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On Some Non-Standard Spellings in the Aramaic Magic Bowls and their Linguistic Significance1
University of Haifa
In the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic magic bowls we occasionally find spellings that stray from the linguistic standard employed in these texts. It is argued that in many cases these can be explained as phonetic spellings that reflect aspects of the Aramaic spoken by the scribes. Support for this contention may be found in the better manuscripts of Babylonian Rabbinic literature, wherein such spellings are more frequently employed. It is argued that the corrections of these forms in the magic bowls towards the historical spelling indicates the existence of a literary language in which at least some scribes aspired to write, not always successfully. Since these non-standard spellings provide rare evidence for the nature of the Aramaic spoken by these native scribes, and occasionally provide ‘missing links’ of the history of Aramaic, the modern editors of the magic bowls must be wary of unnecessarily emending the texts they publish.
1This article is part of an ongoing research project into the language of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. For previous and forthcoming studies, see the bibliography. The present article has benefited from the learned comments of Dr James Ford, whose expertise in Semitic languages and familiarity with the Aramaic magic corpus have guided me on numerous occasions. Several of his suggestions have been cited in his name in this article. Furthermore, in an act of great generosity, he has permitted me to cite examples from his forthcoming edition of many unpublished bowls, J.N. Ford, A Collection of Aramaic Magic Bowls (provisional title; in preparation). Naturally, responsibility for opinions expressed here is my own.