# Aramaic: use of aleph as a mater lectionis



## zaw

Hi,

Numbers 19:17 says

(יז) וְלָֽקְחוּ֙ לַטָּמֵ֔א מֵעֲפַ֖ר שְׂרֵפַ֣ת הַֽחַטָּ֑את וְנָתַ֥ן עָלָ֛יו מַ֥יִם חַיִּ֖ים אֶל־כֶּֽלִי׃

Targum Onkelos says

וְיִסְּבוּן לְדִמְסָאַב מֵעֲפַר יְקֵידַת חַטָּתָא וְיִתְּנוּן עֲלוֹהִי מֵי מַבּוּעַ לְמָאן.

Does the word מָאן prove that in Aramaic you use not just yud and waw as mater lectionis but also aleph (instead of he)? If so, this is shocking from the perspective of Hebrew, because there you never use aleph as a mater lectionis, you use he instead.

Toda raba


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## Abaye

zaw said:


> this is shocking from the perspective of Hebrew, because there you never use aleph as a mater lectionis, you use he instead.


This is inaccurate.

וְקָ*א*ם שָׁאוֹן בְּעַמֶּךָ
מְבִיאִים דָּ*א*ג וְכָל־מֶכֶר
אֶחָד עָשִׁיר וְאֶחָד רָ*א*שׁ
רָ*א*מוֹת לֶאֱוִיל חָכְמוֹת


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## fdb

This all depends on what form of Aramaic you mean. In Achaemenid Aramaic aleph and he are both used for final stressed /ā/. In Syriac final -ā is regularly written with aleph. In Mandaic aleph is used both for long and short /a, ā/ in all positions. The general tendency in Aramaic is to use more matres lectionis the later you get.


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## Abaye

fdb said:


> The general tendency in Aramaic is to use more matres lectionis the later you get.


Comparing again to Hebrew, in older documents _yod_ (for "i") and _waw_ (for "o" and "u"), _he_ ה at end of word, are the common ones. Later we started using א more often, but until today it's almost solely for foreign words and may seem a spelling mistake for Hebrew words (that is, words we consider Hebrew even if their far origin is foreign), while we feel free to insert yod and waw nearly everywhere.

If I remember correctly, Ugaritic last three letters are used only as matres lectionis for foreign words, or were originally like that, a concept similar to the use of mater lectionis א in modern Hebrew.


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## Ali Smith

Abaye said:


> This is inaccurate.
> 
> וְקָ*א*ם שָׁאוֹן בְּעַמֶּךָ
> מְבִיאִים דָּ*א*ג וְכָל־מֶכֶר
> אֶחָד עָשִׁיר וְאֶחָד רָ*א*שׁ
> רָ*א*מוֹת לֶאֱוִיל חָכְמוֹת


But the alephs in all these words represents an original glottal stop. Later, when the aleph quiesced, it may have come to be reinterpreted as a mater lectionis, but it didn't start out that way.


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## Abaye

Ali Smith said:


> But the alephs in all these words represents an original glottal stop.


This is inaccurate.


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