Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Aramaic of Jesus

Aramaic Wikipedia

submitted	verification	final decision

	This proposal has been rejected. This decision was taken by the language committee in accordance with the Language proposal policy based on the discussion on this page. The closing committee member provided the following comment: Aramaic of Jesus is not clearly defined. It is an ancient language and thus Wikipedia in that language can't be created. Wikisource for all ancient Aramaic varieties may have sense. --Millosh 11:42, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal summary
Language details: Aramaic (aramaia, aram ISO 639-2) Editing community: List your user name if you're interested in editing the wiki. Add "N" next to your name if you are a native speaker of this language. Relevant pages: development wiki project External links:
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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

It's an ancient language, Jesus used the Aramaic as language. AndSalX-WWECR 23:23, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Aramaic is actually the name of a language family, not just one language. Even in ancient times, there were a number of very different forms of Aramaic (Achaemenid "official" Aramaic, Syriac, etc.), and very little is actually known in detail about the particular form of Aramaic which Jesus spoke (Galilean/Judean Western Aramaic). Also, many of the considerations which I brought up with respect to Phoenician would also apply to ancient Aramaic (see Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Phoenician_2). In my opinion, ancient-language Wikipedias should only be approved where a lot of detailed specific information about the language is available, and the language has a continuous tradition of usage down to the present day (e.g. Latin, classical Chinese, classical Greek, Sanskrit etc.). Syriac might qualify according to this criterion (though there are significant variants of Syriac used by different denominations), but general undifferentiated "Aramaic" doesn't, nor does the Aramaic spoken by Jesus. AnonMoos 12:17, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.