Friday, December 08, 2006

Avoiding blasphemy in Syriac

by at 5
It is rather peculiar that the Harclean Syriac is quoted as supporting the spelling Μαριαμ in NA27 to Luke 2:19. The Harclean uses the Syriac form Mariam regardless of the Greek spelling. To do otherwise might lead to blasphemy in Syriac.

5 comments

  1. Anonymous12/09/2006 9:20 pm

    I find it even stranger that I can't find mariam in Luke 2:12. -Jq

    Brikh Mario

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  2. P.J. Williams12/09/2006 10:09 pm

    Good point. With the typo 2:12 for 2:19 my comment makes no sense.

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  3. Anonymous12/10/2006 6:27 pm

    I figured it was a typo... but I couldn't figure out what passage it was supposed to be. I should have read a little farther down. :-)

    Is there any other evidence for a tendency to avoid blasphemy in this way? -Jq

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  4. P.J. Williams12/10/2006 9:34 pm

    The phrase 'avoiding blasphemy' was only for the purpose of a catchy title. I think that there are obvious reasons why a language using a consonantal script and which has assigned the consonants mry' to a divine title should not wish to use these consonants again for a human female proper name.

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  5. P.J. Williams12/22/2006 12:36 pm

    Of course. There is a natural tendency to try not to let a divine name appear for other purposes. Thus you can't have the sequence of letters GOD on a British car number plate, you can use yodh he as a Hebrew number 15 and you can't use mry' in Syriac as a proper name of an ordinary person.

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