What if the Caliphate adopted Aramaic?

When the Caliphate conquered Mesopotamia and Syria, Aramaic would have been the most common language. What if they adopted it, and continued to use it, as an administrative language?
 
I wouldn't go that far, but it is very unlikely. Arabs are the most likely early governors, so why would they need to learn to speak and write a new language?

In the Rashidun era, few tribes had left Arabia, and many Arabs were Christian or Jewish converts or their immediate descendants. Local administrators were kept for the most part. The conquering soldiers would have spoken Arabic, but as many of the conquered people didn't, it would have been helpful and feasible for the new rulers to use the old languages for secular purposes. It probably actually happened, just not across the entire empire. In this early, malleable stage a Caliph who adopted Aramaic for secular purposes, keeping Arabic for religious purposes and in Arabia itself, probably could have seen that decision stick.

In the Umayyad era, more Arabs were settling in, but in the early era they still used local administrators. The same thing could have happened here under an open-minded Caliph. Plus the capital was in Syria, the heart of Aramaic-speaking land. That being said, in the late Umayyad era, where non-Arabs were made second-class citizens, this scenario would be impossible.

If the Umayyads take Constantinople, that's a lot of casualties and adopting regional languages when there are not enough Arabs becomes a necessity.

In the Abbasid era, more people were being tolerated and the Abbasids were providing more autonomy and respect to non-Arabs especially if they converted. Perhaps, in attempt to get a lot of people in Mesopotamia and Syria to convert at once, they preach in Aramaic and give some power back to deposed bureaucrats during the Umayyad era. This solidifies Aramaic as an important language in Syria and Mesopotamia, and if the Abbasids lose the rest of their empire as they did in reality, Aramaic could become the most important secular language. Arabic remaining for written scripture.
 
Very implausible. Rulers are Arabs so they hardly bother learn something new language. Better change for bigger Aramaic language is if there would be something Islamic Aramaic dynasty.
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
Very implausible. Rulers are Arabs so they hardly bother learn something new language.
Tell that to the Nabataeans, since that's precisely what they did for centuries. Where do you think the Arabic script came from?

One might almost argue that Arabic, and particularly the spoken dialects, are mixed lects (Aramaic substrate, Arabic superstrate). The two languages are actually quite similar and it is sometimes difficult to disentangle where Aramaic ends and Arabic begins.

That aside, the major issue is that the Qur'an was revealed as an Arabic Qur'an, meaning that Arabic would be maintained as a language of prestige regardless of the number of speakers, and over the course of centuries tend to predominate in certain areas (especially those like Mesopotamia, where the substrate languages are so compatible). Eliminate that tradition and we can talk.
 
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The problem, Leo, is that unlike Persian, for example, it was difficult to really see Aramaic being a prestigious language due to it being more a language of the common peoples within Syria and Iraq. In Iraq Persian was the courtly language and in Syria Greek was spoken among the upper class. Why would the Arabs, then, defer to a language which is so common?

This isn't a challenge so much as a question as I don't have any doubts regarding your knowledge of the matter.
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
Certain dialects (Syriac, for example) were indeed high status. A colleague of mine recently identified a Judeo-Syriac manuscript (perhaps the first), indicating that this language wasn't necessarily limited in its scope of usage. Plus, there's the evidence of the magic bowls--entire Arab families commissioned incantation bowls in Mandaic and perhaps other dialects.

I don't see why Arabs wouldn't consider Syriac as a possibility, considering how much religious vocabulary they borrowed from it. Also consider the status of the Arabic language at this time; it was extremely limited in scope and register, and the process of converting it into a high-status literary and administrative language was an immense multi-century undertaking.
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
And, as I'm sure you're aware, Pahlavi is virtually useless as an administrative language, which would necessarily be easy to learn and understand, whereas Pahlavi is difficult to learn by design.
 
Certain dialects (Syriac, for example) were indeed high status. A colleague of mine recently identified a Judeo-Syriac manuscript (perhaps the first), indicating that this language wasn't necessarily limited in its scope of usage. Plus, there's the evidence of the magic bowls--entire Arab families commissioned incantation bowls in Mandaic and perhaps other dialects.

I don't see why Arabs wouldn't consider Syriac as a possibility, considering how much religious vocabulary they borrowed from it. Also consider the status of the Arabic language at this time; it was extremely limited in scope and register, and the process of converting it into a high-status literary and administrative language was an immense multi-century undertaking.

Well then why didn't they shift over OTL? That may tell us a big reason why this shift is or is not possible.
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
Well then why didn't they shift over OTL? That may tell us a big reason why this shift is or is not possible.

As I said in my post upthread, the necessity of reading the Qur'an in Arabic, the impossibility of accepting translated versions, and the scholarly class that this engendered, ensured that Arabic would retain its high status. The colloquial versions of Arabic in the Levant and Mesopotamia are compromises of a sort, retaining much of the vocabulary and even some of the grammar of the substrate languages, even when they weren't isomorphic with Arabic.

Whether or not you can envision a Qur'an without the verses about being an Arabic Qur'an depends on whether or not you embrace the truth claims of that work. A Qur'an in which these verses do not appear (or are interpreted differently) would have a different effect on the linguistic history of the region.
 
Certain dialects (Syriac, for example) were indeed high status. A colleague of mine recently identified a Judeo-Syriac manuscript (perhaps the first), indicating that this language wasn't necessarily limited in its scope of usage. Plus, there's the evidence of the magic bowls--entire Arab families commissioned incantation bowls in Mandaic and perhaps other dialects.

I don't see why Arabs wouldn't consider Syriac as a possibility, considering how much religious vocabulary they borrowed from it. Also consider the status of the Arabic language at this time; it was extremely limited in scope and register, and the process of converting it into a high-status literary and administrative language was an immense multi-century undertaking.

Fascinating. I didn't know the extent of the influence of those dialects. I had been under the mistaken impression of their relative lack of usage for more sophisticated aspects of society but what you said and other recent research I've read has changed my mind. Quite interesting.

So if the language was quite so influential, was it only the prestige of the Arabic translation of the Quran that elevated that language? Wouldn't there be deeper reasons for it, or is it only that? Or was that religious standardization so important that Arabic essentially dominated over Aramaic (which as you stated had taken from it many words)?
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
There was undoubtedly an ethnic component as well... during this period, up until the Abbasid revolution, to become Muslim was to become an Arab, to the extent of adopting the Arabic language and even entering the tribal system by adoption. It was wholly an ethnic religion, and that's how the Umayyads liked it. There was no room for non-Arab identities within (Sunni) Islam (as defined by the Umayyads, at least).

If Islam were less particularly Arab and more universal in the beginning, or perhaps even if we just manage to get rid of the Umayyads, then maybe the cards will fall otherwise.
 
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