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260
THE ALPHABET
contains eleven lines in a new variety of the Aramaic script, which Tseretheli suggests calling Armazi Aramaic. It is couched in a "barbaric" ungrammatical language, with irregularities similar to those of the Aramaic words in the Sasanian inscriptions. Tseretheli dates the inscription to the first or second century A.D.
An excellent summary of this article, with many useful observations and additions, is given by Professor H. W. Bailey, in Caucasica, "JOURN. OF THE ROY. ASIAT. Soc.", 1943 (Parts 1 and 2), pp. 1-3. According to Professor Bailey, the inscription represents the stage when the originally completely Aramaic text was admitting Persian words, a process which increased with time, "just as we find in Buddhist Sogdian texts a larger proportion of Aramaic heterograms than we find in the Manichæan, till in Christian texts they are altogether absent." See also M. N. Tod in "JOURN. OF HELLENIC STUDIES," 1942.
Professor Tseretheli, in his above-mentioned article also quotes three lines of the other Aramaic inscription.
I am indebted to Prof. Bailey for his kind help and to my friend Dr. J. Teicher for having drawn my attention to some of the above mentioned articles.
OFFSHOOTS OF ARAMAIC ALPHABET (Fig. 128, 132, 136)
It seems as though an agreement had been reached between the Phoenician alphabets and their offshoots on the one hand, and the Aramaic branch on the other. All the alphabetic scripts west of Syria seem to have been derived, directly or indirectly, from the former, whereas the hundreds of alphabetic writings of the east have sprung apparently from the offshoots of the Aramaic alphabet.
"The differentiation between local Aramaic scripts began soon after the collapse of the Persian Empire brought about the end of the domination of the official Aramaic language and script." (Albright). It is not, however, until the end of the second century B.C. and during the first century B.C., that the various offshoots of the Aramaic script assume distinctive features.
The direct and indirect descendants of the Aramaic alphabet can be divided into two main groups: (1) The scripts employed for Semitic languages, and (2) the writings adapted to non-Semitic tongues. With regard to the Semitic offshoots, six separate centres of development may be discerned: (1) Hebrew, (2) Nabataan-Sinaitic-Arabic, (3) Palmyrene, (4) Syriac-Nestorian, (5) Mandæan, and (6) Manichæan. These alphabets became the links between the Aramaic alphabet and the numerous scripts used for the non-Semitic languages of central, southern and south-eastern Asia. These can be divided into various groups which will be dealt with in the following chapter.
