"eleven" in Aramaic?

May 11, 2007 6:54 AM

How do you say "eleven" in Aramaic?

A friend of mine would like to get a tattoo of the word "eleven" in Aramaic, but neither of us knows a thing about the language. Also, what numeric system would have been used by Aramaic speakers at the time of Christ? What would the numeral for 11 be? Any help would be appreciated!

posted by tperrigo to grab bag (13 comments total)

I think it's believed (hey, look at the concrete info!) that Jesus spoke the Syriac dialect of Aramaic. I can dig out my Syriac primer later if no one can give you a good answer.
posted by MarkAnd at 7:11 AM on May 11, 2007

This site has assyrian language tutorials. Numbers are in lesson 23.
posted by atrazine at 7:13 AM on May 11, 2007

Which dialect?
posted by Pollomacho at 7:40 AM on May 11, 2007

Not sure on the dialect, Pollomacho; the tattoo my friend has in mind is religious (Christian) in nature, so I guess whatever Aramaic dialect is associated with Christ / New Testament. (MarkAnd mentioned the Syriac dialect...?)
posted by tperrigo at 7:56 AM on May 11, 2007

Thanks atrazine; that site had the Assyrian Aramaic numeral for 11. Do you know if it also has the word for "eleven" (I'm not sure if my friend is looking for the numeral for "11" or the word for "eleven", so I figured I'd try to find both).
posted by tperrigo at 8:04 AM on May 11, 2007

The Dolabani Syriac lexicon gives HdaAsar ܚܕ݂ܰܥܣܰܪ. (Note that this is the masculine form; Semitic languages have different masculine and feminine numerals. I think the feminine would end in -at.) You can see both forms here (scroll down to "Zweite Dekade" and read across from 11.) I'm afraid I don't actually know the language, so I can't tell you what the difference between the two forms under f. is.
posted by languagehat at 9:16 AM on May 11, 2007

Yes, if you're looking for something Christian in nature, then it's Syriac (aka Eastern dialect) that you want.
posted by atrazine at 9:19 AM on May 11, 2007

My understanding was that the Hebrew and Aramaic method of counting was similar to the Egyptian/Greek system: The first 9 letters represent 1 - 9; the next 9 represent 10 through 90; the next 9 represent 100 through 900 (and so forth until you run out of letters.) In Hebrew, 11 would be yud aleph, and I believe that Jesus' Aramaic would have used the same Hebrew characters (though I'm no expert.)

I suspect that the Aramaic word for 11 would be a "one and ten" construction; I think that the Hebrew word for eleven is "echad'asar" -- echad is one and eser/asar is ten. I'd wager that the Aramaic isn't far off.
posted by cgs06 at 9:29 AM on May 11, 2007

Looking at languagehat's link (nice find!), I submit that there's a typo in the lexicon. I'd wager much money that it's "HadAsar."

Had is the word for "one" in the lexicon, and etymologically it's obviously likely to be a cognate to "echad." Asar/eser/aesro all mean ten. So I think that HadAsar is the natural construction.

Heh... never thought I'd be correcting anything in Aramaic.
posted by cgs06 at 9:36 AM on May 11, 2007

I remember watching Gibson's Jesus flick, and the word for thirty (as in pieces of silver) was the same as modern Arabic - tlateen. I don't know what other numbers might correspond.
posted by Liosliath at 9:59 AM on May 11, 2007

Oh yeah... 11 in darija is нdaš. Very interesting stuff.
posted by Liosliath at 10:05 AM on May 11, 2007

in the Talmud, written in Babalonian Aramaic, eleven is Hadsar
posted by milestogo at 1:07 PM on May 11, 2007

Wow, thanks for the answers everyone! This turned out to be a much more interesting and enlightening thread than I had even hoped for...I really appreciate all the responses!
posted by tperrigo at 6:08 PM on May 11, 2007