Samaritan Aramaic language
Encyclopedia
Samaritan Aramaic, or Samaritan, is the dialect of Aramaic
Aramaic language
Aramaic is a group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic language phylum. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic family, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily,...

 used by the Samaritan
Samaritan
The Samaritans are an ethnoreligious group of the Levant. Religiously, they are the adherents to Samaritanism, an Abrahamic religion closely related to Judaism...

s in their sacred and scholarly literature. This should not be confused with the Samaritan Hebrew language
Samaritan Hebrew language
Samaritan Hebrew , is a reading tradition for Biblical Hebrew as used by the Samaritans for reading the Samaritan Pentateuch. Its pronunciation is highly similar to that of Samaritan Arabic, used by the Samaritans in prayer.-Orthography:...

 of the Scriptures. It ceased to be a spoken language some time between the 10th and the 12th centuries.

In form it resembles the Aramaic of the Targum
Targum
Taekwondo is a Korean martial art and the national sport of South Korea. In Korean, tae means "to strike or break with foot"; kwon means "to strike or break with fist"; and do means "way", "method", or "path"...

im, the Aramaic word for “interpretation” or “paraphrase”, and is written in the Samaritan alphabet
Samaritan alphabet
The Samaritan alphabet is used by the Samaritans for religious writings, including the Samaritan Pentateuch, writings in Samaritan Hebrew, and for commentaries and translations in Samaritan Aramaic and occasionally Arabic....

.

Important works written in Samaritan include the Samaritan translation of the Samaritan Hebrew Pentateuch in the form of the targum paraphrased version. There are also legal, exegetical and liturgical texts, though later works of the same kind were often written in Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

.

Sample

Exodus XX.1-6:
  1. Umellel Elâ'e yet kel milleyya aalen elmimar.
  2. Ana Šema Eluek deppiqtek men ara Mişrem mibbet awadem.
  3. La ya'i lak ela'en uranem al eppi.
  4. La tewed lak efsel ukel demu debšumeyya millel wedbaraa millera wedbameyya millera laraa.
  5. La tisgad lon ula tešememminon ala anaki Šema elaak el qana fuqed ob awaan al banem wel telitaem wel rewi'a'em elsenai.
  6. Wabed esed lalafem elra'emi welnateri fiqqudi.


Notice the similarities with Judeo-Aramaic as found in Targum Onqelos to this same passage (some expressions below are paraphrased, not literally translated):
  1. וּמַלֵּיל יְיָ יָת כָּל פִּתְגָמַיָּא הָאִלֵּין לְמֵימַר
  2. אֲנָא יְיָ אֱלָהָךְ דְּאַפֵּיקְתָּךְ מֵאַרְעָא דְּמִצְרַיִם מִבֵּית עַבְדוּתָא
  3. לָא יִהְוֵי לָךְ אֱלָהּ אָחֳרָן, בָּר מִנִּי
  4. לָא תַּעֲבֵיד לָךְ צֵילַם וְכָל דְּמוּ דְּבִשְׁמַיָּא מִלְּעֵילָא וְדִבְאַרְעָא מִלְּרַע וְדִבְמַיָּא מִלְּרַע לְאַרְעָא
  5. לָא תִּסְגּוֹד לְהוֹן וְלָא תִּפְלְחִנִּין אֲרֵי אֲנָא יְיָ אֱלָהָךְ אֵל קַנָּא מַסְעַר חוֹבֵי אֲבָהָן עַל בְּנִין מָרָדִין עַל דָּר תְּלִיתַאי וְעַל דָּר רְבִיעַאי לְסָנְאָי כַּד מַשְׁלְמִין בְּנַיָּא לְמִחְטֵי בָּתַר אֲבָהָתְהוֹן
  6. וְעָבֵיד טֵיבוּ לְאַלְפֵי דָּרִין לְרָחֲמַי וּלְנָטְרֵי פִּקּוֹדָי
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