The Jewish Babylonian Aramaic magic bowls date to the late Sasanian and very early Islamic periods. They are for the most part written in an archaic literary dialect (or dialects) that appears to have significantly differed from the spoken language of Babylonian Jews at that time. Occasional non-standard phonetic spellings, however, cast light on the spoken language of the practitioners who wrote the bowls. This article deals with phonetic spellings of the subordinating (or relative) particle (י)ד as either ת or ט. It is difficult to discern a uniform phonetic condition for all occurrences of ת, but the examples suffice to prove that it is a genuine form. In the presently available documentation the form ט occurs solely before words beginning with ʾaleph (< historical ʾ or ʿ). The latter form also occurs in Classical Mandaic as

Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
J.N. Epstein, A Grammar of Babylonian Aramaic (in Hebrew; Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1960), pp. 27–28. For the spellings ד and די in the JBA incantation bowls, see Hannu Juusola, Linguistic Peculiarities in the Aramaic Magic Bowl Texts (Studia Orientalia, 86; Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society, 1999), pp. 199–200.
Theodor Nöldeke, Compendious Syriac Grammar (London: Williams & Norgate, 1904), pp. 47–48; Takamitsu Muraoka, Classical Syriac: A Basic Grammar with a Chrestomathy (Porta Linguarum Orientalium n.s., 19; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2nd edn, 2005), p. 63. For the spelling ܕ in the Syriac incantation bowls, see Marco Moriggi, La lingua delle coppe magiche siriache (Quaderni di Semitistica, 21; Florence: Università di Firenze, 2004), pp. 147–148.
Theodor Nöldeke, Mandäische Grammatik (Halle an der Saale: Verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses, 1875), pp. 92–93; Rudolf Macuch, Handbook of Classical and Modern Mandaic (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1965), pp. 166–167. For the spellings ḏ and d in the Mandaic incantation bowls, see Edwin M. Yamauchi, Mandaic Incantation Texts (AOS, 49; New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1967), p. 93.
Theodor Nöldeke, Grammatik der neusyrischen Sprache am Urmia See und in Kurdistan (Leipzig: T.O. Weigel, 1868), pp. 45–46. See further ibid., pp. 83, 148–150. For this phenomenon in other Neo-Aramaic dialects, see Steven E. Fassberg, The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Challa (Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics, 54; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2010), pp. 13, 44, 46–47; Hezy Mutzafi, The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Betanure (Province of Dihok) (Semitica Viva, 43; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2008), pp. 41–42; Geoffrey Khan, A Grammar of Neo-Aramaic: The Dialect of the Jews of Arbel (HdO, I/47; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1999), pp. 168–170, 387–388; idem, The Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Barwar (HdO, I/96; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2008: 396–400, 487–494, 951–974, 1260–1261) [for the pronunciation ṱ in C.Barwar, see below, Synthesis and Conclusions]; Samuel Ethan Fox, The Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Jilu (Semitica Viva, 16; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1997), pp. 59–61, 81–82; Irene Garbell, The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Persian Azerbaijan: Linguistic Analysis, and Folkloristic Texts (The Hague: Mouton, 1965), pp. 54–55.
H. Pognon, Inscriptions mandaïtes des coupes de Khouabir (Paris: H. Welter, 1898), pp. 43–60 (Bowls 15–20); Mark Lidzbarski, Ephemeris für semitische Epigraphik I, 1900–1902 (Giessen: A. Töpelmann, 1902), pp. 90–99 (Bowls I–III); Cyrus H. Gordon, ‘Aramaic and Mandaic Magical Bowls’, ArOr 9 (1937), pp. 84–106 (Bowl M); Erica C.D. Hunter, ‘Who Are the Demons? The Iconography of Incantation Bowls’, SEL 15 (1998), 95–115 (IM 60494); Segal, CAMIB, pp. 123–128, 134–136 (Bowls 094M–097M, 103M).
Tapani Harviainen, An Aramaic Incantation Bowl from Borsippa: Another Specimen of Eastern Aramaic ‘Koiné’ (Studia Orientalia 51/14; Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society, 1981), p. 5, line 8: רב יוסף בר אימא דאימה.
Rudolf Macuch, Neumandäische Chrestomathie mit grammatischer Skizze, kommentierter Übersetzung und Glossar (Porta Linguarum Orientalium n.s., 18; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1989).
Rudolf Macuch, Neumandäische Texte im Dialekt von Ahwāz (Semitica Viva, 12; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1993): be-šmeyhōn ed-heyyī rabbi be-šme‿d-mārē be-šme‿d-mendā‿ad-heyyī u-be-šme‿t-hāhu gaḇra qadmāyī ‘In the name of the Great Life, in the name of God, in the name of Mandā ḏ-Heyyī, and in the name of that first Man’ (p. 218); gu-ʾāmre‿t-mārē ‘by the command of God’ (p. 1222). See the discussion by Macuch, ibid., p. 20. Contrast Čoḥeylī’s kol‿man ed-ʾāḇed ṭāḇ maškā ṭāḇ u-d-ʾāḇed bīš maškā bīš ‘everyone who does good will come upon good, and he who does evil will come upon evil’ (p. 1636) with Jb 34.11–12 (ṭabid ṭab ṭab maška uṭabid ḏ-snia maška ḏ-biš, discussed above).
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 265 | 39 | 7 |
| Full Text Views | 130 | 2 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 77 | 8 | 0 |
The Jewish Babylonian Aramaic magic bowls date to the late Sasanian and very early Islamic periods. They are for the most part written in an archaic literary dialect (or dialects) that appears to have significantly differed from the spoken language of Babylonian Jews at that time. Occasional non-standard phonetic spellings, however, cast light on the spoken language of the practitioners who wrote the bowls. This article deals with phonetic spellings of the subordinating (or relative) particle (י)ד as either ת or ט. It is difficult to discern a uniform phonetic condition for all occurrences of ת, but the examples suffice to prove that it is a genuine form. In the presently available documentation the form ט occurs solely before words beginning with ʾaleph (< historical ʾ or ʿ). The latter form also occurs in Classical Mandaic as

| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 265 | 39 | 7 |
| Full Text Views | 130 | 2 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 77 | 8 | 0 |