ALAP BETH - An Introduction to Modern Syriac: Eastern Dialect

Notice to the Readersܒܫܝܢـــــܐ B’shayna! Welcome to Modern Syriac Language (Syriac – for short), also known as Sooruth ܐ̄ܣــــܘܪܬ, Swādāyā ܣـــܘܝܕܝܐ ,Chaldean language ܠܫܢــܐ ܟܠܕܝــــܐ, or Assyrian language ܠܫܢــܐ ܐܬܘܪܝـــܐ. The grammar of this book represents the fundamental of Syriac language to assist you learn to pronounce the sounds of Syriac, vocabulary, simple grammar, and some Syriac culture.The language represent in this book is the most widely spoken dialect among the Syriac people, which is called “Dashta D’Ninweh – ܕܫــــܬܐ ܕܢܝܢــــܘܐ (The Nineveh Plain) dialect.You might want more; other will want less. Nevertheless, this is our best judgment of what constitute a basic, one course in Syriac language should. We know that a big number of those who study Syriac do so in preparation for some type of pastoral or serving as a deacon at the church. Chapters 4 and 7 - The Grammar, Chapter 8 - The Verbs, Appendixes C, D, E, and F will help pastoral students to know more about basic Syriac grammar.In the meantime, this book will help other people never had chance to learn the language, especially Syriac people in diaspora. In general, the design of this grammar reflects both its basic and its primary audience.What is New in this Edition? In this edition, we added more verbs in chapter 8, removed the unnecessary groups of words at the end of each letter's section, added more reading and work-study sections, more exercises at the end of each chapter, used illustrations in the conversation and reading chapters, and reorganized the chapters orders to reduce the duplicated information.To help enhance the reader’s experience, we have recorded chapters 2 to 10 of this book. This will hopefully guide the reader for better pronunciation and to simplify the navigation of this book. To access the recordings video/audio chapters and for any questions or comments, please visit www.aramaicstudies.org. Read more