Is it true that Aramaic was the equivalent of Ebonics?

Answer 1

Pardon the previous postings and their misconceptions about Aramaic. I speak Aramaic and it is sacred to me.

Aramaic is not an offshoot of Hebrew. It is in no way a Canaanite language, whereas Hebrew is a dialect of Canaanite that was adopted by the Hebrew people when they moved to Canaan. Aramaic was the language of Haran, Aram, and other northern settlements of the ancient Middle East. It became the official language of the Babylonian, Assyrian, and Persian empires (Persian Aramaic is called "Imperial Aramaic"). Abraham knew Aramaic and his son and his grandson married Aramaic-speaking women from Haran.

Is Aramaic the Ebonics of Semitic languages? Most certainly not. It was sacred and used in all formal discourse of the aforementioned empires. Aramaic has an advanced lexicon and a history that predates Hebrew by several centuries. Contrary to modern thinking, Aramaic is not a dead language. It is still spoken by various minority groups today.

Shlam (peace),
Ya'qub

Answer 2

Not quite. The Koine Greek of the New Testament is a highly semitised Greek, so it could be compared to Ebonics, but better compared to Spanglish or Yinglish, where the majority of a language is the same as those around, but expressions follow the logic of a different language and some words of the other language are retained. That may be what you are thinking of.

Aremaic was a language close to what was spoken in the Persian empire and its predecessors, but the versions spoken by Jews was different and filled with Hebraisms. It is better understood when compared with its root language by the example of Yiddish's relationship to German, than to Ebonics's relationship to standard English.

Answer 3

All I know is it was an offshoot dialect of Hebrew.

Answer 4

SINyckle