Abstract
Mandaic is an Eastern Aramaic language. Within the context of the philological tradition of the study of the Aramaic languages, as it has evolved over the past two centuries, few such categorical statements are so incontrovertible. No less an authority than Theodor Nöldeke has declared it to be the “purest” example of its category, and subsequent generations of scholars have unanimously upheld his classification. Even so, its purity, and particularly its absolute freedom from any “traces of Western Aramaic influence” has lately become a pervasive concern within descriptions of the language and the community that has preserved it. Chief among these diagnostic traits are lexical and syntactic influences from Greek (as in the Christian literary varieties of Aramaic) and Hebrew (as in the Jewish literary varieties).
The question of Western Aramaic influence upon Mandaic does not have merely linguistic or literary relevance, but also historical and even legal significance. Mandaeans maintain that John the Baptist was a member of their community, and indeed the foremost of their prophets, and at least some of his followers migrated to their present location from Palestine during the decades following his mission there. On this basis, the various medieval and modern Islamic states that have governed the region since the 7th century have guaranteed them the status of a protected religion within. According to the consensus among western scholars that has emerged in recent centuries, Mandaean self-representations are fantastic, not historically constituted, and likely derivative of other religious traditions. This consensus has in turn severely complicated their relationship with Muslim authorities in their countries of origin. This consensus has developed upon several factors, but in the realm of philology no single factor carries greater weight than the question of the Mandaic language. Consequently, there is a strong case for interrogating this claim more aggressively than has historically been the case.