Image for banner reproduced by permission from the President and Fellows of Queens' College, Cambridge. [Psalm 23 in Syriac. Psalmi Davidis, edited by Thomas van Erpe (Leiden 1625)]

Monday, July 20, 2009

A new look at Syriac scripts


Research on the relationship between church and script...

For many decades the different types of Syriac script remained classified and named by western scholars along the lines of the different oriental churches, such as the Nestorian, Chaldean and Melkite. This strict church-oriented classification of Syriac, a script widespread in the ancient near east and Asia, has been successfully refuted by Professor Ayda Kaplan, herself of Assyrian/Syriac origin and a member of the Assyrian/Syriac community in Belgium.

Nahro Beth-Kinne, producer of the Assyrian/Syriac Voice radio program in Brussels, commented: "This is certainly historic. To the best of my knowledge, Ayda is the first person of Assyrian/Syriac origin to indulge in this field since Bar Hebraus, the renowned 13th century scholar and church leader."

Colette Sirat, renowned researcher on Hebrew palaeography from the Sorbonne University, argued Kaplans' new method will facilitate palaeography studies for other scripts, such as Hebrew, Arabic, Armenian and Coptic as well as many other languages. "I managed to refute the church-oriented classification because I was able to prove the shared use of the Monumental semi-courant script among several oriental churches," explains Dr. Ayda Kaplan.

Read the full article here.