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151-622: The Targum Sheni , also known as the Second Targum of Esther , is an Aramaic translation ( targum ) and elaboration of the Book of Esther . Notably, the biblical account is embellished with a considerable amount of new apocryphal material in this book. The text is sometimes referred to as the Second Targum of Esther to contrast it with another shorter targum on the Book of Esther: Targum Rishon , or

302-954: A Latin script . Periodization of historical development of Aramaic language has been the subject of particular interest for scholars, who proposed several types of periodization, based on linguistic, chronological and territorial criteria. Overlapping terminology, used in different periodizations, led to the creation of several polysemic terms, that are used differently among scholars. Terms like: Old Aramaic, Ancient Aramaic, Early Aramaic, Middle Aramaic, Late Aramaic (and some others, like Paleo-Aramaic), were used in various meanings, thus referring (in scope or substance) to different stages in historical development of Aramaic language. Most commonly used types of periodization are those of Klaus Beyer and Joseph Fitzmyer. Periodization of Klaus Beyer (1929–2014): Periodization of Joseph Fitzmyer (1920–2016): Recent periodization of Aaron Butts: Aramaic's long history and diverse and widespread use has led to

453-459: A street culture outside the purview of adults. This is also ideal where it needs to be collected; as Iona and Peter Opie demonstrated in their pioneering book Children's Games in Street and Playground . Here the social group of children is studied on its own terms, not as a derivative of adult social groups. It is shown that the culture of children is quite distinctive; it is generally unnoticed by

604-432: A binary: one individual or group who actively transmits information in some form to another individual or group. Each of these is a defined role in the folklore process. The tradition-bearer is the individual who actively passes along the knowledge of an artifact; this can be either a mother singing a lullaby to her baby, or an Irish dance troupe performing at a local festival. They are named individuals, usually well known in

755-408: A child's birthday party, including verbal lore ( Happy Birthday song ), material lore (presents and a birthday cake), special games ( Musical chairs ) and individual customs (making a wish as you blow out the candles). Each of these is a folklore artifact in its own right, potentially worthy of investigation and cultural analysis. Together they combine to build the custom of a birthday party celebration,

906-483: A community. Many objects of material folklore are challenging to classify, difficult to archive, and unwieldy to store. The assigned task of museums is to preserve and make use of these bulky artifacts of material culture. To this end, the concept of the living museum has developed, beginning in Scandinavia at the end of the 19th century. These open-air museums not only display the artifacts, but also teach visitors how

1057-616: A complex set of semantic phenomena was created, becoming a subject of interest both among ancient writers and modern scholars. The Koine Greek word Ἑβραϊστί ( Hebraïstí ) has been translated as "Aramaic" in some versions of the Christian New Testament , as Aramaic was at that time the language commonly spoken by the Jews . However, Ἑβραϊστί is consistently used in Koine Greek at this time to mean Hebrew and Συριστί ( Syristi )

1208-649: A compound of folk and lore , was coined in 1846 by the Englishman William Thoms , who contrived the term as a replacement for the contemporary terminology of "popular antiquities" or "popular literature". The second half of the word, lore , comes from Old English lār 'instruction'. It is the knowledge and traditions of a particular group frequently passed along by word of mouth. The concept of folk has varied over time. When Thoms first created this term, folk applied only to rural, frequently poor, and illiterate peasants. A more modern definition of folk

1359-478: A prestige language after being adopted as a lingua franca of the empire by Assyrian kings, and its use was spread throughout Mesopotamia , the Levant and parts of Asia Minor , Arabian Peninsula , and Ancient Iran under Assyrian rule. At its height, Aramaic was spoken in what is now Iraq , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Jordan , Kuwait , parts of southeast and south central Turkey , northern parts of

1510-726: A prestige language. Following the conquest of the Sassanids by the Arabs in the 7th-century, the Aramaic-derived writing system was replaced by the Arabic alphabet in all but Zoroastrian usage , which continued to use the name 'pahlavi' for the Aramaic-derived writing system and went on to create the bulk of all Middle Iranian literature in that writing system. Other regional dialects continued to exist alongside these, often as simple, spoken variants of Aramaic. Early evidence for these vernacular dialects

1661-504: A problem to be solved, but as a tremendous opportunity. In the diversity of American folklife, we find a marketplace teeming with the exchange of traditional forms and cultural ideas, a rich resource for Americans". This diversity is celebrated annually at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and many other folklife fests around the country. There are numerous other definitions. According to William Bascom major article on

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1812-473: A reading present in only one manuscript. Iafrate argued for 10th century date based on resemblances to texts composed from that era, including the De Ceremoniis and Midrash Abba Gorion . The Encyclopaedia Judaica entry on the text favors a 7th-to-8th century date based on the linguistic features of the (Galilean) Aramaic text, like its selection of Greek loan words. Kalimi prefers a pre-Islamic date due to

1963-516: A relatively close resemblance to that of the Achaemenid period, continued to be used up to the 2nd century BCE. By the end of the 2nd century BC, several variants of Post-Achaemenid Aramaic emerged, bearing regional characteristics. One of them was Hasmonaean Aramaic, the official administrative language of Hasmonaean Judaea (142–37 BC), alongside Hebrew , which was the language preferred in religious and some other public uses (coinage). It influenced

2114-594: A scripted combination of multiple artifacts which have meaning within their social group. Folklorists divide customs into several different categories. A custom can be a seasonal celebration , such as Thanksgiving or New Year's . It can be a life cycle celebration for an individual, such as baptism, birthday or wedding. A custom can also mark a community festival or event; examples of this are Carnival in Cologne or Mardi Gras in New Orleans . This category also includes

2265-509: A shift in purpose and meaning. There are many reasons for continuing to handmake objects for use, for example these skills may be needed to repair manufactured items, or a unique design might be required which is not (or cannot be) found in the stores. Many crafts are considered as simple home maintenance, such as cooking, sewing and carpentry. For many people, handicrafts have also become an enjoyable and satisfying hobby. Handmade objects are often regarded as prestigious, where extra time and thought

2416-426: A small sampling of objects and skills that are included in studies of material culture. Customary culture is remembered enactment, i.e. re-enactment. It is the patterns of expected behavior within a group, the "traditional and expected way of doing things" A custom can be a single gesture , such as thumbs down or a handshake . It can also be a complex interaction of multiple folk customs and artifacts as seen in

2567-450: A social event during the winter months, or the gifting of a quilt to signify the importance of the event. Each of these—the traditional pattern chosen, the social event, and the gifting—occur within the broader context of the community. Even so, when considering context, the structure and characteristics of performance can be recognized, including an audience, a framing event, and the use of decorative figures and symbols, all of which go beyond

2718-400: A swell in popular interest in folk traditions, these community celebrations are becoming more numerous throughout the western world. While ostensibly parading the diversity of their community, economic groups have discovered that these folk parades and festivals are good for business. All shades of people are out on the streets, eating, drinking and spending. This attracts support not only from

2869-553: A whole, even as it continues to be a point of discussion within the field itself. The term folkloristics , along with the alternative name folklore studies , became widely used in the 1950s to distinguish the academic study of traditional culture from the folklore artifacts themselves. When the American Folklife Preservation Act (Public Law 94-201) was passed by the U.S. Congress in January 1976, to coincide with

3020-492: Is "not idle speculation… Decades of fieldwork have demonstrated conclusively that these groups do have their own folklore." In this modern understanding, folklore is a function of shared identity within any social group. This folklore can include jokes, sayings, and expected behavior in multiple variants, always transmitted in an informal manner. For the most part, it will be learned by observation, imitation, repetition, or correction by other group members. This informal knowledge

3171-457: Is a distinct branch of folklore that deals with activities passed on by children to other children, away from the influence or supervision of an adult. Children's folklore contains artifacts from all the standard folklore genres of verbal, material, and customary lore; it is however the child-to-child conduit that distinguishes these artifacts. For childhood is a social group where children teach, learn and share their own traditions, flourishing in

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3322-673: Is a social group that includes two or more people with common traits who express their shared identity through distinctive traditions. "Folk is a flexible concept which can refer to a nation as in American folklore or to a single family. " This expanded social definition of folk supports a broader view of the material, i.e., the lore, considered to be folklore artifacts . These now include all "things people make with words (verbal lore), things they make with their hands (material lore), and things they make with their actions (customary lore)". Folklore are no longer considered to be limited to that which

3473-400: Is also transmitted within a group, remains a practical hygiene and health issue and does not rise to the level of a group-defining tradition. Tradition is initially remembered behavior; once it loses its practical purpose, there is no reason for further transmission unless it has been imbued with meaning beyond the initial practicality of the action. This meaning is at the core of folkloristics,

3624-562: Is an emphasis on writing as words are pronounced rather than using etymological forms. The use of written Aramaic in the Achaemenid bureaucracy also precipitated the adoption of Aramaic(-derived) scripts to render a number of Middle Iranian languages. Moreover, many common words, including even pronouns, particles, numerals, and auxiliaries, continued to be written as Aramaic "words" even when writing Middle Iranian languages. In time, in Iranian usage, these Aramaic "words" became disassociated from

3775-480: Is as close as folklorists can come to observing the transmission and social function of this folk knowledge before the spread of literacy during the 19th century. As we have seen with the other genres, the original collections of children's lore and games in the 19th century was driven by a fear that the culture of childhood would die out. Early folklorists, among them Alice Gomme in Britain and William Wells Newell in

3926-404: Is enmeshed in a multitude of differing identities and their concomitant social groups. The first group that each of us is born into is the family, and each family has its own unique family folklore . As a child grows into an individual, its identities also increase to include age, language, ethnicity, occupation, etc. Each of these cohorts has its own folklore, and as one folklorist points out, this

4077-536: Is found in an issue of the Journal of American Folklore , published in 1975, which is dedicated exclusively to articles on women's folklore, with approaches that had not come from a man's perspective. Other groups that were highlighted as part of this broadened understanding of the folk group were non-traditional families , occupational groups, and families that pursued the production of folk items over multiple generations. Folklorist Richard Dorson explained in 1976 that

4228-451: Is found in hex signs on Pennsylvania Dutch barns, tin man sculptures made by metalworkers, front yard Christmas displays, decorated school lockers, carved gun stocks, and tattoos. "Words such as naive, self-taught, and individualistic are used to describe these objects, and the exceptional rather than the representative creation is featured." This is in contrast to the understanding of folklore artifacts that are nurtured and passed along within

4379-559: Is intended to organize and categorize the folklore artifacts; they provide common vocabulary and consistent labeling for folklorists to communicate with each other. That said, each artifact is unique; in fact, one of the characteristics of all folklore artifacts is their variation within genres and types. This is in direct contrast to manufactured goods, where the goal in production is to create identical products, and any variations are considered mistakes. It is, however, just this required variation that makes identification and classification of

4530-427: Is known only through their influence on words and names in a more standard dialect. However, some of those regional dialects became written languages by the 2nd century BC. These dialects reflect a stream of Aramaic that is not directly dependent on Achaemenid Aramaic , and they also show a clear linguistic diversity between eastern and western regions. Babylonian Targumic is the later post-Achaemenid dialect found in

4681-521: Is known to have made use of the text. Likewise, it has been shown to depend on (and therefore post-date) the Babylonian Talmud . The present consensus is that Targum Sheni dates somewhere between the late Byzantine period to the early Islamic period. Grossfeld places it in the early seventh century but before Islam based on its description of Rome as being swept away in favor of the son of David, but others have observed that this argument depends on

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4832-520: Is not just any conversation, but words and phrases conforming to a traditional configuration recognized by both the speaker and the audience. For narrative types , by definition, they have a consistent structure and follow an existing model in their narrative form. As just one simple example, in English, the phrase "An elephant walks into a bar…" instantaneously flags the following text as a joke . It might be one you have already heard, but it might be one that

4983-593: Is now called Syria, is considered the linguistic center of Aramaic, the language of the Arameans who settled the area during the Bronze Age c.  3500 BC . The language is often mistakenly considered to have originated within Assyria (Iraq). In fact, Arameans carried their language and writing into Mesopotamia by voluntary migration, by forced exile of conquering armies, and by nomadic Chaldean invasions of Babylonia during

5134-451: Is often spoken of as a single language but is actually a group of related languages. Some languages differ more from each other than the Romance languages do among themselves. Its long history, extensive literature, and use by different religious communities are all factors in the diversification of the language. Some Aramaic dialects are mutually intelligible, whereas others are not, similar to

5285-411: Is old or obsolete. These folk artifacts continue to be passed along informally, as a rule anonymously, and always in multiple variants. The folk group is not individualistic; it is community-based and nurtures its lore in community. "As new groups emerge, new folklore is created… surfers, motorcyclists, computer programmers ". In direct contrast to high culture , where any single work of a named artist

5436-434: Is protected by copyright law , folklore is a function of shared identity within a common social group. Having identified folk artifacts, the professional folklorist strives to understand the significance of these beliefs, customs, and objects for the group, since these cultural units would not be passed along unless they had some continued relevance within the group. That meaning can, however, shift and morph; for example,

5587-578: Is spent in their creation and their uniqueness is valued. For the folklorist, these hand-crafted objects embody multifaceted relationships in the lives of the craftspeople and the users, a concept that has been lost with mass-produced items that have no connection to an individual craftsperson. Many traditional crafts, such as ironworking and glass-making, have been elevated to the fine or applied arts and taught in art schools; or they have been repurposed as folk art , characterized as objects whose decorative form supersedes their utilitarian needs. Folk art

5738-498: Is still the main spoken language, and many large cities in this region also have Suret-speaking communities, particularly Mosul , Erbil , Kirkuk , Dohuk , and al-Hasakah . In modern Israel, the only native Aramaic-speaking population are the Jews of Kurdistan , although the language is dying out. However, Aramaic is also experiencing a revival among Maronites in Israel in Jish . Aramaic

5889-403: Is still transmitted orally and, indeed, continues to be generated in new forms and variants at an alarming rate. Below is listed a small sampling of types and examples of verbal lore. The genre of material culture includes all artifacts that can be touched, held, lived in, or eaten. They are tangible objects with a physical or mental presence, either intended for permanent use or to be used at

6040-660: Is the complex balance of continuity over change in both their design and their decoration. In Europe, prior to the Industrial Revolution , everything was made by hand. While some folklorists of the 19th century wanted to secure the oral traditions of the rural folk before the populace became literate, other folklorists sought to identify hand-crafted objects before their production processes were lost to industrial manufacturing. Just as verbal lore continues to be actively created and transmitted in today's culture, so these handicrafts can still be found all around us, with possibly

6191-473: Is the mixing of literary Hasmonaean with the dialect of Galilee . The Hasmonaean targums reached Galilee in the 2nd century AD, and were reworked into this Galilean dialect for local use. The Galilean Targum was not considered an authoritative work by other communities, and documentary evidence shows that its text was amended. From the 11th century AD onwards, once the Babylonian Targum had become normative,

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6342-540: Is used in discussions of material lore. Both formulations offer different perspectives on the same folkloric understanding, specifically that folklore artifacts need to remain embedded in their cultural environment if we are to gain insight into their meaning for the community. The concept of cultural (folklore) performance is shared with ethnography and anthropology among other social sciences. The cultural anthropologist Victor Turner identified four universal characteristics of cultural performance: playfulness, framing ,

6493-428: Is used to confirm and reinforce the identity of the group. It can be used both internally within the group to express their common identity, for example in an initiation ceremony for new members. It can also be used externally to differentiate the group from outsiders, like a folk dance demonstration at a community festival. Significant to folklorists here is that there are two opposing but equally valid ways to use this in

6644-510: Is used to mean Aramaic. In Biblical scholarship, the term "Chaldean" was for many years used as a synonym of Aramaic, due to its use in the book of Daniel and subsequent interpretation by Jerome . During the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires, Arameans , the native speakers of Aramaic, began to settle in greater numbers in Babylonia , and later in the heartland of Assyria , also known as

6795-489: The Achaemenid (Persian) conquest of Mesopotamia under Darius I , Aramaic (as had been used in that region) was adopted by the conquerors as the "vehicle for written communication between the different regions of the vast empire with its different peoples and languages. The use of a single official language, which modern scholarship has dubbed Official Aramaic or Imperial Aramaic , can be assumed to have greatly contributed to

6946-531: The Achaemenid Empire (539–330 BC). Mediated by scribes that had been trained in the language, highly standardized written Aramaic, named by scholars Imperial Aramaic , progressively also became the lingua franca of public life, trade and commerce throughout Achaemenid territories. Wide use of written Aramaic subsequently led to the adoption of the Aramaic alphabet and, as logograms , some Aramaic vocabulary in

7097-564: The Anti-Lebanon Mountains in western Syria . They have retained use of the once-dominant lingua franca despite subsequent language shifts experienced throughout the Middle East. The connection between Chaldean, Syriac, and Samaritan as "Aramaic" was first identified in 1679 by German theologian Johann Wilhelm Hilliger . In 1819–21 Ulrich Friedrich Kopp published his Bilder und Schriften der Vorzeit ("Images and Inscriptions of

7248-589: The Arabian Peninsula and parts of northwest Iran , as well as the southern Caucasus , having gradually replaced several other related Semitic languages. According to the Babylonian Talmud ( Sanhedrin 38b), the language spoken by Adam – the Bible's first human – was Aramaic. Aramaic was the language of Jesus , who spoke the Galilean dialect during his public ministry, as well as

7399-679: The Aramaic alphabet , a descendant of the Phoenician alphabet , and the most prominent alphabet variant is the Syriac alphabet . The Aramaic alphabet also became a base for the creation and adaptation of specific writing systems in some other Semitic languages of West Asia , such as the Hebrew alphabet and the Arabic alphabet . The Aramaic languages are now considered endangered , with several varieties used mainly by

7550-704: The Assyrians , Mandeans , Mizrahi Jews . Classical varieties are used as liturgical and literary languages in several West Asian churches, as well as in Judaism , Samaritanism , and Mandaeism . Aramaic belongs to the Northwest group of the Semitic language family , which also includes the mutually intelligible Canaanite languages such as Hebrew , Edomite , Moabite , Ekronite, Sutean , and Phoenician , as well as Amorite and Ugaritic . Aramaic languages are written in

7701-543: The Bible : Biblical Aramaic is a somewhat hybrid dialect. It is theorized that some Biblical Aramaic material originated in both Babylonia and Judaea before the fall of the Achaemenid dynasty. Biblical Aramaic presented various challenges for writers who were engaged in early Biblical studies . Since the time of Jerome of Stridon (d. 420), Aramaic of the Bible was named as "Chaldean" (Chaldaic, Chaldee). That label remained common in early Aramaic studies , and persisted up into

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7852-818: The Bicentennial Celebration , folkloristics in the United States came of age. "…[Folklife] means the traditional expressive culture shared within the various groups in the United States: familial, ethnic, occupational, religious, regional; expressive culture includes a wide range of creative and symbolic forms such as custom, belief, technical skill, language, literature, art, architecture, music, play, dance, drama, ritual, pageantry, handicraft; these expressions are mainly learned orally, by imitation, or in performance, and are generally maintained without benefit of formal instruction or institutional direction." Added to

8003-585: The Carpentras Stele corresponded to the Aramaic in the Book of Daniel , and in the Book of Ruth . Josephus and Strabo (the latter citing Posidonius ) both stated that the "Syrians" called themselves "Arameans". The Septuagint , the earliest extant full copy of the Hebrew Bible, a Greek translation, used the terms Syria and Syrian where the Masoretic Text , the earliest extant Hebrew copy of

8154-524: The Euphrates , Tiglath-Pileser III made Aramaic the Empire's second official language, and it eventually supplanted Akkadian completely. From 700 BC, the language began to spread in all directions, but lost much of its unity. Different dialects emerged in Assyria, Babylonia, the Levant and Egypt . Around 600 BC, Adon, a Canaanite king, used Aramaic to write to an Egyptian Pharaoh . Around 500 BC, following

8305-602: The Halloween celebration of the 21st century is not the All Hallows' Eve of the Middle Ages and even gives rise to its own set of urban legends independent of the historical celebration; the cleansing rituals of Orthodox Judaism were originally good public health in a land with little water, but now these customs signify for some people identification as an Orthodox Jew. By comparison, a common action such as tooth brushing , which

8456-623: The Hebrew Bible is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Aramaic language Aramaic served as a language of public life and administration of ancient kingdoms and empires, and also as a language of divine worship and religious study. Western Aramaic is still spoken by the Christian and Muslim Arameans (Syriacs) in the towns of Maaloula and nearby Jubb'adin in Syria . Other modern varieties include Neo-Aramaic languages spoken by

8607-616: The Historic–Geographic Method , a methodology that dominated folkloristics in the first half of the 20th century. When William Thoms first published his appeal to document the verbal lore of the rural populations, it was believed these folk artifacts would die out as the population became literate. Over the past two centuries, this belief has proven to be wrong; folklorists continue to collect verbal lore in both written and spoken form from all social groups. Some variants might have been captured in published collections, but much of it

8758-521: The Pahlavi scripts , which were used by several Middle Iranian languages , including Parthian , Middle Persian , Sogdian , and Khwarezmian . Some variants of Aramaic are also retained as sacred languages by certain religious communities. Most notable among them is Classical Syriac , the liturgical language of Syriac Christianity . It is used by several communities, including the Assyrian Church of

8909-605: The Phoenician alphabet , and there is a unity in the written language. It seems that, in time, a more refined alphabet, suited to the needs of the language, began to develop from this in the eastern regions of Aram. Due to increasing Aramean migration eastward, the Western periphery of Assyria became bilingual in Akkadian and Aramean at least as early as the mid-9th century BC. As the Neo-Assyrian Empire conquered Aramean lands west of

9060-744: The Qur'anic account of Solomon and the Queen in Surah 27:15–44. According to Q 27:16–17, after Solomon took the throne after David, he was taught the "speech of birds" and had an army involving "jinn, humans, and birds". Likewise, Targum Sheni 1:3 asserts also asserts right after describing Solomon taking the throne that he had the obedience of "devils, demons, and ferocious beasts, evil spirits and accidents" and that all sorts of animals, fish, birds and so forth of their own will came to him to be slaughtered for him to eat. The Quranic account continues about Solomon: "Then he inspected

9211-463: The Sasanian Empire (224 AD), dominating the influential, eastern dialect region. As such, the term covers over thirteen centuries of the development of Aramaic. This vast time span includes all Aramaic that is now effectively extinct. Regarding the earliest forms, Beyer suggests that written Aramaic probably dates from the 11th century BCE, as it is established by the 10th century, to which he dates

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9362-556: The Smithsonian Folklife Festival celebrated each summer on the Mall in Washington, DC. A fourth category includes customs related to folk beliefs . Walking under a ladder is just one of many symbols considered unlucky . Occupational groups tend to have a rich history of customs related to their life and work, so the traditions of sailors or lumberjacks . The area of ecclesiastical folklore , which includes modes of worship not sanctioned by

9513-485: The Targum Onqelos and Targum Jonathan , the "official" targums. The original, Hasmonaean targums had reached Babylon sometime in the 2nd or 3rd century AD. They were then reworked according to the contemporary dialect of Babylon to create the language of the standard targums. This combination formed the basis of Babylonian Jewish literature for centuries to follow. Galilean Targumic is similar to Babylonian Targumic. It

9664-437: The earliest languages to be written down . Aramaicist Holger Gzella  [ de ] notes, "The linguistic history of Aramaic prior to the appearance of the first textual sources in the ninth century BC remains unknown." Aramaic is also believed by most historians and scholars to have been the primary language spoken by Jesus of Nazareth both for preaching and in everyday life. Historically and originally, Aramaic

9815-508: The woodcock refuses to attend, on the grounds that Solomon is inferior to the Queen of Sheba . Solomon sends for the Queen, and houses her in a room made of glass, through which he reveals that she has a hairy foot. She demands from him the answer to three riddles before she will pay homage: Solomon solves the riddles, and the two exchange gifts. The riddles are noteworthy examples of Hebrew Riddles . In addition, there are fifteen manuscripts from

9966-587: The "Arbela triangle" ( Assur , Nineveh , and Arbela ). The influx eventually resulted in the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC) adopting an Akkadian -influenced Imperial Aramaic as the lingua franca of its empire. This policy was continued by the short-lived Neo-Babylonian Empire and the Medes , and all three empires became operationally bilingual in written sources, with Aramaic used alongside Akkadian. The Achaemenid Empire (539–323 BC) continued this tradition, and

10117-459: The 3rd century BCE, Greek overtook Aramaic in many spheres of public communication, particularly in highly Hellenized cities throughout the Seleucid domains. However, Aramaic continued to be used, in its post-Achaemenid form, among upper and literate classes of native Aramaic-speaking communities, and also by local authorities (along with the newly introduced Greek). Post-Achaemenid Aramaic, that bears

10268-587: The Achaemenid-era use of Aramaic was more pervasive than generally thought. Imperial Aramaic was highly standardised; its orthography was based more on historical roots than any spoken dialect, and the inevitable influence of Persian gave the language a new clarity and robust flexibility. For centuries after the fall of the Achaemenid Empire (in 330 BC), Imperial Aramaic – or a version thereof near enough for it to be recognisable – would remain an influence on

10419-489: The American Folklore Society brought the behavioral approach into open debate among folklorists. In 1972 Richard Dorson called out the "young Turks" for their movement toward a behavioral approach to folklore. This approach "shifted the conceptualization of folklore as an extractable item or 'text' to an emphasis on folklore as a kind of human behavior and communication. Conceptualizing folklore as behavior redefined

10570-469: The Aramaic language and came to be understood as signs (i.e. logograms ), much like the symbol '&' is read as "and" in English and the original Latin et is now no longer obvious. Under the early 3rd-century BC Parthian Arsacids , whose government used Greek but whose native language was Parthian , the Parthian language and its Aramaic-derived writing system both gained prestige. This in turn also led to

10721-646: The Assyrians of northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and northwest Iran, with diaspora communities in Armenia , Georgia , Azerbaijan , and southern Russia . The Mandaeans also continue to use Classical Mandaic as a liturgical language, although most now speak Arabic as their first language. There are still also a small number of first-language speakers of Western Aramaic varieties in isolated villages in western Syria. Being in contact with other regional languages, some Neo-Aramaic dialects were often engaged in

10872-518: The Bible, uses the terms Aramean and Aramaic ; numerous later bibles followed the Septuagint's usage, including the King James Version . This connection between the names Syrian and Aramaic was discussed in 1835 by Étienne Marc Quatremère . In historical sources, Aramaic language is designated by two distinctive groups of terms, first of them represented by endonymic (native) names, and

11023-622: The Biblical Aramaic of the Qumran texts, and was the main language of non-biblical theological texts of that community. The major Targums , translations of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic, were originally composed in Hasmonaean Aramaic. It also appears in quotations in the Mishnah and Tosefta , although smoothed into its later context. It is written quite differently from Achaemenid Aramaic; there

11174-824: The East , the Ancient Church of the East , the Chaldean Catholic Church , the Syriac Orthodox Church , the Syriac Catholic Church , the Maronite Church , and also the Saint Thomas Christians , Syriac Christians of Kerala , India . One of the liturgical dialects was Mandaic , which besides becoming a vernacular, Neo-Mandaic , also remained the liturgical language of Mandaeism . Syriac

11325-565: The First Targum of Esther. The relationship and similarities between the two have been an important focus of research by scholars. The Jewish Encyclopedia characterizes the story as a "genuine and exuberant midrash ", i.e. a free elaboration, of a kind not unusual in Rabbinic literature . One notable addition to the story involves King Solomon holding a feast for the daunting army of animals, birds and demonic spirits he has as subjects. But

11476-535: The Galilean version became heavily influenced by it. Babylonian Documentary Aramaic is a dialect in use from the 3rd century AD onwards. It is the dialect of Babylonian private documents, and, from the 12th century, all Jewish private documents are in Aramaic. It is based on Hasmonaean with very few changes. This was perhaps because many of the documents in BDA are legal documents, the language in them had to be sensible throughout

11627-545: The History and Folklore Section of the American Folklore Society and concerned with the connections of folklore with history, as well as the history of folklore studies. Lacking context, folklore artifacts would be uninspiring objects without any life of their own. It is only through performance that the artifacts come alive as an active and meaningful component of a social group; the intergroup communication arises in

11778-470: The Jewish community from the start, and Hasmonaean was the old standard. Folklore Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people , culture or subculture . This includes oral traditions such as tales , myths , legends , proverbs , poems , jokes , and other oral traditions. This also includes material culture , such as traditional building styles common to

11929-570: The Past"), in which he established the basis of the paleographical development of the Northwest Semitic scripts. Kopp criticised Jean-Jacques Barthélemy and other scholars who had characterized all the then-known inscriptions and coins as Phoenician, with "everything left to the Phoenicians and nothing to the Arameans, as if they could not have written at all". Kopp noted that some of the words on

12080-556: The Queen of Saba proceeds to send Solomon envoys of gifts. Both accounts proceed by saying that the Queen of Saba decides to proceed and go before Solomon, and she submits before him and ends up worshipping the one true God. The exact nature of the relationship is impacted by which of the two texts is earlier. While the Quran is well-placed in the early seventh century, dates for Targum Sheni range considerably and hypothesis involve both pre-Islamic and post-Islamic dates. Some scholars who view

12231-513: The Quran as earlier still believe that Targum Sheni incorporates pre-existing Jewish and folkloric traditions, perhaps including sixth-century Christian input, which were closer to those presented in the Targum Sheni . The most recent opinion is that the Quran presupposes the narrative found in the Targum Sheni . This article about a Judaism -related book or text is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article related to

12382-471: The Quran talks about how the fowl returned to Solomon and reported to him his finding of a kingdom named Sheba with a woman as its leader who has everything and has a mighty throne, but who also worships the sun instead of God (vv. 22-25). Likewise in Targum Sheni , the cock returns to Solomon and reports to him that he has found a kingdom with a woman as its leader, the "Queen of Saba", and that this kingdom has virtually endless resources and whose people worship

12533-529: The Second World War, folklorists began to articulate a more holistic approach toward their subject matter. In tandem with the growing sophistication in the social sciences , attention was no longer limited to the isolated artifact, but extended to include the artifact embedded in an active cultural environment. One early proponent was Alan Dundes with his essay "Texture, Text and Context", first published 1964. A public presentation in 1967 by Dan Ben-Amos at

12684-599: The United States, felt a need to capture the unstructured and unsupervised street life and activities of children before it was lost. This fear proved to be unfounded. In a comparison of any modern school playground during recess and the painting of "Children's Games" by Pieter Breugel the Elder we can see that the activity level is similar, and many of the games from the 1560 painting are recognizable and comparable to modern variations still played today. These same artifacts of childlore, in innumerable variations, also continue to serve

12835-628: The adoption of the name ' pahlavi ' (< parthawi , "of the Parthians") for that writing system. The Persian Sassanids , who succeeded the Parthian Arsacids in the mid-3rd century AD, subsequently inherited/adopted the Parthian-mediated Aramaic-derived writing system for their own Middle Iranian ethnolect as well. That particular Middle Iranian dialect, Middle Persian , i.e. the language of Persia proper, subsequently also became

12986-413: The artifacts and turn them into something else; so Old McDonald's farm is transformed from animal noises to the scatological version of animal poop. This childlore is characterized by "its lack of dependence on literary and fixed form. Children…operate among themselves in a world of informal and oral communication, unimpeded by the necessity of maintaining and transmitting information by written means". This

13137-482: The astonishing success of the Achaemenids in holding their far-flung empire together for as long as they did". In 1955, Richard Frye questioned the classification of Imperial Aramaic as an "official language", noting that no surviving edict expressly and unambiguously accorded that status to any particular language. Frye reclassifies Imperial Aramaic as the lingua franca of the Achaemenid territories, suggesting then that

13288-501: The best known is the Story of Ahikar , a book of instructive aphorisms quite similar in style to the biblical Book of Proverbs . Consensus as of 2022 regards the Aramaic portion of the Biblical book of Daniel (i.e., 2:4b–7:28) as an example of Imperial (Official) Aramaic. Achaemenid Aramaic is sufficiently uniform that it is often difficult to know where any particular example of the language

13439-428: The birds, and said, “Why do I not see the hoopoe? Or is he among the absentees? I will punish him most severely, or slay him, unless he gives me a valid excuse"" (vv. 20-21). Similarly, Targum Sheni proceeds soon after the previous quote: “At that time, the cock of the wood was missed among the fowls, and was not found. Then the king commanded in anger that he should appear before him, or else he would destroy him." Next,

13590-423: The business community, but also from federal and state organizations for these local street parties. Paradoxically, in parading diversity within the community, these events have come to authenticate true community, where business interests ally with the varied (folk) social groups to promote the interests of the community as a whole. This is just a small sampling of types and examples of customary lore. Childlore

13741-457: The complexity of the interpretation, the birthday party for a seven-year-old will not be identical to the birthday party for that same child as a six-year-old, even though they follow the same model. For each artifact embodies a single variant of a performance in a given time and space. The task of the folklorist becomes to identify within this surfeit of variables the constants and the expressed meaning that shimmer through all variations: honoring of

13892-472: The continent is a single example of an ethnic group parading their separateness (differential behavior ), and encouraging Americans of all stripes to show alliance to this colorful ethnic group. These festivals and parades, with a target audience of people who do not belong to the social group, intersect with the interests and mission of public folklorists , who are engaged in the documentation, preservation, and presentation of traditional forms of folklife. With

14043-598: The custom, either as performer or audience, signifies acknowledgment of that social group. Some customary behavior is intended to be performed and understood only within the group itself, so the handkerchief code sometimes used in the gay community or the initiation rituals of the Freemasons. Other customs are designed specifically to represent a social group to outsiders, those who do not belong to this group. The St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York and in other communities across

14194-456: The defining features a challenge. While this classification is essential for the subject area of folkloristics, it remains just labeling and adds little to an understanding of the traditional development and meaning of the artifacts themselves. Necessary as they are, genre classifications are misleading in their oversimplification of the subject area. Folklore artifacts are never self-contained, they do not stand in isolation but are particulars in

14345-581: The development of many divergent varieties, which are sometimes considered dialects , though they have become distinct enough over time that they are now sometimes considered separate languages . Therefore, there is not one singular, static Aramaic language; each time and place rather has had its own variation. The more widely spoken Eastern Aramaic languages are largely restricted to Assyrian , Mandean and Mizrahi Jewish communities in Iraq , northeastern Syria , northwestern Iran , and southeastern Turkey , whilst

14496-470: The development of the language from being spoken in Aramaean city-states to become a major means of communication in diplomacy and trade throughout Mesopotamia , the Levant , and Egypt . After the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, local vernaculars became increasingly prominent, fanning the divergence of an Aramaic dialect continuum and the development of differing written standards. "Ancient Aramaic" refers to

14647-517: The developmental function of this childlore, the artifacts themselves have been in play for centuries. Below is listed just a small sampling of types and examples of childlore and games. A case has been made for considering folk history as a distinct sub-category of folklore, an idea that has received attention from such folklorists as Richard Dorson. This field of study is represented in The Folklore Historian , an annual journal sponsored by

14798-431: The dividing line being roughly the Euphrates , or slightly west of it. It is also helpful to distinguish modern living languages, or Neo-Aramaics, and those that are still in use as literary or liturgical languages or are only of interest to scholars. Although there are some exceptions to this rule, this classification gives "Old", "Middle", and "Modern" periods alongside "Eastern" and "Western" areas to distinguish between

14949-567: The earliest known period of the language, from its origin until it becomes the lingua franca of the Fertile Crescent . It was the language of the Aramean city-states of Damascus , Hamath , and Arpad . There are inscriptions that evidence the earliest use of the language, dating from the 10th century BC. These inscriptions are mostly diplomatic documents between Aramaean city-states. The alphabet of Aramaic at this early period seems to be based on

15100-410: The established church tends to be so large and complex that it is usually treated as a specialized area of folk customs; it requires considerable expertise in standard church ritual in order to adequately interpret folk customs and beliefs that originated in official church practice. Customary folklore is always a performance, be it a single gesture or a complex of scripted customs, and participating in

15251-434: The extensive array of other legislation designed to protect the natural and cultural heritage of the United States, this law also marks a shift in national awareness. It gives voice to a growing understanding that cultural diversity is a national strength and a resource worthy of protection. Paradoxically, it is a unifying feature, not something that separates the citizens of a country. "We no longer view cultural difference as

15402-663: The extensive influence of these empires led to Aramaic gradually becoming the lingua franca of most of western Asia, Anatolia , the Caucasus , and Egypt . Beginning with the rise of the Rashidun Caliphate and the early Muslim conquests in the late seventh century, Arabic gradually replaced Aramaic as the lingua franca of the Near East . However, Aramaic remains a spoken, literary, and liturgical language for local Christians and also some Jews. Aramaic also continues to be spoken by

15553-496: The first classification system for folktales in 1910. This was later expanded into the Aarne–Thompson classification system by Stith Thompson and remains the standard classification system for European folktales and other types of oral literature. As the number of classified oral artifacts grew, similarities were noted in items that had been collected from very different geographic regions, ethnic groups, and epochs, giving rise to

15704-411: The generations and subject to the same forces of conservative tradition and individual variation" that are found in all folk artifacts. Folklorists are interested in the physical form, the method of manufacture or construction, the pattern of use, as well as the procurement of the raw materials. The meaning to those who both make and use these objects is important. Of primary significance in these studies

15855-473: The group. Folklore also encompasses customary lore, taking actions for folk beliefs, and the forms and rituals of celebrations such as Christmas , weddings, folk dances , and initiation rites . Each one of these, either singly or in combination, is considered a folklore artifact or traditional cultural expression . Just as essential as the form, folklore also encompasses the transmission of these artifacts from one region to another or from one generation to

16006-499: The history of Aramaic language. During the early stages of the post-Achaemenid era, public use of Aramaic language was continued, but shared with the newly introduced Greek language . By the year 300 BC, all of the main Aramaic-speaking regions came under political rule of the newly created Seleucid Empire that promoted Hellenistic culture , and favored Greek language as the main language of public life and administration. During

16157-404: The individual within the circle of family and friends, gifting to express their value and worth to the group, and of course, the festival food and drink as signifiers of the event. The formal definition of verbal lore is words, both written and oral, that are "spoken, sung, voiced forms of traditional utterance that show repetitive patterns." Crucial here are the repetitive patterns. Verbal lore

16308-417: The items were used, with actors reenacting the everyday lives of people from all segments of society, relying heavily on the material artifacts of a pre-industrial society. Many locations even duplicate the processing of the objects, thus creating new objects of an earlier historic time period. Living museums are now found throughout the world as part of a thriving heritage industry . This list represents just

16459-431: The job of folklorists..." Folklore became a verb, an action, something that people do, not just something that they have. It is in the performance and the active context that folklore artifacts get transmitted in informal, direct communication, either verbally or in demonstration. Performance includes all the different modes and manners in which this transmission occurs. Transmission is a communicative process requiring

16610-408: The language of a folklore performance. Material culture requires some moulding to turn it into a performance. Should we consider the performance of the creation of the artifact, as in a quilting party, or the performance of the recipients who use the quilt to cover their marriage bed? Here the language of context works better to describe the quilting of patterns copied from the grandmother, quilting as

16761-620: The language of several sections of the Hebrew Bible , including parts of the books of Daniel and Ezra , and also the language of the Targum , the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible. It is also the language of the Jerusalem Talmud , Babylonian Talmud , and Zohar . The scribes of the Neo-Assyrian bureaucracy also used Aramaic, and this practice was subsequently inherited by the succeeding Neo-Babylonian Empire (605–539 BC) and later by

16912-478: The most part self-explanatory, these categories include physical objects ( material folklore ), common sayings, expressions, stories and songs ( verbal folklore ), and beliefs and ways of doing things ( customary folklore ). There is also a fourth major subgenre defined for children's folklore and games ( childlore ), as the collection and interpretation of this fertile topic is particular to school yards and neighborhood streets. Each of these genres and their subtypes

17063-577: The mutual exchange of influences, particularly with Arabic, Iranian, and Kurdish. The turbulence of the last two centuries (particularly the Assyrian genocide , also known as Seyfo "Sword" in Syriac, has seen speakers of first-language and literary Aramaic dispersed throughout the world. However, there are several sizable Assyrian towns in northern Iraq, such as Alqosh , Bakhdida , Bartella , Tesqopa , and Tel Keppe , and numerous small villages, where Aramaic

17214-411: The necessary beat to complex physical rhythms and movements, be it hand-clapping, jump roping, or ball bouncing. Furthermore, many physical games are used to develop strength, coordination and endurance of the players. For some team games, negotiations about the rules can run on longer than the game itself as social skills are rehearsed. Even as we are just now uncovering the neuroscience that undergirds

17365-460: The next meal. Most of these folklore artifacts are single objects that have been created by hand for a specific purpose; however, folk artifacts can also be mass-produced, such as dreidels or Christmas decorations. These items continue to be considered folklore because of their long (pre-industrial) history and their customary use. All of these material objects "existed prior to and continue alongside mechanized industry. … [They are] transmitted across

17516-435: The next. Folklore is not something one can typically gain from a formal school curriculum or study in the fine arts . Instead, these traditions are passed along informally from one individual to another, either through verbal instruction or demonstration. The academic study of folklore is called folklore studies or folkloristics, and it can be explored at the undergraduate, graduate, and Ph.D. levels. The word folklore ,

17667-502: The nineteenth century. The " Chaldean misnomer " was eventually abandoned, when modern scholarly analyses showed that Aramaic dialect used in Hebrew Bible was not related to ancient Chaldeans and their language. The fall of the Achaemenid Empire ( c. 334–330 BC), and its replacement with the newly created political order, imposed by Alexander the Great (d. 323 BC) and his Hellenistic successors, marked an important turning point in

17818-506: The older generations. Researchers are working to record and analyze all of the remaining varieties of Neo-Aramaic languages before or in case they become extinct. Aramaic dialects today form the mother tongues of the Arameans (Syriacs) in the Qalamoun mountains , Assyrians and Mandaeans , as well as some Mizrahi Jews . Early Aramaic inscriptions date from 11th century BC, placing it among

17969-407: The oldest inscriptions of northern Syria. Heinrichs uses the less controversial date of the 9th century, for which there is clear and widespread attestation. The central phase in the development of Old Aramaic was its official use by the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–608 BC), Neo-Babylonian Empire (620–539 BC), and Achaemenid Empire (500–330 BC). The period before this, dubbed "Ancient Aramaic", saw

18120-535: The other one represented by various exonymic (foreign in origin) names. Native (endonymic) terms for Aramaic language were derived from the same word root as the name of its original speakers, the ancient Arameans . Endonymic forms were also adopted in some other languages, like ancient Hebrew . In the Torah (Hebrew Bible), "Aram" is used as a proper name of several people including descendants of Shem, Nahor, and Jacob. Ancient Aram , bordering northern Israel and what

18271-535: The past that continued to exist within the lower strata of society. The " Kinder- und Hausmärchen " of the Brothers Grimm (first published 1812) is the best known but by no means only collection of verbal folklore of the European peasantry of that time. This interest in stories, sayings, and songs continued throughout the 19th century and aligned the fledgling discipline of folkloristics with literature and mythology. By

18422-531: The performance and this is where transmission of these cultural elements takes place. American folklorist Roger D. Abrahams has described it thus: "Folklore is folklore only when performed. As organized entities of performance, items of folklore have a sense of control inherent in them, a power that can be capitalized upon and enhanced through effective performance." Without transmission, these items are not folklore, they are just individual quirky tales and objects. This understanding in folkloristics only occurred in

18573-477: The period from 1200 to 1000 BC. Unlike in Hebrew, designations for Aramaic language in some other ancient languages were mostly exonymic. In ancient Greek , Aramaic language was most commonly known as the "Syrian language", in relation to the native (non-Greek) inhabitants of the historical region of Syria . Since the name of Syria itself emerged as a variant of Assyria, the biblical Ashur , and Akkadian Ashuru,

18724-551: The period of romantic nationalism in Europe. A particular figure in this development was Johann Gottfried von Herder , whose writings in the 1770s presented oral traditions as organic processes grounded in the locale. After the German states were invaded by Napoleonic France , Herder's approach was adopted by many of his fellow Germans, who systematized the recorded folk traditions and used them in their process of nation building . This process

18875-408: The rural poor as folk. The common feature in this expanded definition of folk was their identification as the underclass of society. Moving forward into the 20th century, in tandem with new thinking in the social sciences , folklorists also revised and expanded their concept of the folk group. By the 1960s, it was understood that social groups , i.e., folk groups, were all around us; each individual

19026-420: The same function of learning and practicing skills needed for growth. So bouncing and swinging rhythms and rhymes encourage development of balance and coordination in infants and children. Verbal rhymes like Peter Piper picked... serve to increase both the oral and aural acuity of children. Songs and chants, accessing a different part of the brain, are used to memorize series ( Alphabet song ). They also provide

19177-601: The sea rather than God. Both accounts proceed by having the bird go to the kingdom again and sending a letter to the Queen of Saba, commanding her to submit to Solomon’s rule otherwise an army will be sent out to destroy her and her kingdom. Both accounts then proceed by stating that the Queen of Saba, not understanding what she ought to do, appealed to her council for advice. In the Qur’an the council tells her that it’s her decision but in Targum Sheni it also becomes her decision but because she does not trust her council. In both accounts,

19328-410: The second half of the 20th century, when the two terms " folklore performance " and "text and context" dominated discussions among folklorists. These terms are not contradictory or even mutually exclusive. As borrowings from other fields of study, one or the other linguistic formulation is more appropriate to any given discussion. Performance is frequently tied to verbal and customary lore, whereas context

19479-521: The self-representation of a community. Different genres are frequently combined with each other to mark an event. So a birthday celebration might include a song or formulaic way of greeting the birthday child (verbal), presentation of a cake and wrapped presents (material), as well as customs to honor the individual, such as sitting at the head of the table and blowing out the candles with a wish. There might also be special games played at birthday parties, which are not generally played at other times. Adding to

19630-508: The severely endangered Western Neo-Aramaic language is spoken by small Christian and Muslim communities in the Anti-Lebanon mountains , and closely related western varieties of Aramaic persisted in Mount Lebanon until as late as the 17th century. The term "Old Aramaic" is used to describe the varieties of the language from its first known use, until the point roughly marked by the rise of

19781-599: The situation with modern varieties of Arabic . Some Aramaic languages are known under different names; for example, Syriac is particularly used to describe the Eastern Aramaic variety spoken by Syriac Christian communities in northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey, northeastern Syria, and northwestern Iran, and the Saint Thomas Christians in Kerala , India. Most dialects can be described as either "Eastern" or "Western",

19932-444: The sophisticated world of adults, and quite as little affected by it. Of particular interest to folklorists here is the mode of transmission of these artifacts; this lore circulates exclusively within an informal pre-literate children's network or folk group. It does not include artifacts taught to children by adults. However children can take the taught and teach it further to other children, turning it into childlore. Or they can take

20083-403: The speaker has just thought up within the current context. Another example is the child's song Old MacDonald Had a Farm , where each performance is distinctive in the animals named, their order, and their sounds. Songs such as this are used to express cultural values (farms are important, farmers are old and weather-beaten) and teach children about different domesticated animals. Verbal folklore

20234-412: The study of a group: you can start with an identified group in order to explore its folklore, or you can identify folklore items and use them to identify the social group. Beginning in the 1960s, a further expansion of the concept of folk began to unfold through the study of folklore. Individual researchers identified folk groups that had previously been overlooked and ignored. One notable example of this

20385-405: The study of folklore is "concerned with the study of traditional culture, or the unofficial culture" that is the folk culture, "as opposed to the elite culture, not for the sake of proving a thesis but to learn about the mass of [humanity] overlooked by the conventional disciplines." Individual folklore artifacts are commonly classified as one of three types: material, verbal or customary lore. For

20536-470: The study of folklore. With the increasing theoretical sophistication of the social sciences , it has become evident that folklore is a naturally occurring and necessary component of any social group; it is indeed all around us. Folklore does not have to be old or antiquated; it continues to be created and transmitted, and in any group, it is used to differentiate between "us" and "them." Folklore began to distinguish itself as an autonomous discipline during

20687-401: The text known between the 12th and 15th centuries (known from Europe , especially Italy , and Yemen ), the earliest dating to 1189. In the 19th century, scholars proposed a range of dates, from Gelbhaus who placed it as early as the 4th century, Cassel who placed it in the 6th, and Munk who placed it in the 11th. The 11th century appeared as the upper limit because Rabbi Elʿazar in this time

20838-405: The texts knowledge of Christian ideas, anti-Christian disputes, Greek words, and Roman names, but a concurrent lack of knowledge of parallel Islamic/anti-Islamic notions, and a lack of post-Islamic anachronisms. Generally, recent scholarship has favored a pre-Islamic date. Researchers in the field of Quranic studies have observed a number of notable parallels between the Targum Sheni account and

20989-420: The topic, there are "four functions to folklore": The folk of the 19th century, the social group identified in the original term "folklore" , was characterized by being rural, illiterate, and poor. They were the peasants living in the countryside, in contrast to the urban populace of the cities. Only toward the end of the century did the urban proletariat (on the coattails of Marxist theory) become included with

21140-473: The totality of their customs and beliefs as folklore. This distinction aligned American folkloristics with cultural anthropology and ethnology , using the same techniques of data collection in their field research. This divided alliance of folkloristics between the humanities in Europe and the social sciences in America offers a wealth of theoretical vantage points and research tools to the field of folkloristics as

21291-459: The turn of the 20th century, the number and sophistication of folklore studies and folklorists had grown both in Europe and North America. Whereas European folklorists remained focused on the oral folklore of the homogenous peasant populations in their regions, the American folklorists, led by Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict , chose to consider Native American cultures in their research, and included

21442-432: The use of symbolic language, and employing the subjunctive mood . In viewing the performance, the audience leaves the daily reality to move into a mode of make-believe, or "what if?" It is self-evident that this fits well with all types of verbal lore, where reality has no place among the symbols, fantasies, and nonsense of traditional tales, proverbs, and jokes. Customs and the lore of children and games also fit easily into

21593-680: The utility of the object. Before the Second World War , folk artifacts had been understood and collected as cultural shards of an earlier time. They were considered individual vestigial artifacts, with little or no function in the contemporary culture. Given this understanding, the goal of the folklorist was to capture and document them before they disappeared. They were collected with no supporting data, bound in books, archived and classified more or less successfully. The Historic–Geographic Method worked to isolate and track these collected artifacts, mostly verbal lore, across space and time. Following

21744-538: The various languages and dialects that are Aramaic. The earliest Aramaic alphabet was based on the Phoenician alphabet . In time, Aramaic developed its distinctive "square" style. The ancient Israelites and other peoples of Canaan adopted this alphabet for writing their own languages. Thus, it is better known as the Hebrew alphabet . This is the writing system used in Biblical Aramaic and other Jewish writing in Aramaic. The other main writing system used for Aramaic

21895-565: The various native Iranian languages . Aramaic script and – as ideograms – Aramaic vocabulary would survive as the essential characteristics of the Pahlavi scripts . One of the largest collections of Imperial Aramaic texts is that of the Persepolis Administrative Archives , found at Persepolis , which number about five hundred. Many of the extant documents witnessing to this form of Aramaic come from Egypt , and Elephantine in particular (see Elephantine papyri ). Of them,

22046-549: Was also the liturgical language of several now-extinct gnostic faiths, such as Manichaeism . Neo-Aramaic languages are still spoken in the 21st century as a first language by many communities of Assyrians , Mizrahi Jews (in particular, the Jews of Kurdistan / Iraqi Jews ), and Mandaeans of the Near East , with the main Neo-Aramaic languages being Suret (~240,000 speakers) and Turoyo (~250,000 speakers). Western Neo-Aramaic (~3,000) persists in only two villages in

22197-767: Was developed by Christian communities: a cursive form known as the Syriac alphabet . A highly modified form of the Aramaic alphabet, the Mandaic alphabet , is used by the Mandaeans . In addition to these writing systems, certain derivatives of the Aramaic alphabet were used in ancient times by particular groups: the Nabataean alphabet in Petra and the Palmyrene alphabet in Palmyra . In modern times, Turoyo (see below ) has sometimes been written in

22348-437: Was enthusiastically embraced by smaller nations, like Finland, Estonia, and Hungary, which were seeking political independence from their dominant neighbors. Folklore, as a field of study, further developed among 19th-century European scholars, who were contrasting tradition with the newly developing modernity . Its focus was the oral folklore of the rural peasant populations, which were considered as residues and survivals of

22499-513: Was the original folklore , the artifacts defined by William Thoms as older, oral cultural traditions of the rural populace. In his 1846 published call for help in documenting antiquities, Thoms was echoing scholars from across the European continent to collect artifacts of verbal lore. By the beginning of the 20th century, these collections had grown to include artifacts from around the world and across several centuries. A system to organize and categorize them became necessary. Antti Aarne published

22650-421: Was the language of the Arameans , a Semitic-speaking people of the region between the northern Levant and the northern Tigris valley. By around 1000 BC, the Arameans had a string of kingdoms in what is now part of Syria , Lebanon , Jordan , Turkey , and the fringes of southern Mesopotamia ( Iraq ). Aramaic rose to prominence under the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC), under whose influence Aramaic became

22801-482: Was written. Only careful examination reveals the occasional loan word from a local language. A group of thirty Aramaic documents from Bactria have been discovered, and an analysis was published in November 2006. The texts, which were rendered on leather, reflect the use of Aramaic in the 4th century BC Achaemenid administration of Bactria and Sogdia . Biblical Aramaic is the Aramaic found in four discrete sections of

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