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Description:
Jewish Babylonian Aramaic was the language spoken and written by Jews in parts of what are now Iraq and Iran from the third to the tenth centuries C.E., corresponding to the Talmudic and Geonic Periods. During this period the major post-biblical Jewish literary work, the Babylonian Talmud, which has been a major force in Jewish culture and life since that time, was produced. The Geonim, the successors to the rabbis of the Talmudic Period, wrote many legal works in Aramaic, since this language continued to serve as both a spoken and literary language for several centuries following the Muslim conquest.
All the existing dictionaries which include the vocabulary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic are outdated since they were composed on the basis of the late printed editions of the Babylonian Talmud in which the Aramaic texts have been corrupted. Additionally, none of the previous dictionaries included the special vocabulary of the Geonic Period, that of the writings of Anan and that of the magic bowls.

As the basis of the present dictionary, the author has utilized the entire corpus of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic according to manuscript sources. In addition to the dictionary itself with its approximately 8,000 entries, the volume includes an index of all passages quoted, with their entry, in order to make the dictionary more usable.

The author's comments on the 2nd Edition:

The Talmudic Text

Today it is possible to access online the riches of the Cairo Geniza where one can find many fragments of the Babylonian Talmud which present us ancient evidence for the text of this work predating both the printed editions as well as the later European manuscripts. Over the past few years, this material has been utilized by many scholars in their work and the results of their research now have been included in the new edition.

The Non-Talmudic Material

The new edition includes the vocabulary of the many Babylonian magic texts which have been published over the last few decades, as well as revised readings from previously published ones. The number of new texts published as well as previous ones that have now been reread has fundamentally changed our knowledge of this literature.

The Etymological Material

The great advances in the study of both Akkadian and Middle Persian had put much more etymological evidence on a firmer footing.

This work is indispensable for all scholars working in the fields of Aramaic and Semitic linguistics as well as Rabbinic literature, especially the Babylonian Talmud.

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