Dear List,
J.C. Greenfield lists in his "Iranian Loanwords in Early
Aramaic",
(Encyclopaedia Iranica,
http://www.iranica.com/articlenavigation/index.html,
especially page 257)
several Iranian words that made their way into early Aramaic. He
introduces these words by noting that "It is not surprising that
the number of Iranian words in the administrative and legal fields is
relatively large. "
Indeed, it is not surprising that words from Old Persian, the language
of the ruling ethnos, found their way in the language of the Aramaic
scribes (and the laguage of the Aramaic-speaking population, in
general). But where do these words originally come from? What is their
etymology and what is their origin, Iranian or something else?
All the best,
Juha Savolainen