The lexicon of Biblical Aramaic

The vocabulary of the Aramaic chapters is small: 698 distinct lemmas (647 of them nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, proper names included) in 7 549 words (MACULA units, counted 2026-10-17). Most of it is common Aramaic; a striking share comes from Akkadian (via the Assyrian and Babylonian administration) and Old Persian (via the Achaemenid chancery), with a handful of Greek words in Daniel 3. This file gives the core vocabulary by frequency, the loanwords by source, the Hebrew–Aramaic cognate pairs a reader needs, and the Aramaic words that entered Hebrew.

Sources: BDB 1906, Aramaic part (Sefaria BDB_Aramaic_Dictionary.jsonl, public domain; cited as BDB-Aram s.v.); Kaufman 1974, The Akkadian Influences on Aramaic; the Iranian etymologies of Andreas and Scheftelowitz as cited inside BDB-Aram; Hinz 1975, Altiranisches Sprachgut der Nebenüberlieferungen; Vogt 2011, A Lexicon of Biblical Aramaic (English edition of Lexicon linguae aramaicae Veteris Testamenti, 1971); Koehler and Baumgartner, HALOT vol. 5 (Aramaic). Counts: MACULA, 2026-10-17.

1. Core vocabulary by frequency

Content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs), summed over forms; proper names left out except to show their weight. Counted from MACULA's lemma and pos (2026-10-17).

The proper names show what the texts are about: דָּנִיֵּאל 52, נְבוּכַדְנֶצַּר 31, עֲבֵד נְגוֹ 28, יְרוּשְׁלֶם 26, בָּבֶל 25, דָּרְיָוֶשׁ 15, שַׁדְרַךְ 14, מֵישַׁךְ 14.

2. Hebrew and Aramaic: cognates and false friends

A reader who knows Hebrew recognises about half of Biblical Aramaic through the regular sound correspondences (Script and phonology §4). The rest is either a different word for the same thing or the same word with another meaning.

2.1 Same root, regular correspondence

2.2 Different word, same meaning

2.3 False friends

3. Loanwords

3.1 From Akkadian

Akkadian, the language of Assyria and Babylonia, gave Aramaic administrative, architectural and religious words in the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods. The standard study is Kaufman 1974; BDB-Aram marks most of these as "loan-word from Assyrian".

Checked 2026-10-18 (second pass) against Marti 1896, whose glossary carries the Iranian notes of F. C. Andreas (from p. 51*): סְגַן is Assyrian šaknu (p. 73*) and כַּרְבְּלָא is linked to Assyrian karballatu (glossary s.v.); the month name אֲדָר is Assyrian (p. 51*). Disagreement: Marti derives אִגְּרָה from Middle Iranian hangert "report" (with Greek ἄγγαρος "courier"; p. 51*), not from Akkadian egirtu; and he explains סָפְרָא in Ezra 4:8 as a rendering of the Persian title dipīr "scribe" (p. 74*), not as a loan of Akkadian šāpiru. The other Akkadian etymologies rest on BDB-Aram and Kaufman 1974 and were not found in a grammar on disk (unchecked).

3.2 From Old Persian

The Achaemenid chancery left titles of officials, legal terms and administrative adverbs. Many are explained in BDB-Aram after Andreas, Scheftelowitz and Nöldeke; the modern reference is Hinz 1975.

Checked 2026-10-18 (second pass): Marti 1896 §88, p. 92, names as Persian אֲחַשְׁדַּרְפְּנַיָּא, אֲדַרְזְדָּא, גְּדָבְרַיָּא, גִּזְבְּרַיָּא, גִּנְזַיָּא, הַדָּמִין, דְּתָבְרַיָּא, אַפְּתֹם, הַמְנִיכָא, נִשְׁתְּוָנָא, פַּרְשֶׁגֶן, פִּתְגָם and רָז; his glossary adds דָּת from Old Persian dāta- and דְּתָבָר "law-bearer" (p. 59*), אֲדַרְגָּזַר from handarza-kara "counsel-maker" and אַזְדָּא from Middle Persian azd "news, knowledge" (p. 51*), and נְבִזְבָּה from Iranian nivāz "gift to the king" (p. 71*). Bauer and Leander 1927 §68y, p. 256, list אָסְפַּרְנָא and אַדְרַזְדָּא as Persian adverbs. Disagreement on סַרְבָּל: Andreas in Marti (p. 74*) rejects New Persian šalvār "trousers" and posits an old saravāra, at first a head covering; Krauss 1898 (I, p. 6) counts סַרְבָּל among the words that reached Daniel through Greek (σαράβαρα). Not found in these grammars: הַדָּבַר, תִּפְתָּי, סָרַךְ, זְמַן, נִדְנֶה, אַפַּדְנָא (unchecked).

3.3 From Greek

Only in Daniel 3, the list of musical instruments played before the golden image (Dan 3:5, 7, 10, 15). These are among the arguments for a Hellenistic date of the tale (Collins 1993; Rosenthal 1961).

Two other instrument names are Semitic: קַרְנָא "horn" and מַשְׁרוֹקִיתָא "pipe, whistle" (√ שׁרק "whistle"); שַׂבְּכָא "trigon" may itself have given Greek σαμβύκη (BDB-Aram s.v.). The WLC writes it with ס in Dan 3:5 (סַבְּכָא) and with שׂ in 3:7, 10, 15.

Checked 2026-10-18 (second pass): Krauss 1898–1899 has the three Greek instruments and the herald: קַתְרוֹס = κίθαρις, "already Dan 3:5, 7, 10", Qere קַתְרוֹס, Ketiv קיתרוס (II, p. 573); פְּסַנְתֵּרִין = ψαλτήριον, with the spelling פְּסַנְטֵרִין of Dan 3:7 (II, p. 473); סוּמְפֹּנְיָה = συμφωνία "bagpipe", Dan 3:5, 10, 15 (II, p. 376); כָּרוֹזָא = κῆρυξ, "already Dan 3:4" (II, p. 296, where a bracketed note records Hoffmann's doubt about the Greek origin). Marti 1896 §88, p. 92, gives the same four as Greek, with the variants סוּפֹּנְיָה and סיפניה (the Ketiv of Dan 3:10). Disagreement on שַׂבְּכָא: Marti (§88 and glossary: = σαμβύκη, a kind of harp) and Krauss (I, p. 6) count it as a Greek loan, where BDB-Aram takes the Greek word to come from the Semitic one.

Aramaic:   קָל קַרְנָא מַשְׁרוֹקִיתָא קַתְרוֹס סַבְּכָא פְּסַנְתֵּרִין סוּמְפֹּנְיָה וְכֹל זְנֵי זְמָרָא
Translit.: qāl qarnā mašrōqīṯā qaṯrōs sabbəḵā pəsantērīn sūmpōnyā wə-ḵōl zənē zəmārā
Gloss:     sound.CST horn.DET pipe.DET lyre trigon harp bagpipe and-all kind.PL.CST music.DET
English:   the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe and every kind of music
Source:    Dan 3:5 (WLC, public domain; Ketiv קיתרוס)

3.4 Hebrew words in Biblical Aramaic

Some words are Hebrew rather than Aramaic, by origin or by Masoretic vocalisation: מַלְכִים (Ezra 4:13, Hebrew plural), נְבִיָּא "prophet" (Ezra 5:1), כָּהֲנַיָּא "the priests" (Ezra 7:24), לֵוָיֵא "the Levites", נְתִינַיָּא "the temple servants" (Ezra 7:24, from Hebrew נְתִינִים; BDB-Aram s.v.), אֵלֶּה "these" (Jer 10:11), and religious terms like קָרְבָּן, עֲלָוָן "burnt offerings" (Ezra 6:9).

4. Aramaic in Hebrew

The influence also went the other way. Late Biblical Hebrew (Esther, Chronicles, Ezra–Nehemiah, Daniel's Hebrew, Ecclesiastes) and Mishnaic Hebrew took many Aramaic words and forms (Kautzsch 1902, Die Aramaismen im Alten Testament; Wagner 1966, Die lexikalischen und grammatikalischen Aramaismen im alttestamentlichen Hebräisch):

Checked 2026-10-18 against Kautzsch 1902, Übersicht of the certain Aramaisms (pp. 93–98) and the list of doubtful ones (pp. 105–111): זְמָן (p. 94: Koh 3:1; Est 9:27, 31; Neh 2:6), טַעַם "decree" (p. 94: Jon 3:7), קִבֵּל (p. 97: Prov 19:20; Job 2:10; Est 4:4 and more), סוֹף (p. 96: Joel 2:20; Koh 3:11 and more) and סָלַק (p. 96: Ps 139:8) are among the certain Aramaisms; Kautzsch also lists the relative שֶׁ only for particular constructions (p. 98). Corrected: the טַעַם row had the Hebrew and Aramaic forms swapped. אִגֶּרֶת, פִּתְגָם, מַלְכוּת and the ־וּת abstracts are in neither list of Kautzsch 1902 (unchecked: their status as Aramaisms rests on Wagner 1966, not on disk; no work of the second pass covers Hebrew Aramaisms); רָז, אַבָּא, אִמָּא are Mishnaic and outside his scope.

Through Mishnaic Hebrew many of these words are part of Modern Hebrew (he), which is why a Hebrew model will meet Aramaic forms (אַבָּא, סַבָּא, אֲגַב, בְּדִיעֲבַד, הֶקֵּשׁ) in ordinary modern text (The lexicon of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic §6).

5. Semantic fields of the book

Sources for this file

BDB-Aram (Sefaria JSONL, PD; path in Sources); Kaufman 1974; Hinz 1975; Vogt 2011; HALOT vol. 5; Kautzsch 1902; Wagner 1966; Collins 1993; Rosenthal 1961; Jastrow 1903; MACULA (counts, 2026-10-17).

The Elamur team

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/arc/lexicon/