The history of Israel and its neighbors has been appropriated deeply in the mindset of western cultures.Both the British and Americans, for example, have thought themselves the “new Israel,” for once a people is chosen so all people wish to be.I’ve been thinking about this in linguistic terms of late.To get to the main point, we need to read a little history—it’ll be painless, I assure you.Israel was a nation frequently conquered.The imperial powers to the east, beginning with Assyria and continuing through Babylonia and Persia, overran the land. This hostile takeover involved not only Israel, but its neighboring nations as well.These early, violent attempts at globalization worked themselves out linguistically, in part, by the necessity to communicate in a common language.
In the broad sweep of world history, the conquering nation tends to impose its language on the conquered.Think of Alexander of Macedon and the adoption of Greek as the “lingua franca”—the official language of empire.Ironically—and this is what captures my attention—when Assyria overran Israel, it also conquered “Aram.” (Aram was the area north of Israel, roughly what we think of as Syria today.Their language was Aramaic, which is closely related to Hebrew.)Instead of the Assyrian language being imposed on the defeated peoples, the invaders adopted Aramaic as the official imperial language.Some of this may have to do with the fact that Aramaic, being alphabetic, was much easier to learn to write than syllabic Assyrian (known generically as Akkadian, along with Babylonian and its dialects).It may have been the last time a conquering nation admitted at least some of the culture of the defeated was superior. (Ironically, the Romans felt that way about the Greeks. Those who have ears…)
Aramaic continued in favor even as the conquered adopted Alexander’s Indo-European Greek centuries later.Lingering into Roman times many of the people of what was left of Israel were bilingual, knowing Greek and Aramaic. The latter was the language of Jesus.Aramaic later survived in the form of Syriac, but the area was overrun by Arab invaders and Arabic became the lingua franca.Still, nestled in the middle of this linguistic history is that episode of the ascension of Aramaic to imperial levels.That’s the thing about globalization—it’s an exercise in compromise.Many distrust and hate it, and even today some sub-cultures fear they’re being wiped out by granting too much to those who “don’t belong.”In some ways it’s an understandable fear.Learning new languages is hard, especially for adults.There is perhaps a lesson in the survival of Aramaic, though, that might still come in handy when cultures collide.
