Research project Aramaic in Lebanese Place Names: A Linguistic and Socio-Cultural Analysis

Place has meaning. Place names have meaning not only in the linguistic or etymological sense, but also have socio-cultural significance. Place has a geographical dimension (physical or imaginary). Place is also, using Rodman’s (1992) term, “Multivocal”. Places have different significance for different people at different times and in different locations. As social phenomena, place names are part and parcel of linguistic as well as socio-cultural behavior related to certain locations. It is therefore the goal of the present study to describe and analyze Aramaic as attested in Lebanese place names linguistically and as a socio-cultural phenomenon as distributed across the territory of Lebanon.

Aramaic has been part of the linguistic landscape of Lebanon from the late 1st mill. BC to the 17th cnt. AD., surviving to this day in Maaloula, Jibadin and Bakhaa, in Syria on the eastern slopes of the Anti-Lebanon. Yet, there is very little textual evidence of the Aramaic used in Lebanon. Place names are more or less our only source. The Aramaic used in Lebanon is of the Western type. It has a complex development which in some cases is parallel to, yet often distinct from, the development of its Modern West Aramaic cousins (Wardini 2012). A thorough description of Aramaic as attested in Lebanese place names has not yet been undertaken. Therefore, a comparative and diachronic study of Lebanese place names is of the utmost importance, adding to our knowledge of spoken Aramaic in the pre-modern era. Of the ca. 25000 place names in the database included in this study (covering all the regions of Lebanon; compared to Wardini 2002 which included 1700 names covering North Lebanon and Mount Lebanon), we expect that some 36%, i.e. some 9000 place names will be Aramaic, a large enough sample where much of the phonology and morphology and part of the lexicon of Lebanese Aramaic can be elucidated. Given the nature of Lebanese place names, the description of syntax is expected to be more limited.

The present project has three immediate aims:
1. Process data: completely and thoroughly process the data for Lebanon (27000 place names, as of the present date only partially processed).
2. Collect and process toponymic data from Syriac sources.
3. Analysis of the Aramaic attested in Lebanese

Research subject: Aramaic, Arabic, Canaanite, Diachronic Linguistcis, Contact Linguistics, Lebanon, Toponymy, Onomastics, Semitic Languages, Phoenician