Aramaic language, Semiticlanguage of the Northern Central, or Northwestern, group that was originally spoken by the ancient Middle Eastern people known as Aramaeans. It was most closely related to Hebrew, Syriac, and Phoenician and was written in a script derived from thePhoenician alphabet.

Aramaic is thought to have first appeared among the Aramaeans about the late 11th centurybce. By the 8th centurybce it had become accepted by the Assyrians as a second language. The mass deportations of people by the Assyrians and the use of Aramaic as alingua franca by Babylonian merchants served to spread the language, so that in the 7th and 6th centuriesbce it gradually supplanted Akkadian as the lingua franca of theMiddle East. It subsequently became the official language of the Achaemenian Persiandynasty (559–330bce), though after the conquests ofAlexander the Great, Greek displaced it as the official language throughout the former Persian empire.

Aramaicdialects survived into Roman times, however, particularly in Palestine andSyria. Aramaic had replaced Hebrew as the language of the Jews as early as the 6th centurybce. Certain portions of theBible—i.e., the books of Daniel and Ezra—are written in Aramaic, as are the Babylonian andJerusalem Talmuds. Among theJews, Aramaic was used by the common people, while Hebrew remained the language of religion and government and of the upper class.Jesus and the Apostles are believed to have spoken Aramaic, and Aramaic-language translations (Targums) of theOld Testament circulated. Aramaic continued in wide use until about 650ce, when it wassupplanted by Arabic.

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In the early centuriesce, Aramaic divided into East and West varieties.West Aramaic dialects includeNabataean (formerly spoken in parts of Arabia),Palmyrene (spoken inPalmyra, which was northeast of Damascus),Palestinian-Christian, andJudeo-Aramaic. West Aramaic is still spoken in a small number of villages in Syria.

East Aramaic includesSyriac,Mandaean,Eastern Neo-Assyrian, and the Aramaic of theBabylonian Talmud. One of the most important of these is Syriac, which was the language of an extensive literature between the 3rd and the 7th century. Mandaean was thedialect of a gnostic sect centred in lower Mesopotamia. East Aramaic is still spoken by a few small groups ofJacobite andNestorian Christians in the Middle East.See alsoSyriac language.