“A great star falls”—cometology in Syriac language and literature

Abstract

Abstract The Syriac language has, among all the Aramaic varieties, by far the largest number of terms for ‘comet’ or ‘meteor’. Is there a simple explanation for this fact? The systematic investigation of Syriac technical terminology in the field of astral sciences addresses this question. Such a study also impacts three issues relevant to Semitic studies: (1) The question of the sources and languages the Syriac writers were able to access; (2) the linguistic strategies for the creation of neologisms; (3) the existence of a common Aramaic technical koiné (standard literary Aramaic). This article sets forth the terms for comets and meteors in Syriac as a representative selection of astral terminology, and investigates their value for the questions mentioned above. The two pillars of this investigation are the comparison of the literary genres in which this terminology surfaces with those of other Near Eastern literatures in which this terminology surfaces, and the linguistic analysis of these terms in Syriac.