Semitic loanwords and transcriptions in the Greek epigraphy of Judaea-Palestine

Abstract

Semitic loanwords and transcriptions of longer phrases are considered in Greek inscriptions from Judaea-Palestine. Complementing recent studies in neighboring parts of the Near East, on Syria, Phoenicia, and Arabia, select examples illustrate how local languages, Hebrew and Aramaic, survived the rise of Greek to epigraphic dominance in a partially assimilated form in loanwords and transcriptions. These local languages owed a debt for this role, as did Greek, to the epigraphic habit—or varieties of epigraphic culture and mode—fostered in the region particularly under Rome and resulting in a proliferation of writing in daily life. As in neighboring areas, evidence for Judaea-Palestine clusters in the religious domain but is not limited to it. A marginal or liminal status assigned to Semitic loanwords and transcriptions in recent literature should be reexamined through considerations of distribution and context, in particular, orientation towards a real or imagined community as audience.