קאווע שטיבל

יונה מצאה האט געשריבן:די פּמליא של מעלה פלאַטערט דאָ אַרום, פּראָבירט אויפצוכאַפּן אַביסל טייטש אויף פּקודא בתר דא ווייל דער לימודי־קוֹדש קוריקולום שליסט נישט איין קיין אַראַמיש, און דו ביסט פאַרנומען מיט נאַרישקייטן?

I once asked a very fine and leading scholar of Aramaic if I could do a reading course with him in the Zohar. Now I knew that he wasn't that familiar with the Zohar but I wanted to see his take on the Aramaic. And I'll never forget what he said to me. He said, "I don't deal in corrupt Aramaic"

What is especially difficult in translating the Zohar is that the Zohar is a very weird Aramaic; it's a "corrupt Aramaic" quote unquote, as some Scholars would say. What makes it more interesting and more difficult is that the Zohar likes to invent words; it's a little bit like Jabberwocky. The Zohar invents words that are in no Aramaic dictionary in the world. Sometimes it'll just take a Hebrew word and add an aleph at the end. Some are easy to figure out, but some other words just seem to be nonsense