‏עִדָּנִ֖ין Aramaic Plural or Dual?

[Enoch]

‏עִדָּנִ֖ין

In Daniel 7 occurs the famous phrase "time, times, and half a time." The Aramaic word ‏עִדָּנִ֖ין is the word translated "times." Accordance says in its Instant Details that it is plural. I thought it was dual. Is this a bug in Accordance?

[Helen Brown]

Good question, referring to Dan 7:25. The voweling (same as in Dan 4) indicates the plural but BDB does suggest that it could be dual here.

 

I am not a scholar, but I searched my Aramaic passages range (Dan 2:4-7:28; Ezra 4:8-68; 7:12-26; Jeremiah 10:11) for [NOUN dual] and see that all the forms (hand, tooth, etc) have a patach or kamatz before the yod, indication an "a" or "ai" sound, which conforms to the dual forms in modern Hebrew and Arabic. In my opinion it is correct to tag the form in the passage in question as plural, even though it is commonly interpreted and translated as two years.

[Enoch]

Thanks, Helen. I never took Aramaic, only Hebrew & Greek, and had been taught that it was dual in Dan 7 in the Aramaic. I note that HALOT says it is plural for dual and it gives some abbreviations to scholars. When I click on a source abbreviation, it jumps to a list (which does not seem to help & then I can't go back where I was easily.) This plural for dual gives me a bit of a bone to chew on. & BTW, I don't know why that today when I highlight a word & go to a Lexicon, it does not go to the entry but to the start of the Lexicon.

[Helen Brown]

You may have set your General Preferences to Require selection for amplifying. If you uncheck that, simply clicking in a word selects it for the purpose of amplifying.

 

After you view the abbreviation list you can click the Prior button to return to where you are. Instant details will also list the full abbreviation so you don't need to click.

[CapnKirk]

Rosenthal's "Grammar of Biblical Aramaic" (p. 28): "...All other forms of the dual of the masc. noun, including those with pronominal suffixes, are identical with the pl. forms and not distinguishable from them. No dual of a fem. formation or of an adjective is found."

 

This situation is similar to that found in biblical Hebrew (especially the masc. pl. constr.). Since the form is exactly the same as that of the plural, we parse this form as "plural." Whether or not one is to understand the dual in this case must be supported on grounds other than the word's morphology. At the Groves Center we do not make such choices for the user, since we believe a morphology database should present the objective reality of what is actually written -- even if we are convinced it is an "error" in the text.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Kirk