Introduction to Syriac: An Elementary Grammar with Readings from Syriac Literature (review)

Syriac is the classical Aramaic language of a number of Eastern churches, the most copiously attested literary language of that branch of Semitic. In Europe it is usually treated as one of the languages of the Christian Orient. Traditionally the beginning student of ‘Oriental’ languages is provided with a concise reference grammar (treating orthography, phonology, morphology, and sometimes syntax) followed by a chrestomathy and glossary. The paradigm remains the German series ‘Porta Linguarum Orientalium’ (some volumes appeared in English translation as well), wherein Carl Brockelmann’s Syrische Grammatik (1899; the last revision from the author’s hand seems to date from ca. 1950) still serves its purpose; the glossary was translated and expanded by Moshe Goshen-Gottstein for the benefit of English-speaking students (A Syriac –English glossary with etymological notes, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1970). This is also the format of the corresponding item in the successor series, ‘Porta Linguarum Orientalium Neue Serie’, begun by Harrassowitz some forty years ago (in German or English, but not both): Classical Syriac: A basic grammar with a chrestomathy, by Takamitsu Muraoka (1997); for an extensive and highly critical review, see Rainer Voigt, Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 94.145–62, 1999. James A. Crichton’s translation (1904) of the standard reference work, A compendious Syriac grammar, by Theodor Nöldeke (1898), has been reprinted with a translation by Peter T. Daniels of the notes in Nöldeke’s personal copy edited by Anton Schall (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2001). In England, Syriac was treated like Greek and Latin, with a compact volume of Paradigms and exercises in Syriac grammar, by Theodore H. Robinson (1915; 4th edn., revised by L. H. Brockington, Oxford: Clarendon, 1962).

Thackston’s textbook of Syriac is in a format similar to that of his previous Persian and Arabic textbooks from the same publisher. It combines the Orientalist and Classicist models, providing twenty lessons, each introducing disparate grammatical features and a short vocabulary list along with translation exercises both from and (for the first fourteen lessons) into Syriac; an appendix of paradigms (in transliteration only); a very scant reference list; a smaller chrestomathy than Brockelmann’s; and a glossary and subject index.

Of the three varieties of Syriac script, Estrangelo is used throughout, and Nestorian and Serto are introduced in the reading selections from Lessons 12 and 13 respectively. No practice whatsoever is offered in reading vocalized text, even in Bible selections, although biblical texts are rarely found without the vowel pointing. Instead, each vocabulary item and paradigm entry is accompanied by a complete transliteration upon introduction and in the glossary (but stop lenition [‘spirantization’] is indicated only exceptionally). The lessons in Robinson’s Paradigms and exercises follow the order of a reference grammar, with all noun pedagogy preceding the introduction of any verb teaching, then verb inflection and derivation and the handling of the ‘weak’, that is, glide (etc.)-containing, verbs that bulk so large in any Semitic grammar. (‘Strong’ and ‘weak’ here have a sense opposite to that in Germanic grammars, where the weak verbs are the regular ones.) T’s pedagogical order seems more useful, allowing the student to use verbs from the very beginning (though why the imperfect is withheld until Lesson 14, and its use until Lesson 15, is a mystery). Syntax is not explicitly treated, perhaps because of a feeling that the SVO typology, a product of the pervasive influence of Greek, which contrasts with the VSO usual in Semitic, even earlier Aramaic, is sufficiently clear to the English (or German)-speaking student.

If it is felt that today’s students are unable to handle the reference-grammar-plus-texts approach to studying the less commonly taught languages, then T’s volume will be useful. The convolutions the author goes through (xxv–xxvi) to avoid the concept of reconstructed proto-Semitic segments in presenting sound correspondences among the Semitic languages are puzzling and surely confusing, especially since it is unlikely...