The noun in Biblical Aramaic

Nouns and adjectives inflect for gender (masculine, feminine), number (singular, plural, a few duals) and state (absolute, construct, determined). There is no case and no prefixed article. This file describes Biblical Aramaic (arc); the later varieties change mostly the use of the states and the plural endings — see the table in The Aramaic family and the Jewish varieties §5 and the folders of each variety.

References: Rosenthal 1961, A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic (the chapter on nouns); Bauer and Leander 1927, Grammatik des Biblisch-Aramäischen, § 51 on noun formation and §§ 52–67 on gender, number, state, the inflection classes and the numerals; Kautzsch 1884, Grammatik des Biblisch-Aramäischen, part on the noun; Johns 1972, lessons 3–6; Greenspahn 2003, An Introduction to Aramaic, ch. 6–9. Counts: MACULA Hebrew, Aramaic words (lang = A), 2026-10-17. Checked 2026-10-18 against Strack 1901 §§ 7–10 (pp. 20–24) and Kautzsch 1884 §52 (pp. 86–88): forms in the tables that these grammars mark as not attested, or that the WLC does not have, are marked * (regular, not attested in Biblical Aramaic).

1. The three states

The determined state does the work of the Hebrew article. In Biblical Aramaic it is still fully definite: מַלְכָּא is "the king", never "a king". In Syriac and JBA it lost that meaning and became the normal form of every noun (The noun in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic).

In MACULA's tagging of Biblical Aramaic nouns and adjectives (2 149 words with a state; 2026-10-17):

The construct is frequent because names of places and titles are written as chains (בֵּית אֱלָהָא "the house of God", מֶלֶךְ מַלְכַיָּא "king of kings"), but the genitive with דִּי is the more Aramaic construction (§5).

2. Endings

2.1 The basic endings

Checked 2026-10-18: Kautzsch 1884 §52.3, p. 88 (the overview יוֹם / חֵיוָא through the three states and two numbers); Strack 1901 §7, pp. 20–21, §8d, m, pp. 22–23.

Remarks:

• The masculine plural ־ִין is the Aramaic counterpart of Hebrew ־ִים. In Ezra 4:13 the Hebrew-like מַלְכִים appears once, and the Ketiv/Qere system shows other Hebraisms (Rosenthal 1961).
• The determined plural ־ַיָּא comes from -ay + -ā. It is written ־יא or ־יה: מַלְכַיָּא, עַמְמַיָּא "the peoples" (Dan 3:4), but יְהוּדָיֵא "the Jews" (Ezra 4:12; gentilic, see §4).
• Nouns in final ־ֵה or ־ָא that come from roots III-y keep the y in the plural: מָרֵא "lord" (Dan 2:47), plural determined in the form of -ayyā.
• Many feminine nouns take the masculine plural ending: מִלָּה "word" → מִלִּין, determined מִלַּיָּא; שְׁנָה "year" → שְׁנִין (Ezra 5:11). This is ordinary in Aramaic, as in Hebrew שָׁנָה → שָׁנִים.

2.2 A full paradigm: three model nouns

מֶלֶךְ "king" (masc., stem malk-):

The absolute singular מֶלֶךְ is vocalised like Hebrew; the Aramaic stem malk- shows in all the other forms. Bauer and Leander (1927) treat such "segolate" vocalisations as Masoretic adaptations to Hebrew.

מִלָּה "word, matter" (fem. in ־ָה):

מַלְכוּ "kingdom" (fem. in ־וּ):

Checked 2026-10-18: Strack 1901 §8d (qatl plurals מַלְכִין, מַלְכֵי, מַלְכַיָּא) and §8m (מַלְכוּ, מַלְכוּת, מַלְכוּתָא; plural מַלְכְוָת, מַלְכְוָתָא; the absolute plural is marked as not attested), pp. 22–23. מִלֵּי is attested as a construct (Dan 5:10). Second pass 2026-10-18: the WLC has no absolute plural of מַלְכוּ (MACULA: only מַלְכְוָת once and מַלְכְוָתָא twice), so *מַלְכְוָן stays a reconstruction.

2.3 Irregular and common nouns

Checked 2026-10-18: Strack 1901 §9, p. 23 (אַב, אַח, אִתְּתָא, בַּיִת, בַּר, שֻׁם, יַד, כְּנָת: the plurals בְּנִין and נְשִׁין are marked there as not attested); Strack §8i, p. 21 (יוֹם). Corrected: רֵאשִׁין with ṣere (WLC Dan 7:6), not רָאשִׁין; בַּר, אִתְּתָא, גְּבַר, קִרְיָה and "water" had forms that are regular but not attested (now *); אֲנָשִׁין is not attested, only the Hebraism אֲנָשִׁים. The WLC attestations were looked up on 2026-10-18 in MACULA. Second pass 2026-10-18: Bauer and Leander 1927 star the same unattested forms: *נְשִׁין (§53k, p. 202; only נְשֵׁיהוֹן) and *שְׁמַיִן (§53n, p. 202; only determined שְׁמַיָּא); *בְּנִין is absent from their list of בַּר (§66d, p. 247: construct בַּר, בְּנֵי, suffixed בְּנוֹהִי, בְּנֵיהוֹן). The WLC has no *גַּבְרָא, *קִרְוַיָּא or *מַיִן. Corrected: Bauer and Leander §66, p. 247, star the absolute singulars of אַב (attested only with suffixes: אֲבִי, אֲבוּךְ, אֲבוּהִי; plural אֲבָהָתִי Dan 2:23), בַּיִת (construct בֵּית, determined בַּיְתָא), בַּר (construct only), שֻׁם (construct only, §66g, p. 248) and רֵאשׁ (construct Dan 7:1; determined רֵאשָׁה Dan 2:38, which this table lacked; plural abs. רֵאשִׁין; suffixed רָאשֵׁיהֹם Ezra 5:10, which was given here as a bare construct רָאשֵׁי); אַבָּא is not attested either. יַד is attested only as a construct (Dan 5:5; 6:28 in the WLC); its absolute is starred on that evidence, not on a grammar.

3. Noun patterns

Aramaic, like Hebrew, builds nouns from a consonantal root by fixed vowel patterns and affixes. The most frequent in Biblical Aramaic (Bauer and Leander 1927 § 51; Rosenthal 1961):

4. Gentilic nouns

Gentilics in ־ָי have their own plurals:

Checked 2026-10-18: Strack 1901 §8l, p. 23: כַּשְׂדָּי, determined כַּשְׂדָּאָה (Qere; Ketiv כשדיא); plural כַּשְׂדָּאִין (Dan 3:8), determined כַּשְׂדָּאֵי (Qere; Ketiv כשדיא); יְהוּדָיֵא has no Qere. The singular of "Jew" is not attested. Second pass 2026-10-18: Bauer and Leander 1927 §51, p. 189 (Anm. 1), write the singular "Jew" with a star (*יְהוּדָי) and treat יְהוּד "Judea" as formed back from it; their table of כַּשְׂדָּי (§57e, p. 208) gives the same Ketiv and Qere pairs. The WLC has neither *יְהוּדָי nor *יְהוּדָאָה.

5. The genitive: construct versus דִּי

Biblical Aramaic expresses "X of Y" in three ways:

1. construct chain, as in Hebrew: בֵּית אֱלָהָא "the house of God" (Ezra 4:24); מֶלֶךְ מַלְכַיָּא "king of kings" (Ezra 7:12).
2. determined noun + דִּי + noun: צֶלֶם דַּהֲבָא דִּי הֲקֵים "the golden image that he set up" (relative); and as a pure genitive: לְגֻבָּא דִּי אַרְיָוָתָא "into the den of the lions" (Dan 6:17); כְּתַל הֵיכְלָא דִּי מַלְכָּא "the wall of the king's palace" (Dan 5:5).
3. anticipatory suffix + דִּי: the possessed noun carries a pronoun suffix pointing forward to the possessor: שְׁמֵהּ דִּי־אֱלָהָא "his name, (that) of God" = "God's name" (Dan 2:20); בְּיוֹמֵיהוֹן דִּי מַלְכַיָּא "in their days, of the kings" = "in the days of the kings" (Dan 2:44). This construction is typical of Aramaic and becomes very frequent in JBA (שְׁמֵיהּ דְּ־, בְּרֵיהּ דְּרַב "Rav's son").

The share of the three changes over time: (1) dominates in Ezra's official documents, (2) and (3) grow in Daniel and dominate in the later dialects. For a parser all three should end in the same relation (nmod:poss or nmod, see Aramaic in Mova: what it would need §4).

Aramaic:   בְּיוֹמֵיהוֹן דִּי מַלְכַיָּא אִנּוּן
Translit.: bə-yōmēhōn dī malḵayyā ʾinnūn
Gloss:     in-day.M.PL.CST-3MPL REL king.M.PL.DET DEM.3MPL
English:   in the days of those kings
Source:    Dan 2:44 (WLC, public domain)

6. Adjectives

Adjectives agree with their noun in gender, number and state. An attributive adjective follows its noun; a predicative adjective is usually in the absolute state.

Aramaic:   וּמַלְכִין תַּקִּיפִין הֲווֹ עַל־יְרוּשְׁלֶם
Translit.: ū-malḵīn taqqīp̄īn hăwō ʿal-yərūšlem
Gloss:     and-king.M.PL.ABS mighty.M.PL.ABS be.PEAL.PF.3MPL over-Jerusalem
English:   and there were mighty kings over Jerusalem
Source:    Ezra 4:20 (WLC, public domain)

Comparison has no special form. The comparative uses מִן "than": שַׂגִּיא … מִן "more than". The superlative is expressed by a construct or by context: מֶלֶךְ מַלְכַיָּא "king of kings" = the highest king; עִלָּאָה "the Most High" (Dan 4:31), the determined form of the adjective עִלַּי "high".

7. Numerals

Cardinal numbers 1–10 have two forms. As in Hebrew, the form without ־ָה goes with feminine nouns and the form with ־ָה with masculine nouns ("chiastic concord"), except for 1 and 2 (Rosenthal 1961; Bauer and Leander 1927 § 67).

Checked 2026-10-18: Strack 1901 §10a–c, pp. 23–24 (it marks תְּרֵין, שִׁתָּה, שְׁבַע as not attested; 30 is תְּלָתִין, 400 אַרְבַּע מְאָה, 1000 determined אַלְפָּא, plural אַלְפִין). Second pass 2026-10-18: Bauer and Leander 1927 §67a–q, pp. 248–251: their table of attested cardinals has no masculine absolute of 2 (only the construct תְּרֵי, in "twelve"; *תְּרֵין is reconstructed and found only in later Jewish Aramaic, p. 249), no form of 6 other than שִׁת / שֵׁת and no feminine-noun form of 7; they add the construct שִׁבְעַת (Ezra 7:14: "his seven counsellors") and "twelve" at Dan 4:26. The forms of 1, 3, 4, 10, 20, 30, 60, 100, 200, 400, 1000 and 10 000 agree with the table.

Ordinals: *קַדְמָי "first", *תִּנְיָן "second", *תְּלִיתָי "third", *רְבִיעָי "fourth" (Strack 1901 §10f, p. 24: the masculines of 2–4 are not attested; the feminines are תִּנְיָנָה, תְּלִיתָאָה Q, רְבִיעָאָה Q). Second pass 2026-10-18: Bauer and Leander 1927 §67u–v, p. 251, star all four masculine base forms, "first" included: attested are only קַדְמָיֵא (m. pl. det., Dan 7:24), קַדְמָיְתָא (f. sg. det., Dan 7:4; pl. det. Dan 7:8), תִּנְיָנָה (Dan 7:5), תְּלִיתָאָה (Dan 2:39 Q), רְבִיעָאָה (m. sg. det., Dan 3:25 Q; f. Dan 2:40 Q) and רְבִיעָיְתָא (Dan 7:19, 23). Fractions: תְּלַת "a third" (as a title: תַּלְתִּי בְּמַלְכוּתָא "third in the kingdom", Dan 5:7, with a disputed reading).

Aramaic:   רוּמֵהּ אַמִּין שִׁתִּין פְּתָיֵהּ אַמִּין שִׁת
Translit.: rūmēh ʾammīn šittīn pəṯāyēh ʾammīn šiṯ
Gloss:     height-3MS cubit.F.PL.ABS sixty width-3MS cubit.F.PL.ABS six(F)
English:   its height sixty cubits, its width six cubits
Source:    Dan 3:1 (WLC, public domain)

Note the masculine plural ending on a feminine noun (אַמָּה "cubit" → אַמִּין) and the short feminine form of six (שִׁת) agreeing with it.

8. What changes in the later varieties (pointers)

The Elamur team

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