophagus’ in connection with BH ¨eres, Ugaritic ¨rs, Akkadian ersu(NSI: 187–8; Torrey 1912: 90; Gevirtz 1961: 184; Koopmans1962: 92; KAI 2: 275; Segert 1975: 527; DNWSI: 113; Gropp1997: 128; etc.). It fits well both in the textual and archaeologicalcontexts.3 The obvious problem with this interpretation is the insur-mountable phonological difficulty in deriving the Aramaic ’rÒt fromthe proto-Semitic form *¨rs. As for the phonetic change /¨/ > /’/, OAand by and large OfA retained the independent articulation of thepharyngeals (/¨/ and /Ì/) and glottals (/’/ and /h/), and only by thetime of Middle Aramaic, did the two phonemes begin to be con-fused, as evidenced by the fact that two graphemes aleph and ¨ayinwere interchanged frequently or dropped altogether (cf. Moscati1964: §8. 56). More problematic is the change from s to Ò. Anothermain difficulty with this view is that none of the proposed cognatesof the’rÒt of our text is attested with the meaning of ‘sarcophagus’,and the regular term for ‘sarcophagus’ is aranu in Akkadian, ’arôn inBH (1x in Gen. 50:26), ’rn and Ìlt in Phoenician, and ’rn’ in OfAand later Aramaic (cf. Marcus 1975: 85–91).

The second interpretation of ’rÒt is to relate it to Akkadian erÒetu‘the earth, the nether world’, used here in the restricted sense of‘grave’ (Driver 1935: 49; Kutscher 1965: 42; Gibson 1975: 96;etc.). This explanation creates no phonological problem. Though onecould contend that in OA orthography ’rq is expected here as a cog-nate of Akkadian erÒetu, it can be resolved by the argument that ’rÒtin the Nerab inscriptions represents a direct loan from AkkadianerÒetu due to its special meaning, since ’rÒ /q in Northwest Semitic isnot used in the sense of ‘underworld’, let alone ‘grave’. Meanwhile, inAkkadian, erÒetu, together with qeberu, occurs with the concretesense of burial ground (CAD E: 313). However, the plausibility ofthis view is seriously undermined by the fact that ’rÒt in the Nerabinscriptions is nothing like a plot of land used for burial as inAkkadian, but something that can be removed from its burial site.

3 The image of the priest incised on the stele must be referred to by the Òlmh of theinscription. Thus, it is tempting to identify ’rÒth (I:4) and ’rÒty (II:8) with the sar-cophagus containing two skeletons found at the same location. Besides the sarcopha-gus, a golden cylinder, a bronze figurine of a male deity and a female deity, etc. werealso found. For the circumstantial account of their findings, see Clermont-Ganneau1897: 183–7. The systematic excavation of the site was carried out by a French teamin 1926 and 1927, and produced 27 neo-Babylonian tablets inter alia. For the ar-chaeological report of these excavations, see Barrois and Carrière 1926; Barrois andAbel 1928.

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According to the third solution, proposed by Kaufman (1974:50), the cuneiform parallel to Nerab ’rÒt is eÒittu ‘bone, skeleton’which appears in the phrase a-na kimaÌÌi u e-Òi-it-ti sú-a-ti ‘againstthat sarcophagus and (those) remains (?)’ in the mortuary inscriptionof Shamash-ibni, an Aramaean tribal chief in the time of theAssyrian king Ashur-etil-ilâni (626–18 BCE) (Clay 1915: 60–1). Thistranslation agrees well with the context as well as with the ancientSemitic preoccupation with the preservation of the remains of thedead.4 Furthermore, eÒittu (also eÒemtu) with the meaning of ‘bone,remains’ is well attested in Akkadian (CAD E: 341– 3). One obviousproblem of this interpretation, as pointed out by Kaufman himself, isthat, ‘the r of the Aramaic form is disturbing but not impossible toaccount for’ (1974: 50). However, on this insertion of r he does notoffer an explanation. Meanwhile, P.-E. Dion sees the insertion of r in’rÒt in the light of krs’ ‘throne’ (Barr I:7; also khs’ in Sf III:17 which isprobably an error for krs’), which is compared to Akkadian kussu (cf.another Akkadian form kurse), though he also recognizes that thegemination of s in kussu (also reflected in BH kisse’) makes a differ-ence from the non-gemination of Ò in eÒittu (personal communica-tion, 1998).5 The cumulative evidence from philology, textual andarchaeological context, and ancient Near Eastern mortuary customs,seems to indicate that Kaufman’s interpretation should be regarded assuperior at least provisionally.

thns (I:6): Clermont-Ganneau, assuming that the t and h of thnsare prefixes, has already raised the possibility of such etymologies asHebrew nss or nws ‘to flee’, Aramaic ’ns ‘to demolish, rob, compel’,and the common Semitic ns’ ‘to lift’ (1897: 197 – 8). Since then, thethird of these options has been followed by most subsequent schol-ars. The first suggestion, a C-stem (or G) imperfect of ’ns (NSI: 188;Gibson 1975: 16; etc.), has a serious problem in that it cannot ex-plain the disappearance of aleph, because etymological aleph wasregularly represented orthographically even in a syllable-closing posi-tion in OA, probably still retaining its consonantal value (see infrathe discussion under yh’bd).6 The second interpretation of thns takesit as G-stem (or D?) imperfect of a so far unattested root hns(DNWSI: 290). However, the complete absence in other Semitic lan-

4 It is especially well reflected in the Phoenician funerary inscriptions such as theinscriptions of AÌiram, Tabnit, and Eshmunazar.

5 Or one can imagine a complex development, eÒemtu > eÒertu > ’rÒt.6 Cooke notes that in the Targums, h is written for the aleph of ’ns, as hyk for ’yk,

hlw for ’ly (NSI: 188). But this cannot be applied to OA, since confusion among thepharyngeals and the glottals became common only after the Middle Aramaic phase.

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guages and extreme rarity in Aramaic of such a root makes this op-tion less attractive.7 The third and best option, a C-stem imperfect ofnws (Degen 1969: 76; KAI 2: 275; Hug 1993: 85; etc.), causes noserious linguistic problem. Some reluctance to accept nws as the rootbehind thns comes from the fact that the basic meaning of nws isintransitive ‘to flee, to escape’, while thns of the Nerab inscriptionsis contextually transitive ‘to remove (something)’. But BH has theG-stem of nws used figuratively in the sense of ‘to be gone, to disap-pear’,8 and in the C-stem it is used for a concrete object with thesense of ‘to cause to disappear, to hide’, i.e. l¢hanîs in Judg. 6:10 ‘tohide (wheat from the Midianites)’.

’sr-k (I:10): the majority of scholars have translated this word as‘(your) place’ (Clermont-Ganneau 1897: 193; NSI: 186; KAI 2:275; Segert 1975: 527; Gibson 1975: 96; Hug 1993: 142; Gropp1997: 128; etc.), which is the most common meaning of the Proto-Semitic root *’tr in West Semitic, and is an obvious meaning of ’sr-hof line eight. The translation ‘your happiness’ (cf. BH ’oser/’asrê ‘hap-piness’ and Neo-Punic ’sr in KAI 145:11) also seems possible. Butthe best contextual meaning of ’sr-k is ‘(your) vestige or achievement’(DNWSI: 127). This interpretation is further supported by themeaning of ’sr in the Zakkur inscription, since the curse formula ofZakkur B shows a striking similarity with that of Nerab I. In Zakkur,’sr also appears with two different meanings: wk[tbt. b]h. ’yt[.] ’sr. ydy[. wkl.] mn. yhg¨. ’[sr. ydy]. zkr. mlk. Ìm[t. wl]¨s. mn. nÒb’. znh[.]wm[n. y]hg¨. nÒb’. znh. mn. q[d]m. ’lwr. wyhnsnh. m[n.] [’s]rh (B:14 –21) ‘I wrote on it the achievement of my hands. And whoever re-moves the achievement of the hands of Zakkur, king of Hamath andLu¨uth, from this stele, and whoever removes this stele from beforeIlu-wer and takes away from its place…’ The meaning of ’sr as‘achievement, vestige, legacy’ depends on Arabic ’atr ‘trace, vestige,tradition, etc.’ or ’atara ‘remainder, remnant, faint trace, vestige’which should be a further semantic development of BH ’asar ‘to ad-vance, proceed’ or ’asur ‘(foot)step, going’. Such a meaning of ’sr isfurther supported by a comparison with a recurrent warning againstaltering, erasing or destroying the list of the accomplishments of theking in Akkadian royal inscriptions. For example, ’sr ydy of Zakkur isthe functional equivalent of the common Akkadian expression epes

7 Outside of the Nerab inscriptions (also lthns in Nrb II:8, wthnsny in Nrb II:9),this root is attested once in OA (yhnsnh in Zk B:20) and once in OfA (mns inHerm ii:3).

8 With such subjects as ‘vigour’ (Deut. 34:7), ‘shadows’ (Song 2:17), and ‘sorrow’(Isa. 35:10; 51:11).

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(epset) / lipit (liptat) qati ‘accomplishments of my (the king’s) hands’(Tawil 1974: 52, no. 93).

mÌzh (II:5): this form has been interpreted by some as a G-stemmasculine singular participle of Ìzh with a prefixed shortened formof the interrogative pronoun mh, thus translating ‘(with my owneyes) what do I see?’ (NSI: 190; KAI 2: 276; Gropp 1997: 128;etc.). Apart from its awkward syntax, this view is not satisfactory be-cause it creates a morphological problem. In OA and OfA mh as aninterrogative pronoun or an indefinite relative pronoun stands alone(Sf I B:26; III:3; H 12; Herm iv:5; etc.), and as an indefinite rela-tive pronoun or adverb, it can be prefixed only to zy in orthography(e.g. mz ‘whatever’ in H 3, 4, 22), though even then not always (e.g.mh zy ‘in whatever way’ in Sf III:16). Thus, the orthography ofmÌzh, if it is interrogative, is otherwise unattested. The second inter-pretation of mÌzh is a D-stem participle, with the translation ‘(withmy eyes) I was beholding’ (Gibson 1975: 98; Degen 1969: 78, no.82; Hug 1993: 86; DNWSI: 360; etc.). Even though it is syntacti-cally superior, this view also cannot be accepted because of one fatalmorphological problem, the fact that Ìzh never occurs in theD-stem for the transitive verb ‘to behold, to see’ in any of the WestSemitic languages.

Confronted with the difficulties of the previous explanations, Ipropose as an alternative to read mÌzh as a G-stem infinitive absoluteused as a substitute for the finite verb of the past tense. This proposaleliminates all morphological problems. It appeared to be establishedfact that in OA, including Sam’alian, the G-stem infinitive of astrong verb is always spelled without the preformative m-,9 in con-trast to later Aramaic mqtl. The consensus on this changed dramati-cally, however, with the discovery of the Fekherye inscription, whereall G-stem infinitives are written with the preformative m-: lm’rk (7),lmld (9), lmsm¨ (9), lmlqÌ (10). Meanwhile, at the early stage of OfA,both forms of the G-stem infinitive, with and without m-, are at-tested — lmslÌ (Adon Papyrus 7) vs. qrq (Ashur Ostracon 9). How-ever, already in Egyptian Aramaic, and in later OfA and also in BA,miqtal became a dominant form, and the infinitive without m- sur-vived only in the fossilized quotation formula l’mr — lm¨bd (Xanthos7), lmslÌ (TAD A 1.1:7), lmbnyh (TAD A 4.7:23, 25; A 4.9:8), lmsbq(TAD C 1.1:92), lm’∞mr (TAD C 1.1:163), mns’ (TAD C 1.1:170),etc. vs. l’mr (Ashur ostracon 8, 10, 17; Herm i:6; about 50x in EA)

9 Fitzmyer’s reading lmslÌ in Sf I B:34, which is interpreted as a G-stem infinitive(1995: 112), has been corrected to lyslÌ (Degen 1969: 15; Kaufman 1982: 151).

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(cf. Muraoka and Porten 1998: 106). Therefore, it seems plausiblethat mÌzh in our text represents the transitional period when the G-stem infinitive mqtl which was once a dialectal feature of Gozan Ara-maic was becoming a more dominant form in OfA as against qtlwhich was the dominant form in OA.

The use of the infinitive absolute as a substitute for a finite verbcan be traced back to the earliest stage of West Semitic, and it isfound in Ugaritic, the Canaanite of the Amarna letters, Phoenician,BH and Syriac (cf. Moran 1950; Rubinstein 1952; Huesman 1956a,1956b).10 Even though its origin and distinctive syntatic nuance incomparison to a finite verb (purely stylistic or semantic?) still remainobscure, the infinitive absolute as a legitimate variant of a finite verbpersisted in use in West and South Semitic. In this light, it shouldnot be a surprise that we encounter in the Nerab inscription the firstexample of the infinitive absolute replacing a finite verb in OA.11

OA, OfA and the Nerab Inscriptions

We turn to the specific linguistic features of the Nerab inscriptionsrelevant to the discussion of the linguistic phases of OA and OfA.

Phonology and Orthography

1. znh (I:3, 7; II:2), z’ (I:12), zy (I:14), l’t’Ìz (II:4): the proto-Semitic interdental voiced fricative */∂/ is represented by the graph-eme z in OA, and by d or less often by z in OfA. The regular formfor the masculine singular demonstrative pronoun in OA is znh (ZkA:17, Barr I:20, Sf I A:36, P:22, etc.), but zn with a defective spell-ing in Sam’alian (H 1, 14, 16; P 1, 20). Two concurrent spellingsznh/’ and dnh/’ in OfA and predominantly dnh/’ with rare exceptionsof the archaic spelling znh in later Aramaic show that the transitionin the orthographic representation of the proto-Semitic */∂/ tookplace during the OfA phase. Likewise, the feminine singular demon-strative pronoun z’ in OA (Sf I A:35, 37; III: 9) becomes z’ and dh inOfA, and thenceforth d’/h with rare exceptions of the archaic z’/h.

2. ’sr (I:8, 10): the proto-Semitic interdental voiceless fricative*/q/ is represented by the grapheme s in OA, and usually by t or oc-casionally by s in OfA.

10 Outside of West Semitic, it is also attested in Old South Arabian, Ethiopic andArabic (Moran 1950: 171–2), but there is no firm evidence for it in Akkadian.

11 One can even wonder whether some qtl finite verbs in OA might be in factinfinitives.

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3. tnÒr (I:12), ynÒr (I:13): the proto-Semitic interdental emphaticfricative */q/ is represented by the grapheme Ò in OA, and predomi-nantly by † or rarely by Ò in OfA.

12 The editors of the editio princeps of the Fekherye inscription note diphthongs,ay in lÌyy (7), lhwy (12), Ìywh (14), ty†tb (15), m’ny’ (16), yrwy (21bis), and aw indmwt’ (1, 15), ’Ìwh (4), tÒlwth (5, 9), the second w of ywmwh (7), snwh (8), ’nswh (9,14), Ìywh (14), mwh (17, 18) (1982: 40–1). However, further delineation seemsnecessary. First, lÌyy (7) is a D-stem infinitive construct of the root Ìyy, pronouncedeither laÌayyay or laÌayyî which is not subject to the diphthongal reduction. Sec-ond, y in lhwy (12) and yrwy (21 bis) is morphographemic for the so-called‘Kurzimperfekt’ in contrast to ‘Langimperfekt’, and its phonetic value is uncertain.While Degen makes an assertion that -y of the ‘Kurzimperfekt’ indicates /ay/ in con-trast to /ê/ for -h of the ‘Langimperfekt’ (1969: 28–9, 38), Dion argues that the final-y of ybny, a ‘Kurzimperfekt’ in Sam’alian represents /i/ (1974: 187–8, 220), andMuraoka, while he rightly points out that ¨/i/ is only one of the possible values thatone can assign to the final y’, maintains, on the basis of another ‘Kurzimperfekt’ wy¨nny(Zk A:11), that ‘the y in question in OA does not indicate the diphthong’ (1983–4:85). Third, y in ty†b (15), a D-stem prefixed conjugation, is part of a trithong and isnot supposed to contract. Fourth, in the case of m’ny’ (16), vocalized ma’nayya’, y

PS BH OA OfA MA/LA Ug Akk CA

*d/∂ [∂] z z ז z ז / d ד d ד d / d z d

*t/q [q] s s ש s ש / t ת t ת t s t

*∂ [t√’] Ò q ק q ע ¨ /ק ע ¨ Ò / g(?) Ò ∂

* q [q’] Ò Ò צ Ò ט † / צ ט † q / g Ò Â

Fig. 1. Graphemic Correspondences of the Semitic Sibilants

4. mwt (I:10), ywmy (II:3), bywm (II:4), b¨yny (II:5): the diph-thongs in qatl type nouns with the second weak radical w/y did notcontract in the Nerab inscriptions, with one possible, though uncer-tain, exception mmtth (II:10). Since both in OA and OfA, the situa-tion involving the diphthongs is similar, they have no merit forcomparative purposes. That is, the diphthongs in general did notcontract, though the supposedly exceptional examples of mono-thongization have been increasing both in OA and OfA (cf. Folmer1995: 173–83; Muraoka and Porten 1998: 36–8). So far, in OA, atleast, three words with contracted diphthongs, often alongsideuncontracted ones, have been found — i.e. bt (Fek 17) and bty (ZkB:9) vs. byth (Fek 8) and byt (Zk B:12), ¨lh ‘to it’ (Sf I A:32) vs.¨lyh(Sf III:9), and bnyhm ‘among them’ (Sf III:18 bis, 19).12 In

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Sam’alian, examples of monophthongization are ample — ymy (H 9,10, 12; but ywmyh in P 9, ywmy in P 10, 18), msb ‘throne’ (H 8, 15,20, 25; but hwsbt ‘I made (gods) dwell’ in H 19, hwsbny in P 19),lbn’ ‘to build’ (H 13, 14; but lbny in H10, bnyt in H 14), tgltplsr (P13, 15, 16; cf. also Ashur 15; but tgltplysr in Barr I:3, 6). After all,these supposedly exceptional attestations of monophthongization inOA are frequent enough to invalidate Cross and Freedman’s thesisthat ‘there is no evidence for the contraction of the diphthongs, ayand aw, in OA under any circumstances’ (EHO: 24, no. 4).13 In lightof the preceding observation, the common acknowledgment thatmonophthongization originated from Phoenician and spread toother Semitic languages can be challenged. It seems equally possible,if not more likely, that monophthongization was a shared innovationamong the Northwest Semitic languages, but with different degreesof consistency.

The forms of the word for ‘day’ deserve a comment. It is nowwidely accepted that there were two PS forms for the word ‘day’, i.e.*yamu (BH plural yamim, Ugaritic ya-mu in Ugaritica V 138: 2, Ara-bic plural ayyam) and *yawmu (BH singular yôm, Arabic singularyawm and its derivative muyawama ‘day labor’, OA ywm). As a rule,in the Canaanite languages, the short form ym is employed (Ugariticym, Phoenician ym, Moabite ym, Epigraphic Hebrew ym, BH yôm),with one rare execption, ywmt in the Ammonite Tell Siran Bottle in-scription. The short form ym in West Semitic could have derived his-torically either from the contraction of the diphthong or from the PS*yamu. In OA, the situation is exactly opposite, as we find the conso-nantal element of the diphthong aw uncontracted — ywm (Sf IA:12, I B:31, I C:20, II B:12; Nrb II:4), ywmh (Sf I C:15f ); ywmwh(Fek 7); ywmyhm (Sf II C:17) with exceptions only in the Sam’aliandialect, in which both the contracted forms, ymy (H 9, 10, 12), andthe uncontracted forms, ywmy (P 10, 18) and ywmyh (P 9), were em-ployed. In OfA, the contracted form ym is attested increasingly more

which is the ending of the masculine plural noun in the emphatic state, is not a kindof diphthong that should contract. Fifth, w in dmwt’ (1, 15) and tÒlwth (5, 9) is morelikely an internal mater lectionis for damûta and taÒlûteh. Sixth, w in ’Ìwh (4)ywmwh(7) snwh (8) ’nswh (9, 14), Ìywh (14), mwh (17, 18), is part of the third masculinesingular pronominal suffix on plural nouns -wy, and therefore is not supposed tocontract.

13 Similarly, Degen does not offer any example of the contraction of aw and ay,except ay > /ê/, which is indicated by the vowel letter h, in the long imperfect of theIII-y verbs (1969: 39). Also about the preposition in bnyhm (Sf. III:18 bis, 19), hestates, ‘Vielleicht liegt im Aa. eine andere Nominalform vor’ (1969: 62, no. 39a).

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often, though ywm is still more frequent than ym (e.g. kymn in AshurOstracon 16 vs. kywmy Adon Papyrus 3).

5. hwm (II:6), cf. yk†lwk (I:11), bkwny (II:5–6), smwny (II:7):14

the strictly consonantal Phoenician orthography underwent a majormodification, i.e. the orthographic representation of the final longvowels, when the Phoenician alphabet was adopted by theAramaeans. This principle of the consistent representation of the fi-nal long vowels in OA was in time extended to the sporadic use ofinternal vowel letters for medial long vowels in OA, though the me-dial /a/ was never indicated by vowel letters. In the past, the apparentpaucity of the internal vowel letters was well recognized (cf. Degen1969: 27, Dion 1974: 71–7). For example, Cross and Freedmanfind only one certain example, ’swr (Barr I:9), in the entire corpusthat they deem OA (EHO: 30). However, the examples of internalvowel letters are not in insignificant number — mÌnwt ‘armies’ (ZkA:9), swr’ ‘rampart’ (Zk A:17), ymwt ‘he dies’ (Sf I A:36), byr’ ‘well’(Sf I B:34), kym ‘like’ (Sf III:1), rwÌ ‘breath’ (Sf III:2), sybt ‘return/turnabout’ (Sf III:16), sÌlyn ‘cresson (watercress)’ (Sf III: 24),tgltplysr (Barr I:3; II:1–2), ’swr (Barr I:9) — even after excludingcontested forms such as qwh ‘Que’ (Zk I:7), tw’∞m ‘Tu’im?’ (Sf IA:34), y¨wdn ‘he will bear witness?’ (Sf II B:4). Furthermore, thesituation surrounding the internal matres lectionis in OA drasticallychanged with the discovery of the Fekherye inscription, which exhib-its the extraordinarily frequent use of the internal matres lectionis,compared to other OA inscriptions — w for /u/ or /o/15: dmwt’ (1),gwgl (2, 4), ¨dqwr (3), tÒlwth (5, 9), gwzn (6, 7, 13), ssnwry (7), Ìbwr(16 ), tnwr (22); y for /î/ or /ê/: ’lhyn (4), smym (11), ysym (12), s¨ryn(19), prys (19), nyrgl (23).16 This situation seems to indicate a furtherdevelopment from what Fitzmyer, writing before the discovery of theFekherye inscription, calls ‘the inceptive use’ of the internal vowel

14 yk†lwk (I:11), bkwny (II:5–6), and smwny (II:7) have internal vowel letters thatare in actuality final vowels, with the pronominal suffixes attached to them.

15 The precise quality of this medial vowel letter w is uncertain sometimes. Andersenand Freedman’s assumption that the medial mater lectionis w always represents /û/seems to be precarious (1992: 166–7). According to Muraoka, /u/, /u/ or /o/ is repre-sented by the medial w — for example, probably ’adaqur, gugal, sasnurî and certainlygozan, Ìabor (1983–4: 85–6).

16 This orthographic difference of Gozan Aramaic should be attributed to theAkkadian-Aramaic bilingual environment of the region. The plethora of Akkadianpersonal names and Akkadian loan words among these early examples of the internalvowel letters provides compelling evidence for Muraoka’s contention that ‘foreignwords and names may have served as a major catalyst for the development of matreslectionis, whether medial or final’ (1983–4: 86).

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letters (Fitzmyer 1979: 80, no. 50). However, Muraoka’s thesis that‘in our inscription the use of word-medial matres lectionis is the normrather than the exception’ seems a bit overstated (1983–4: 87). Theabsence of the expected internal vowel letters, i.e. w, in yld ‘he re-moves’ (11) (cf. ysym ‘he puts’ in line 12) and y in plural forms suchas ’lhn ‘gods’ (14), ’nsn ‘men’ (14), s¨rn ‘barley’ (22) (cf. ’lhyn in line4, s¨ryn in line 19), shows the inconsistent use of the internal vowelletters even in the Fekherye inscription. That is, even in the Gozandialect of OA, the internal vowel letters, at least y, are only optional.

The use of internal vowel letters in the Nerab inscriptions stillconforms to the general rule of the earlier OA inscriptions, exceptthe Fekherye inscription, in that the internal vowel letters are oftenabsent, as in the C-stem of the II w/y verb (thns in I:6, lthns in II:8,wthnsny in II:9) and at the place of the contracted diphthong (mmtthin II:10). However, the orthography of hwm (II:6) exhibits onemarked departure from OA. In OA, the conjugations, especially theC-stem, of the II-w/y verbs of the /u/ or /i/ theme vowels have anextremely rare orthographic representation of the internal long vow-els that rise from the historical spelling of originally contracted diph-thongs — only two or three examples, ymwt ‘he dies’ (Sf III:16),ysym ‘he puts’ (Fek 12) and possibly y¨wdn ‘he will bear witness’ (Sf IIB:4) — and the vowel letters are never used in the infinitive andimperative. But, such orthographic representation began to appearmuch more frequently, almost as a regular feature, in OfA (e.g. qwm‘Arise’ in TAD D 7.24:5, sym ‘Put’ in TAD A 4.3:10, htyb ‘he re-turned’ TAD B 2.9:7; etc.).

6. ysÌw (I:9), ’t (I:5, II:8), but tnÒr (I:12), ynÒr (I:13): in OA, as arule, within a word, etymological n, not immediately followed by avowel, was assimilated to the following consonant. Though a few ex-ceptions to this n-assimilation in OA have been suggested,17 there isonly one unequivocal example, mhnÌt ‘bestower’ (Fek 2), besides twoin the Nerab inscription (cf. yÒrw in Sf I C:15, lyÒr in Sf I C:17).From OfA, the orthographic representation of n in I-n and III-nverbs and in nouns with etymological n (e.g. ’np, ’nth, ’nt, etc.) be-came much more frequent than the forms with assimilated n — e.g.ysÌw (Nrb I:9) vs. ynsÌwhy ‘they will remove him’ (Teima A:14), ’t(Nrb I:5, II:8) vs. ’nt in OfA, etc. The frequent assimilation of n inthe Hermopolis papyri should be seen as a feature of colloquial

17 Fitzmyer thinks tnt¨ (Sf I B:29) is the only exception to the n-assimilation in theSefire inscriptions, but division of the word is contested (1995: 110). Certainly lnÒb(H 10) cannot be an example of this exception, since the form is clearly an infinitiveconstruct of either G- or D-stem, which requires a vowel after n.

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Egyptian Aramaic, by contrast with the more literary ElephantineAramaic (EA) where n normally does not assimilate — ’tnnh ‘Iwould give it’ (Herm iv:5; viii:12) and ntnhy ‘we shall give it’ (Hermiv:7) vs. ’ntnnh ‘I shall give it’ (TAD B 4.6:5, cf. also ’ntn ‘I shall give’in TAD B 2.1:7, passim) and nntn ‘we shall give’ (TAD B 2.11:10,passim), mpqn ‘bringing (C-stem participle)’ (Herm v:3) and ’pqny‘he brought me out (C-stem perfect)’ (Herm vi:4) vs. mnpqh ‘bring-ing out (C-stem participle)’ (TAD C Ev1:15; C Ev2:6) and hnpqh‘(the broken one) brought it out (C-stem perfect)’ (TAD C 1.1:93),’pyk(y) ‘your face’ (Herm i:2, ii:2, iii:2, iv:2, vi:2) vs. ’npwhy ‘his face’(TAD C 1.1: 115, passim, but rarely ’pyky ‘your face’ in TAD D7.16:12), lmÌth ‘to bring down (C-stem infinitive)’ (Herm v:6) vs.lmnÌt ‘to bring down’ (TAD C 3.16:1) or lmnÌtwth ‘to bring itdown’ (TAD C 1.1:171), md¨m ‘anything, something’ (Herm i:10,iv:10, v:2, but mnd¨m in Herm v:4) vs. mnd¨m (TAD C 1.1:85, pas-sim, but also less frequently md¨m in TAD B 4.1:3, 4), mpy ‘Mem-phis’ (Herm ii:3) vs. mnpy (TAD A 4.2:11, passim). Under the influ-ence of common orthographic representation of etymological n inOfA, a new analogous development of spelling of non-etymologicaln took place, as a result of the dissimilation of gemination replacedby nasalization. Thus, y¨l (√ ¨ll ‘to go up’) (Sf I B:35) became yn¨l inOfA (cf. Beyer 1984: 90–1; Folmer 1995: 74–94).

7. yk†lwk (I:11): the dissimilation of the emphatic q to voicelessk, followed by another emphatic † or Ò within the same word, takesplace inconsistently in OA — i.e. two dissimilated forms kyÒ’ (BarrI:19) and yk†lwk (Nrb I:11), but undissimilated llq†w (Fek 22)18 —and the direction of the dissimilation q > k is always regressive, as nodissimilation occurs in Òdqty (Nrb II:2), Òdq (Barr I:4, 4–5; II:5),(*∂r̄q >) qrq ‘to flee’ (Sf III:4). The same situation continued in OfA,as we find that the only unquestionable examples of the dissimilationof emphatic consonants are regressive q > k before † or Ò — e.g. kÒph‘his anger’ (TAD C 1.1:85, 101), hkÒr ‘harvest’ (TAD C 1.1:127),kÒyr ‘harvest’ (TAD C 1.1:127), ksy†’ ‘upright’ (TAD C 1.1:158), bkÒt‘in part’ (TAD C 3.11:9), krÒy ‘slander’ (Carpentra 2), etc. — along-side undissimilated forms such as q†l ‘to kill’ (i.e. no k†l is attested in

18 For the problem of the inconsistent dissimilation of q > k in OA, Garr proposesa solution that dissimilation was restricted only to word-initial q (1985: 45). Thoughit is true that Garr’s theory is supported by the examples in the corpus of his study,specimens investigated seem to be too few for such a generalization. Furthermore, it ishard to find any reason for such a phonological difference between word-initial qfollowed by † and non-word-initial q followed by †. It also needs to be noted that fromOfA on, even word-initial q is not always dissimilated.

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OfA), qÒth ‘its part’ (TAD A 2.2:7) (cf. Folmer 1995: 94–6, Muraokaand Porten 1998: 18).

The spelling k†l in Nerab is preceded by OA qtl — e.g. ’qtl (TellDan 6), yqtlnh (Sf I B:27), yqtl (Sf II B:8), qtlw (Sf III:21), qtylt(P 8) — and followed by OfA q†l. The same variety is also attested inthe other Semitic languages, i.e. qtl in OA, Akkadian, Arabic, andEthiophic; k†l in Nerab; q†l in OfA and Hebrew.19 Among the threeproposed proto-Semitic forms, *qtl, *k†l and *q†l (cf. Dion 1974:111–14), *qtl is accepted by most scholars (Brockelmann 1983:§54h; Bauer and Leander 1927: 33; Moscati 1969: §9.3; Degen1969: 41; Garr 1985: 72, no. 168; etc.). According to this view, *qtlbecame, by the assimilation of t to the emphatic q, *q†l, which inturn became k†l by the dissimilation of q before another emphaticconsonant. This diachronic development raises more questions thanit solves problems. First, the so-called ‘emphaticization’ of t in theenviron of another emphatic consonant is alien in Aramaic and otherWest Semitic languages. Such assimilation of t is attested inAkkadian and Arabic, but only in a very specific circumstance, i.e.the infixed t immediately following an emphatic sound (i.e., withoutvocalic interception) in the verbal conjugation — e.g. Akkadianaqtirib ‘I approached’ > aq†irib; Arabic ’iÒtabaga ‘it was dyed’’iÒ†abaga (cf. Moscati, 1969: § 9.3; Huehnergard, 1997: 589). Mean-while, in Akkadian, both progressive and regressive dissimilation of †to t in words that also contain q or Ò is a well-established rule, the so-called Geers's Law (cf. von Soden 1952: § 51e; Huehnergard 1997:588). Thus, the change *q†l > *qtl seems more probable than *qtl >*q†l. Second, the proposed order of the subsequent diachronic devel-opment from *qtl is chronologically reversed, as k†l in Nerab is ante-rior to q†l in later Aramaic.

The second PS form *q†l was first suggested by Kutscher.20 Ac-cording to him, the PS *q†l became, by dissimilation, either k†l ofNerab or qtl of OA. This suggestion also has its own difficulties.First, the incompatibility of two emphatic consonants was not anorm in West Semitic as it was in Akkadian. Second, even if dissimi-lation occurred in *q†l, the expected change in Aramaic would be q >k in comparison to † > t in Akkadian, and thus the expected Aramaicform is not qtl of OA but k†l of Nerab. Third, it does not explainwhy this dissimilation was restricted only to the OA phase and notoperative any more in OfA.

19 q†l in Hebrew (Job 24:14, 13:15; Ps. 139:19) could be an Aramaism.20 He has been quoted by many scholars, but I could not find his article in Asian

and African Studies 2 (1966).

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To account for all these difficulties, I propose a trifurcated dia-chronic development of the original form *q†l. First, Hebrew re-tained the original form *q†l. Second, the original *q†l became qtl(Geers's Law), and this qtl was used in Akkadian and persisted intoArabic and Ethiopic. Third, reflecting its susceptibility to cross-lin-guistic influence and dialectal diversity, Aramaic had diverse forms.In the OA phase, possibly under Akkadian influence, qtl was used.Probably from the second half of the eighth century, a new Aramaicinnovation of the dissimilation q > k began to be adopted, but onlyselectively (in the Barrakkib, Nerab, Ahiqar, etc.), depending on dia-lects and time (extensive in Mandaic, but totally absent in BA),which indicates that the dissimilation of q > k was just one of themany orthographic options. The rare form k†l, which is extant onlyin the Nerab inscription, was soon superseded by another competingform q†l in the subsequent phase of OfA.21

8. yh’bdw (I:11), t’bd (II:10): in OA, as a rule an etymologicalaleph, even in a syllable-closing position, was orthographically repre-sented, probably still retaining its consonantal value, and no exampleof aleph functioning as a mater lectionis has been found so far.22

Though several forms have been proposed as possible examples of eli-sion of aleph in OA, only one, byr’ ‘well, pit’ (Sf I B:34), can be ac-cepted with a reasonable degree of certainty, seeing that comparativeevidence overwhelmingly points to *bi’r (Ugaritic b’ir, BH b¢’er, Arabicbi’r > bir, OSA b’r, Syriac (*bi’r >) bira, Mandaic (*bi’r >) byr’, etc.).Moabite br (Mesha 24, 25) also, though not certain, seems more likelyto have derived from *bi’r, since in Moabite the syllable-closing alephwas usually lost (cf. rs ‘chief ’ in Mesha 20, ryt ‘spectacle?’ in Mesha

21 The same can be observed for *q†r ‘smoke’. First, the PS form *q†r representedby Ugaritic q†r, persisted into BH q∞ô†oret ‘smoke, odour (of burning sacrifice)’. Sec-ond, Akkadian qutru ‘smoke, fume’ succumbed to dissimilation and was followed byArabic qutar ‘odour (of esp. roasted meat)’ and Ethiopic q∞¢tare ‘incense’. Third,Targumic Aramaic qî†ra’ or qû†ra’ ‘smoke’ represents one of three forms that couldhave been available throughout several phases of Aramaic, though the other two formsare not extant.

22 Thus, one can still defend Cross and Freedman’s thesis that ‘in Old Aramaic,aleph regularly is consonantal, and is not used as a mater lectionis, exactly as in earlyMoabite and Hebrew’ (EHO: 33). For a summary of the subsequent criticisms onCross and Freedman’s thesis and Fitzmyer’s defence of it, refer to Fitzmyer 1979: 64–5. Note the further significant support of their thesis offered by Fitzmyer — that is,‘the prefixed negative la is never written in these (OA) texts with an aleph; it is diffi-cult to explain such a form if aleph were a real vowel letter in this phase, especially inlight of the subsequent development in Aramaic, where it is almost always writtenseparately and with final aleph, which has by this time become a vowel-letter’ (1997:65).

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12). Though it has been suggested that byr’ of OA is related to BH bôr(< *bwr) (Folmer 1995: 121, no. 554), BH bôr itself could have de-rived from *bu’r (cf. a variant spelling bo’r in 2 Sam. 23:15, 16, 20;Akk bur) rather than *bwr which was a by-form of *b’r.

However, ’hbd ‘I will destroy’ of the Sefire inscription (II C: 5)seems more likely a simple scribal error, in light of ’h’bd (Sf II C: 4)of the previous line (Degen 1969: 71, no. 64; Fitzmyer 1995: 132;Garr 1985: 49; etc.), though some scholars see here the loss of alephthrough quiescence as in later Aramaic (KAI 2: 263; Dupont-Sommer 1958: 120–1; Segert 1964: 120; etc.). Likewise, mlkh(Hamath graffito 1) is not necessarily the emphatic state with (-’ >)-h (Beyer 1984: 104), but could be a form with the third masculinepronominal suffix (Fitzmyer 1979: 80, no. 56; Folmer 1995: 121,no. 554). After all, Beyer’s argument that ‘schwandt silbenschliess-endes’ in der 2. Hälfte des 9. Jh.s v.Chr’ (1984: 105) remains to befurther substantiated.

In the Sam’alian dialect of OA, the use of aleph evinces its transi-tion to become a vowel letter. Though, as in OA, the etymologicalaleph is normally retained in spelling, a few words have been pro-posed as instances of the elision of aleph. For example, Tropper offersthree examples of the loss of aleph, i.e. ’Ìz ‘I grasp’ (H 3) and ytmr ‘itwas commanded’ (H 10) in syllable-closing position, and qrny ‘hecalled me’ (H 13) in intervocalic position (1993: 183). The first twoexamples are not certain, but still remain possible. First, the syncopeof aleph in ’Ìz should be ascribed to its special circumstance, asTrooper himself notes, i.e. ’’Ìz > ’Ìz as a result of the dissimilation ofdouble alephs (also Dion 1974: 120f). Second, ytmr should be ex-plained as tG-stem imperfect with a progressive assimilation of alephto t: /yit’amVr/ > /yittamVr/ (Dion 1974: 108f ). Tropper’s other ex-planation of this form as Gt-stem imperfect with the loss of the sylla-ble-closing aleph (i.e. /yi’tamVr/ > /yîtamVr/) is unlikely, since alephin the syllable-closing position of the prefixed conjugation is mostlyretained in Sam’alian. But the third example, qrny, if it is taken as averb from qr’ instead of a noun ‘my strength’, is a plausible incidenceof the loss of the etymological aleph, which is probably the result ofthe contraction of non-consonantal aleph, and thus anticipates theinterchangeability between III-aleph verbs and III-y verbs in laterAramaic. In fact, already in Sam’alian, aleph and w/y were inter-changeable in certain cases — e.g. lbny (H 10) vs. lbn’ (H 13);23

23 But the sounds represented by them might be different, i.e. the diphthongalsound /-ay/ in lbny is contracted to /-ê/ which is represented by aleph in lbn’.

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spelling of the nota accusativi wt (H 28), like w/yt in later Aramaic, incontrast to ’yt in OA (cf. Dion 1974: 164–5). Furthermore, there aresome unambiguous instances of aleph functioning as a vowel letter,as in p’ ‘and (then)’ (H 17, 33; P 11, 22), w’ ‘and’ (H 13; P 5, 6, 12),Ìr’ ‘burning anger’ (H 20), Ìm’ ‘anger’ (H 23), lyl’ ‘night’ (H 24), etc.(cf. Dion 1974: 55–62; Tropper 1993: 172).

The elision of etymologically consonantal aleph becomes muchmore frequent in OfA, though the forms with aleph preserved stillcount the majority. It first occurs extensively in the Hermopolis pa-pyri, where the quiescence of aleph contributes to fluidity in orthog-raphy and higher frequency of defective spelling than in ElephantineAramaic. The C-stem of ’ty ‘to send/bring’ is mostly spelled withoutaleph: htty (iv:6), ytwnh (vi:10), thytn (5:5), ytw (iii:12; iv:7; v:5),yhtw (v:4), lmtyh (iii:11), lmytyt (iii:11). Another example is m†’ ‘toreach’: m†tny (iv:4), tm†h (vi:5–6), but mt’h (iii:4), mt’k (iii:6). Also,in the Hermopolis papyri, h and aleph are often interchangible: lh vs.l’ (i:8), klh ‘entirely’ (iv:4), tm†h (vi:5/6), the emphatic particle -h inksph (ii:4, vi:6), sprh (i:12, ii:17, iii:13, iv:12, v:9, vi:10) vs. spr’(vii:4), etc.24

9. thns (I:6), yh’bdw (I:11), lthns (II:8), thnsny (II:9), yhb’sw(II:9): in OA, with the exception of Sam’alian,25 the syncope of theintervocalic h in the prefixed conjugation of the C-stem and thetransition from Haphel to Aphel had not yet taken place. A couple offorms that have been identified as Aphel with syncopated inter-vocalic h are still disputed. First, yskr (Sf III:3) has been proposed ei-ther as the earliest Aphel form (Fitzmyer 1995: 145) or as a simplescribal mistake. Seeing that all four other verbal forms of the root skrin Sefire inscription III (i.e., thskrhm in III:2, hskr in III:2, yhskrIII:3, yhskrn III:3) retain h, yskr in Sf III 3 seems more likely a scribalerror (Segert 1964: 121; Degen 1969: 19, no. 79; Greenfield 1965:9, no. 24; etc.). Second, y¨brnh (Sf III:17) also has been identified asan Aphel by the majority of scholars (Fitzmyer 1995: 156; Gibson1975: 55; DNWSI: 821; etc). However, it also has been interpretedas a G-stem imperfect from the Arabic verbal root gibru ‘to hate’(Rosenthal 1960: 30; Degen 1969: 68, 80). Whatever explanationmight be correct for these forms, it is from the OfA phase, first con-spicuously in the Hermopolis papyri, that the frequency of syn-cope of the intervocalic h exceeds the possibility of being a scribalerror: 'skÌth (iv:4), ’skÌt (iv:9), ’trtn (iv:5), yÌzny (i:2; ii:2; iii:2; v:2),

24 For the examples of the elision of aleph in Elephantine Aramaic, refer to Folmer1995: 106–9; Muraoka and Porten 1998: 22.

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yskÌ (ii:15), tsqÌ (iii:10), ’skÌ (ii:12), mns (ii:3), mlbs (iv:6), mpqn(v:3), lmÌth (v:6).

At this point, it seems worthwhile to discuss briefly the history ofthe transition of Haphel to Aphel. The idea that Haphel and Aphelare two historically distinct verbal stems (Bauer and Leander 1927:62) should be rejected. The so-called Aphel form, i.e. the suffixedconjugation of the C-stem with the prosthetic aleph, developed byanalogy with the prefixed conjugation of the same stem without h af-ter the syncope of the intervocalic h. That is, the paradigmatic pres-sure for pattern levelling in accordance with the h-syncopated formsof the prefixed conjugation caused the elision of h in the suffixed con-jugation, and in its place, the prosthetic aleph as an indicator of zero-sound was instated, and in this process, Akkadian influence, i.e. zero-sound aleph for the proto-Semitic *h, might be present. This view issupported by the following observations. First, long before the firstAphel forms of the suffixed conjugation appeared first in theHermopolis papyri, the Aphel imperfect forms with the syncopated hare amply attested, i.e. besides two contested forms in the Sefire in-scriptions, all the C-stem prefixed conjugations in the Zinjirli inscrip-tions, y’∞Ìrm (Caquot 3–4), etc. Second, even in the Elephantine texts,the suffixed conjugation without h, i.e. the true Aphel form, is ex-tremely rare in comparison to the prefixed conjugation without h (cf.Folmer 1995: 126–7). However, the Hermopolis papyri, reflectingcolloquial Aramaic linguistically more advanced than contemporaryliterary Elephantine Aramaic, exhibit a high proportion of the C-stemconjugations without h over those with h (25 vs. 8) and the unusuallyfrequent attestation of the C-stem suffixed conjugation without h incomparison to the C-stem prefixed conjugation with h (6 vs. 10). InBA, the suffixed conjugation without h is still extremely rare, withonly one clear example ’qymh (Dan. 3:1). Only gradually, the ratio ofthe suffixed conjugation without h to the prefixed conjugation with-out h increased, as both forms became more frequent, and the transi-tion from Haphel Aphel was completed by and large by the time ofthe Roman period, though a few archaic Haphel forms in the suffixedconjugation persisted even in Mandaic.26

25 One of many dialectal peculiarities of Sam’alian Aramaic is the consistent syn-cope of the intervocalic h in all the forms of the C-stem prefixed conjugation: ywq’(P 21), yzkr (H 16, 17), lytkh (H 23), yrsy (H 27, 28), yqm (H 28).

26 This brief survey of the transition of Haphel to Aphel makes it clear that to callthe C-stem conjugation without h in the Sam’alian inscriptions and also possibly inthe Sefire inscriptions Aphel is an anachronism, though often used for the sake ofconvenience, because no true Aphel form in the suffixed conjugation has yet appearedin Sam’alian or in OA.

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Morphology

10. qdmwh (II:2): the third masculine singular pronominal suffixon plural nouns and ‘plural’ prepositions is always -wh in OA and -yh/-wh in Sam’alian, in contrast to the usual OfA form -why, e.g.qdmwhy ‘before him’ (TAD A 6.3:6).27

11. ynÒr (I:13): the so-called internal passive conjugation (i.e. theverbal forms with the apophonic passive marker) of the G-stem pre-fixed conjugation yuqtal is found only in OA of all the phases of theAramaic language — y¨r ‘will be blinded’ (Sf I A:39 bis), ygzr ‘(thiscalf ) will be cut off ’ and ‘(Mati¨el) will be cut off ’ (Sf I A:40 bis),tsbr (Sf I A:38), tgzr (Sf I A:43), ygzrn (Sf I A:40), y[r]smn ‘they arewritten’ (Sf II C:3), t’mr (Sf I A:33, 36). The tG-stem (and Gt ygtzronce in Fk 23) which was an alternative passive conjugation in OA,became the sole means of expressing the passive for the G-stem pre-fixed conjugation in OfA, though the internal passive of the suffixedconjugation (Gp qtl∞) is found both in OA (ntnh in H 11, ntn in H24, yhb in H 12, etc.) and in OfA (e.g. BA qtil∞). In the Hermopolispapyri, ybl (i:14, ii:18, iii:13) and ywbl (vii:5) have been interpretedas a yuqtal form, but it is more likely a C-stem internal passive (Cpyqtl, i.e. =O/Uphal), which is a regular feature in OfA, along withthe Dp-stem.

12. mÌzh (II:5): the new understanding of mÌzh (Nrb II:5), asargued above, as the G-stem infinitive and the discovery of the G-stemmqtl infinitives in the Fekherye inscription affirm the antiquity ofthe Aramaic form mqtl, which in turn seems to strengthen Fitzmyer’scontention that the Peal infinitive without the preformative m- (i.e.qtl) in OA is not a ‘genuine component’ of the Aramaic language,but a Canaanitism (1979: 67). According to him, the very reasonthat the qtl form is a Canaanitism is its absence in the later phases ofAramaic, and its occasional attestation after OA (e.g. lbn’∞ in Ez. 5:3,13; l’∞mr alongside lm’∞mr in the Elephantine texts; etc.) is a case of alinguistic phenomenon that a feature borrowed at an early periodpersists ‘in isolated forms in the language or in isolated areas’ (1979:67–8). However, the infinitive forms of the weak verbs and lqÌ ‘totake’ in OA show a marked difference from their Canaanite counter-parts, in that they never have the compensatory afformative -t (e.g.lÌyy in Fek 7, lbn’ in H 13, 14, lbny in H 10, mlqÌ in Fek 10). Mean-while, the G- (and D-) stem infinitive construct of the I-y/w or III-y/

27 But also note the concurrent use of different forms, e.g. ¨lwh ‘to him’ (ShehHamad iii:4; iv:3), Ìsyh[y] ‘his favoured ones’ (Carpentra 4), ’grwh ‘its walls’ (TAD B3.4:4), m’nhy ‘his vessels’ (TAD D 7.24:7), etc.

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w verbs, hlk and lqÌ of the Canaanite languages consistently has the-t ending.28 This morphological variation makes a direct borrowingfrom the Canaanite languages less likely. Though coming from thecommon West Semitic stock, the OA qtl infinitive underwent itsown independent development, eventually superseded by the GozanAramaic innovation, the mqtl infinitive.

13. l- (II:4, 8): in OA, the negative particle of indicative verbs isprefixed to the following verbs, while the OfA form, l’ as a separateword, appears as early as in the Caquot inscription (c. 600 BCE).

Syntax

14. mÌzh (II:5): the infinitive functions as a substitute for a finiteverb (see supra).

15. hwm ’thmw (II:6):29 The emphatic use of the infinitive abso-lute is amply attested in the Sefire inscriptions (Sf II C:8; III:2, 6,12–13, 13, 18), though there infinitive absolutes and modified finiteverbs are always of the same stem. The only appearance of the em-phatic use of the infinitive absolute in OfA comes from the Ashurostracon (c. 650), q[r]q qrqw ‘they indeed fled’ (9).

16. zy lk (I:14): the construction, the relative pronoun + thepreposition l- + the pronominal suffixes, which is not attested in OA,

28 Phoenician ld¨t (Ahirom Graf 1), lsbtnm (Karatepe A i:17), ltty ‘by his giving’(Karatepe A iii:4), lbnt (Karatepe A ii:11), lqÒtnm Eshmunazar 9/10), llkt (Karatepe Aii:4), lqÌt (Punic inscription from Carthage, KAI 76 B:5); Hebrew kÒ’ty (Arad xvi:3),lqrt (Siloam 4), l¨st (Arad i:8), lsnth (Horvat ¨Uza iii:23,3), lqÌt (Lachish iii:18), BHlkt (rarely hlk e.g. in Exod. 3:19; Eccl. 6:9), BH qÌt, lrpt (Lach vi:6); Ammonite: lsbt(El Mazar Ostracon iii:3); Moabite: lspt (Mesha 21). Also note that ld¨t ‘to know’ inDeir ̈ Alla II:17 is a Canaanite form, which has been neglected in the discussion of theclassification of the language of the Deir ¨Alla texts.

29 Clermont-Ganneau’s original reading bkw ywhw m’t hmw and the problematictranslation ‘de telle sorte qu’ils atteignaient la centaine’ (1897: 193–4) were correctedby Lidzbarski who reads hwm ’thmw and takes hwm as an abstract noun used as aninfinitive absolute of hwm, literally ‘to murmur, discomfit’ figuratively ‘to be dis-tracted’, followed by the Ethpael third plural perfect of the same root (1900–2: 193).This explanation has been followed by some scholars (NSI: 191; Gibson 1975: 96;etc.), while others read hwm as the Qal infinitive absolute (KAI 2: 276; Hug 1993:77; etc). The latter interpretation can be supported by the observation that in BH, asa rule, the Qal infinitive absolute as the simplest and most general representative ofthe verbal idea may come before a finite verb of other derived conjugations in the so-called emphatic infinitive absolute construction (cf. GK §113w; Joüon and Muraoka1996: §123p). Considering the fact that ‘the infinitive absolute may equally well berepresented by a substantive of kindred stem’ (GK §113w), we can safely concludethat hwm ’thmw is the intensifying infinitive construction, whether hwm is a Qalinfinitive absolute or just an abstract noun.

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became a popular means of expressing possession in OfA, e.g. zly ‘my(servants)’ (Ashur 13), etc.

Conclusions

The Nerab inscriptions exhibit sufficient OA linguistic features toremain in the category of OA, i.e. the phonology of the interdentalfricatives, znh (I:3, 7; II:2), l’t’Ìz (II:4), ’sr (I:8, 10), tnÒr (I:12), ynÒr(I:13); the preservation of the diphthongs, ywmy (II:3) and bywm(II: 4); the assimilation of n: ysÌw (I:9), ¨t (I:5, II:8); the dissimila-tion of the emphatic sound q, yk†lwk (I:11); the orthographic repre-sentation of aleph in a syllable-closing position, yh’bdw (I:11), t’bd(II:10); the non-syncopation of the intervocalic h, thns (I:6), yh’bdw(I:11), lthns (II:8), thnsny (II:9), yhb’sw (II:9); the third masculinepronominal suffix on plural nouns and ‘plural’ prepositions, qdmwh(II:2); the internal passive of the G-stem prefixed conjugation, ynÒr(I:13); the negative particle l- (II:4, 8); the emphatic use of the in-finitive absolute, hwm ’thmw (II:6). At the same time, some linguis-tic developments which later became standard features of OfA, suchas the non-assimilation of n (tnÒr in I:12), the medial mater lectionisin II-weak verbs (hwm in II:6), the G-stem infinitive with prefixedm- (mÌzh in II:5) and the expression of possession zy lk (I:14), alsoappear in the Nerab inscriptions. Thus, the Nerab inscriptionsclearly represent the transitional period from OA to OfA.

OfA, probably originating from an Aramaic dialect of northernMesopotamia, ‘possessed a basically uniform linguistic character andrepresented mostly a conventional form of speech standardized foruse in writing and employed often by people whose native tonguewas not Aramaic’ (Rosenthal 1978: 85). This OfA is best representedby the Aramaic documents from Egypt during the Achaemenid pe-riod. Meanwhile, the seventh and sixth century Aramaic inscriptions,including the Nerab inscriptions, collected and studied by V. Hug,show a gradual transition from OA to OfA, thus making it difficultto identify the exact point of demarcation between them. If one de-cides on the basis of linguistic proximity to the standard features ofOA and OfA, the Nerab inscriptions stand at the ultimate junctureof OA. Therefore, the proposed dating of the Nerab inscriptions, c.700 BCE,30 can serve, at least for heuristic purposes, as the chrono-logical boundary between OA and OfA.

30 The paleography of the Nerab inscriptions does not allow Naveh to date them‘more precisely than the seventh century BCE’ (1970:15–6). However, with reason-

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Torrey, C.C. 1912. ‘New Notes on some Old Inscriptions’, ZA 26, 77–92Tropper, J. 1993. Die Inschriften von Zincirli. (Münster)Von Soden, W. 1952. Grundriss der akkadischen Grammatik. (Rome)

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