TY - JOUR
T1 - On some non-standard spellings in the Aramaic magic bowls and their linguistic significance
AU - Morgenstern, Matthew
N1 - Funding Information:
gested deleting the resh preceding the name Abdimi, since ‘the abbreviation resh for rabbi is never attested in this period’.77 Howeve r, it appears that this is a phonetic form of the word בר ‘my master’. This interpretation is supported by the testimony of R. Sherira Gaon:
Funding Information:
• היתליחא לזא יאעמש ‘she he ard, we nt and re de e me d it’ (Ket. 86a [HGP 44a:16]). • The later Spanish manuscript MS Hamburg 165 contains a fur-ther example: היברא יאבט ‘may his ship sink!’ (B.B. 153a [H]), a reading supported by the ¨Aruch.96
PY - 2007
Y1 - 2007
N2 - In the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic magic bowls we occasionally find spellings that stray from the linguistic standard employed in these texts. It is argued that in many cases these can be explained as phonetic spellings that reflect aspects of the Aramaic spoken by the scribes. Support for this contention may be found in the better manuscripts of Babylonian Rabbinic literature, wherein such spellings are more frequently employed. It is argued that the corrections of these forms in the magic bowls towards the historical spelling indicates the existence of a literary language in which at least some scribes aspired to write, not always successfully. Since these non-standard spellings provide rare evidence for the nature of the Aramaic spoken by these native scribes, and occasionally provide 'missing links' of the history of Aramaic, the modern editors of the magic bowls must be wary of unnecessarily emending the texts they publish.
AB - In the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic magic bowls we occasionally find spellings that stray from the linguistic standard employed in these texts. It is argued that in many cases these can be explained as phonetic spellings that reflect aspects of the Aramaic spoken by the scribes. Support for this contention may be found in the better manuscripts of Babylonian Rabbinic literature, wherein such spellings are more frequently employed. It is argued that the corrections of these forms in the magic bowls towards the historical spelling indicates the existence of a literary language in which at least some scribes aspired to write, not always successfully. Since these non-standard spellings provide rare evidence for the nature of the Aramaic spoken by these native scribes, and occasionally provide 'missing links' of the history of Aramaic, the modern editors of the magic bowls must be wary of unnecessarily emending the texts they publish.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=43249141212&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/jss/fgm004
DO - 10.1093/jss/fgm004
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AN - SCOPUS:43249141212
VL - 52
SP - 245
EP - 277
JO - Journal of Semitic Studies
JF - Journal of Semitic Studies
SN - 0022-4480
IS - 2
ER -