James John Courtenay

“Aramaic was spoken in certain regions of upper Egypt in the fifth century B.C.”

— James John Courtenay

“All the great Semitic migrations had their starting-place in Arabia.”

— James John Courtenay

“The descendants of Joktan dwelt from Mesha to Sephar.”

— James John Courtenay

“The Semites originally moved out of Arabia.”

— James John Courtenay

“Ethiopic must be traced ultimately to Arabic.”

— James John Courtenay

“It is impossible to make a clear distinction between Babylonia and Assyria.”

— James John Courtenay

“... at no period did Greek become the language of Palestine.”

— James John Courtenay

“Laban spoke the language which came with that great Semitic migration from Arabia.”

— James John Courtenay

“The Cyprus inscription "Ba'al Lebanon" dates from the viii cent. B.C. and is the oldest specimen of Phoenician writing down.”

— James John Courtenay

“The Galilean Aramaic pronunciation of שׁ was שׂ, or rather ס as the Ephraimite or Samaritan.”

— James John Courtenay

“The Bible of Jesus of Nazareth, for instance, was Semitic, the earliest utterances and traditions of the Gospel were Semitic.”

— James John Courtenay

“It is certain that 'Phoenician' became the type of all subsequent script in western Asia and Europe.”

— James John Courtenay

“Galilaean must not be regarded as a later and more degenerate form of Judaean, any more than Aramaic itself must be regarded…

— James John Courtenay

“The Arabic language has had a great history, and in many respects is more remarkable than any other Semitic speech.”

— James John Courtenay

“In its ruggedness Hebrew seems an older language than Arabic, but some Arabic forms are certainly older than the corresponding Hebrew.”

— James John Courtenay

“A comparative study will lead to the conclusion that the Phoenician, Aramaic and Greek alphabets were developed from one original.”

— James John Courtenay

“The influence of Arabic on the language of Palestine was mainly in vocabulary. Thus is seen to some extent in the text…

— James John Courtenay

“The Palestinian Aramaic in general is not to be distinguished from the Aramaic portions of Daniel, Ezra and the Targums in their…

— James John Courtenay

“Assyrian and Aramaic had long separate histories before the time of Nebuchadrezzar. But evidence shows that these languages came into contact with…

— James John Courtenay

“When Aramaeans became Christians, their name was often confounded with 'heathen', hence they called their land by the Greek name 'Syria', themselves…

— James John Courtenay

“Nabataean (i.e., Syro-Arabian) people had a dialect differing somewhat from both Syriac and Arabic. Remains of this language are found in inscriptions…

— James John Courtenay

“The difficulties besetting the translators of the LXX were very great. It was almost impossible to reproduce the native inimitableness of a…

— James John Courtenay

“Samaritan Targum ... maybe compared with the Aramaic of the Jerusalem Talmud and with the Palestinian Syriac. On the whole it was…

— James John Courtenay

“There is some evidence that the Canaanites lived together with the Babylonians for a longer period than did the Aramaeans ... It…

— James John Courtenay

“The use of 'ל' with imperfect ... the earliest occurrence of this construction found in Aramaean ... 'ל' has clearly a jussive…

— James John Courtenay

“The post-Biblical literature contains many Greek loan-words. On the Hasmonaean coins, Greek is found along with Hebrew legends, while on the Herodian…

— James John Courtenay

“vav conversive with the imperfect ... is found in Moabite ... show how closely this dialect was related to Hebrew ... vav…

— James John Courtenay

“The Rabbinic pronunciation of ת sometimes approaches the ס sound.”

— James John Courtenay

“With the progress of the Greek arms cam the decline of the Greek language.”

— James John Courtenay

“The home of the historic Semites was Arabia.”

— James John Courtenay

“The likeness of Ethiopic to Arabic suggests an original tribal affinity.”

— James John Courtenay

“All Semitic languages are perhaps ultimately traceable to Arabia.”

— James John Courtenay

“If the Jews were Hellenized, it must be remembered that the Greeks were Aramaized.”

— James John Courtenay

“Judaean Aramaic is in no sense a mixture of Hebrew and Syriac.”

— James John Courtenay

“Syriac is a later development of Aramaic.”

— James John Courtenay

“In many cases the vowel-letters are omitted in Palmyrene where they are found in Hebrew.”

— James John Courtenay

“The inhabitants of Samaria seem to have perpetuated a form of Chaldee, hence their dialect had some likenesses to Babylonian Aramaic.”

— James John Courtenay

“The books of the Old Testament, as we know them, do not represent the language of Palestine as spoken at any one…

— James John Courtenay

“It has been shown that some institutions, at one time regarded as distinctly 'Jewish', are really Babylonian.”

— James John Courtenay

“The Hebrews were perhaps a secondary offshoot of the 'Canaanite' migration, just as the Abyssinians were a secondary offshoot of the Arabian-Sabaeans.”

— James John Courtenay