Akkadian-Neo Syriac words ending with U - A/O

R

Rumtaya

Active member
Hello fellows


I got another question ( I am sure, I will come up with way more). How come that our language is the only "semitic language" whos words end with an "A/O"? Where as the Arabic and Hebrew does not. What I mean can be seen easily at the example provided below:


Akkadian:

na?ru

[Animals → Birds]

eagle

Various semitic languages:

Proto-Semitic : *na?r ?eagle, vulture?
Arabic : nasr  نَسْر
Syriac : ne?rā  ܢܸܫܪܵܐ
Hebrew : ne?er  נֶשֶׁר ?vulture?
Ugaritic : n?r 
Ge'ez : nǝsr

Is that an "akkadian influence"?

When it comes to grammer and such I am very naiv, since I dont know much about it. Especially not about "classical syriac" and forth.
Does the pure "aramaic language" contain also those endings? Or is it more similar to arabic and hebrew?

 
Aramaic NOUNS do have an "A" at the end, Verbs however do not, for example

Gishra = bridge - ܓܫܪܐ גשרא

while G-sher means to bridge (over), or to build a bridge גשר ܓܫܪ

usually in Modern Neo-Aramaic, i've heard us say geshooreh as the verb rather than gesher.
 
mrzurnaci, I am sure Rumtaya has meant the Aramaic language without the Akkadian influence.
 
The basic (indefinite) forms of Aramaic words look more like Arabic and Hebrew:

  • mlekh (Aramaic) = melekh (Hebrew) = malik (Arabic) = "a king"
  • malkaa (Aramaic) = malkah (Hebrew) = malikah (Arabic) = "a queen"

Where Arabic adds al- and Hebrew adds ha- prefixes to make the word definite ("the"), Aramaic added suffixes: usually -aa for masculine singular, -taa or -thaa for feminine singular, -e or -ayyaa for masculine plural, and -aathaa for feminine plural:

  • malk-aa (Aramaic) = ha-melekh (Hebrew) = al-malik (Arabic) = "the king"
  • malk-thaa (Aramaic) = ha-malkah (Hebrew) = al-malikah (Arabic) = "the queen"

This is present even in older Aramaic. It's a bit confusing if you're not careful since masculine definite forms look like feminine indefinite forms (e.g., malkaa could mean "a king" or "the queen"), but you can usually tell because of things like verb inflection and context. Eventually, our dialects lost the definite sense of the endings and that became the regular form of the word, so malkaa only meant "a king" or "the king" and not "queen."

As far as I know, the Akkadian endings are always attached and don't have an inherently definite sense. It's possible that Akkadian influenced Aramaic (or vice versa) on a stylistic level with the endings, but I just think it's a coincidence. There are plenty of examples where languages developed suffixed definite articles independently (e.g., the Scandinavian languages vs. other Germanic languages; Romanian vs. other Romance languages).
 
I see, well that sounds kind of logical to me. Still kind of interesting to see that there is some similarity between what we speak today and what has been spoken 2500 years ago.

 
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