Stress And Emphasis

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When pronouncing or speaking Aramaic, learning the individual sounds of the Aramaic letters and Aramaic Vowels is not enough. You also need to learn where the stress and emphasis in the words lie. Like any language, pronouncing Aramaic words with the emphasis in the wrong part of a word can sound highly amusing, and makes it obvious that you don't know the language well!

You can study all the Aramaic grammars that you want, but the easiest and most effective way to learn the stress and emphasis of Aramaic words is either to learn Modern Hebrew as spoken in Israel today or, better still, to make contact with some of the Aramaic speaking communities across the Middle East or in their various diaspora communities. Once you start speaking Aramaic and listening to it being spoken fluently, you will pick up all the individual nuances of the language. You will learn how Aramaic words flow together, where the emphasis in words lie, and how consonants and vowels sound together. Just as importantly, any mistakes will soon be corrected before you get used to saying things the wrong way. In the long run, even if you only want to study Aramaic texts such as Biblical Aramaic in the Tanakh, the Targums, the Aramaic Old Testament or the Aramaic New Testament, learning to speak Aramaic is the best way.

There is no substitute then, for learning Aramaic through speaking and listening to the language. Nevertheless, if you want to learn where the stress and emphasis in Aramaic words lie, here are a few guidelines which will help.

We have seen already that four of the Aramaic Vowels (Patah, Kamets, Sere and Segol) help enormously in deciding how to pronounce Aramaic words. They indicate which syllables are open and which are closed, and help to determine where the emphasis in a word lies.

Like Hebrew, the emphasis in Aramaic words is usually on the last syllable of the word, or sometimes on the second last if the word is long. Almost every word in Aramaic exhibits this characteristic. For instance, the Hebrew word meaning prophet, is pronounced na-VEE, with the emphasis on the vee. It is not pronounced nav-ee, as though it rhymed with navy.

An exception to the above rule is with Segolate Nouns – i.e. nouns which have a Segol. Unusually, the stress in these words always lies in the first syllable. A common example of this is the Hebrew word (sefer, meaning book or scroll). This is pronounced SE-fer, rather than se-FER. There are literally hundreds of nouns in both Hebrew and Aramaic that follow this pattern.

In some Aramaic grammars, there is a small left-pointing arrow () above the syllable of the word where the emphasis lies.

In addition, when reading the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), almost every word has one of the Teamim or Hebrew accents above or below the word. This completely removes any ambiguity about how to pronounce the word. The syllable with the accent is always the one which is stressed, even if this is not the same as would ordinarily be the case. Cantors (those who sing the Hebrew Bible), will continually be aware of where the accents in the word are, and will make sure the stress falls in the correct place in each word. This highlights the meaning of the Scriptures in a way that ordinary reading might not. It brings out where the natural breaks in the verse are, and ensures that connected words flow onto each other. Once you understand the Aramaic Vowels, understanding the Hebrew accents is the next most important step you can make in being able to read and understand the Hebrew Bible correctly. Even if you never intend to sing the Tanakh and only want to read the text, a knowledge of the Hebrew accents will greatly enhance your understanding.

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