Chaldee

From Bible Encyclopedia

A non technical term for Biblical Aramaic once believed to be the language of the ancient Chaldeans.

As Chaldee was the language spoken by the Jews of Jerusalem after the Babylonish Captivity, they gradually translated the Hebrew Scriptures, or at least the greatest part of them, into that languge. While Chaldee was spoken in the southern part of Palestine, Syriac was the language of Galilee. Now we have a Syriac translation of the whole Hebrew Bible, as well as of the Greek Testament. Since then we have Chaldee and Syriac translation* from the Hebrew, they are sources, from which we derive a knowledge of the Hebrew. It is true that Chaldee and Syriac have themselves long ceased to be spoken, if we except perhaps some villages of Palestine, where it is said, that a remnant of them is still preserved. But we have the means of ascertaining the sense of Syriac words from the writings of the Syrian Fathers, especially as some of them were translated into Greek, and the knowledge of Chaldee was long preserved among the. Jews, who retained it as a learned language many ages after their final dispersion. Chaldee and Syriac assist also each other: for in fact they are not so much different languages, as different dialects of the same language. The chief difference between them consists in the vowel points, or the mode of pronunciation. And thbugh the forms of the letters are very unlike, the correspondence between the languages (or rather dialects) themselves is so close, that if Chaldee be written with Syriac letters Without points, it becomes Syriac, with the exception of a single inflexion in the formation of the verbs.