Searching for Aramaic Loanwords in the Hebrew Bible

Beaux Hargrove
Beaux Hargrove Member Posts: 8
edited November 21 in English Forum

I am trying to find all of the Aramaic loanwords that appear in the Hebrew Bible. Thus far, I can only find Aramaic words that appear in text that has been designated as Aramaic text, but I want to find Aramaic words that appear in Hebrew text. A test case is רעיון (Eccl 2:22), which HALOT identifies as an Aramaic loanword. I would think that searching for any Aramaic noun using the syntax morph.sesb.a:N????+S in BHS should retrieve every Aramaic lexeme in the Hebrew Bible regardless of whether it appears in a portion of text designated as Hebrew or a portion of text designated as Aramaic, including רעיון in Ecclesiastes 2:22. The results, however, utterly lack any portion of text that is not designated as Aramaic. No Aramaic lexemes outside of Aramaic portions appear in the results. 

How can I find all the Aramaic loanwords in the Hebrew Bible? 

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  • DMB
    DMB Member Posts: 3,087

    I usually just search HALOT for "Arm. loanword" - 36 instances.  Then review (since there's conflicting opinions).

  • Beaux Hargrove
    Beaux Hargrove Member Posts: 8
    https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1252894#Comment_1252894

    Is that the only method you've found? 

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 53,100

    I would think that searching for any Aramaic noun using the syntax morph.sesb.a:N????+S in BHS should retrieve every Aramaic lexeme in the Hebrew Bible regardless of whether it appears in a portion of text designated as Hebrew or a portion of text designated as Aramaic, including רעיון in Ecclesiastes 2:22.

    I would not. Loan words belong to the language which has borrowed and adapted them. Would you expect catamaran to be labeled as a Tamil word? or jungle as a Hindi word? or yurt as a Uighur word?  or khaki as possibly from Sodgian? Therefore, I would expect loanwords to be marked as such only in the etymological section of a dictionary/lexicon.

    Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."

  • Beaux Hargrove
    Beaux Hargrove Member Posts: 8
    https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1253234#Comment_1253234

    I would think that searching for any Aramaic noun using the syntax morph.sesb.a:N????+S in BHS should retrieve every Aramaic lexeme in the Hebrew Bible regardless of whether it appears in a portion of text designated as Hebrew or a portion of text designated as Aramaic, including רעיון in Ecclesiastes 2:22.

    I would not. Loan words belong to the language which has borrowed and adapted them. Would you expect catamaran to be labeled as a Tamil word? or jungle as a Hindi word? or yurt as a Uighur word?  or khaki as possibly from Sodgian? Therefore, I would expect loanwords to be marked as such only in the etymological section of a dictionary/lexicon.

    That's a good point, but we know there are a lot of loan words in Hebrew, and that is particularly significant for biblical studies. 
  • Beaux Hargrove
    Beaux Hargrove Member Posts: 8
    https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1252894#Comment_1252894

    I usually just search HALOT for "Arm. loanword" - 36 instances.  Then review (since there's conflicting opinions).

    I noticed that searching "Arm. loanword" only produced results beginning somewhere in פ, which seemed odd and only gave 36 results (as you noted). When I looked up זְמָן, a known loanword, I found that they used the expression "Arm. lw." to represent "Aramaic loan word." They are apparently not super consistent with their designations. The early part of HALOT uses "Arm. lw." and the latter part uses "Arm. loanword." Knowing this provides much more helpful results. Thanks for getting my mind moving in the right direction! 

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