A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic of the Talmudic and Geonic Period (review)

Hebrew Studies 45 (2004) 351 Reviews A few further comments: Page 55 line 8 from the bottom: Read H . GGW, instead of HGGW. No. 107:2 and p. 204: ŠMN should probably be translated as “animal oil” and not merely “olive-oil,” referred to by the term MŠH . . There is no reason to have in the same archive two terms for olive-oil, MŠH . and ŠMN, while the translation of the latter as “animal oil” is possible in both Aramaic and Arabic. Moreover, the ostraca mention such animals as rams, lambs, and goats, the sources of such oil. No. 159:2 and page 90: The personal name H . BN is also attested in the Syriac Acts of Thomas (third century C.E.), where he plays an important role. No. 167:1 and p. 94: fiM, in the personal name fiMBfiL, is paternal, not maternal, uncle as is obvious in Semitic. Amir Harrak University of Toronto Toronto, Ontario, Canada a.harrak@utoronto.ca A DICTIONARY OF JEWISH BABYLONIAN ARAMAIC OF THE TALMUDIC AND GEONIC PERIOD. By Michael Sokoloff. Pp. 1582. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University, 2002. Cloth, $160.00. Twelve years after his Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine Period (Ramat Gan, 1 1990, 2 1992, 3 2002), Michael Sokoloff has presented another major contribution to the field of Aramaic lexicography and an important tool for comparative Aramaic and Semitic studies. In the Introduction (pp. 13–24), Sokoloff defines and delimits the textcorpus and presents some methodological thoughts on how to deal with a corpus that contains Aramaic as well as Hebrew passages. His decision to exclude the Hebrew material and treat it in a separate work is to be welcomed from a linguistic point of view. However, I am unhappy with the decision to exclude mere transcriptions of foreign (mainly Greek) words (cf. p. 21 sub 5.1.4). This is regrettable, because such transcriptions are very interesting from a cultural-historical point of view. Happily such transcriptions slip in occasionally , for example, √psntyn (p. 157b), a transcription of Greek aÓyi¿nqion (cf. the Syriac forms √psyntyn and √psntyn in ZDMG 39 [1885] 253 and √psntywn in Patrologia Orientalis XXIV 330,2, that are not to be found either in Brockelmann’s Lexicon Syriacum or in Sokoloff’s Dictionary) or bwlmws from Greek bou¿limoß (cf. Syriac būlı -mōs, Lexicon Syriacum, p. 76a). The introduction is concluded on pp. 25–54 by a list of abbreviations (on p. 45 is Hebrew Studies 45 (2004) 352 Reviews given “Par” for “Parthian,” but throughout the dictionary “MPar” is used [e.g., pp. 75a,14; 136b,26], “A” [e.g., p. 173b,12] seems to mean “protoAramaic ” or “common-Aramaic”; an explanation of the abbreviation “Löw, Lehnw” [p. 158b,-5] is missing). The main part of the dictionary (pp. 71–1239) is well organised and user-friendly. The different semantic nuances of each word are clearly set apart and extensively illustrated by examples. The very complicated print—Sokoloff uses besides Aramaic square-script also East-Syrian-vocalized Estrangela and vocalized Arabic—is done with the greatest care and the proof-reading has been carried out painstakingly. It is obvious that Akkadian, Armenian, Old- and Middle-Iranian parallels and etyma are given in transcription (in the case of New Persian it is not so clear but acceptable), but to transcribe Mandaean words into Hebrew square-script is strange and will hopefully not find followers. Since Sokoloff carefully traces back the etymology of all loanwords, this book becomes a veritable etymological dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic and a treasure-store for comparative lexicography and cultural history . The restriction to one or two dictionaries for each compared language is justified and understandable, for example, for New Persian, Sokoloff uses only Francis Joseph Steingass, Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trabner & Co., 1892). Sometimes this can be misleading: p. 149b,-11: Steingass provides for “white lead” merely sapedā. The New Persian form that is closer to the Aramaic one is found in Wilhelm Eilers, Deutsch-persisches Wörterbuch (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1967), 1:362a: esfı -dāǧ. Even Armenian and Arabic words that derived from one of...