"But they could not read the writing": The Biblical Aramaic consonantal text, its reading tradition and their mutual interaction

 Around one percent of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) is written in a language that is closely related to Hebrew, known as Biblical Aramaic. Recent research has shown that Biblical Aramaic is not a single language, but a hybrid of at least two varieties of Aramaic. This project will make a state-of-the-art linguistic description of the language varieties making up Biblical Aramaic and investigate how they influenced each other. This will deepen our knowledge of the history of the Aramaic languages and provide insights into the creation of the Biblical reading tradition.