Aramaic Language

Ancient Aramaic Language

Aramaic is a Semitic language belonging to the Afro-Asiatic family it was used by many powerful empires of the old world as a language of trade and administration, it is also believed to have been the native language of Jesus.
Ancient Aramaic refers to the language of the Aramaeans, which developed and spread through the neighbouring states around them. The Aramaeans were a Semitic people who originated and lived in upper Mesopotamia and Syria. The people called Aramaeans were divided into independent states across the Near East and although never became an empire or great civilisation managed to impose their language and culture upon the entire Near East.

The Aramaic language adopted by the Assyrian Empire was made the official language within all its territories; this was to allow all its subjects to understand each other within the empire and therefore give them a single common point. New and different dialects began to form in places such as Babylonia and Mesopotamia who added their own influences to the language. It was not until Greek emerged several centuries later that Aramaic lost its prestige but it still remained the common dialect of all peoples of the Near East until the Arab invasion.

It was not a single language as such but a group of related languages that developed over the centuries. The early Aramaic alphabet like many others was based on the Ancient Phoenician script but in time it developed its own unique and distinctive style. The unusual square style of writing that formed is still present today and its influence can be witnessed in the form of the Hebrew alphabet of modern times. In the ancient world many other people including the Canaanites, Israelites and the Hebrews adopted this form of writing and adapted it to their own needs.

The Christians who spoke Aramaic used a cursive form for writing known as the Syriac alphabet while other forms evolved and developed by such peoples as the Nabataean. The Great Persian King Darius I announced that the official language of the western half of the Persian Empire was to be Aramaic. This was the Imperial or Achaemenid Aramaic that was to be standardized with the Persian influence and survived for centuries after the empire had crumbled and turned to dust.

With the conquest by Alexander the Great and the Seleucids influence the language still survived even with the imposed Greek system and although Greek became the common language of Egypt and Syria, Aramaic flourished throughout the deserts of Judea, Syria and Parthia. The language and dialects changed from country to country and from area to area, slowly as its influence waned and as other languages replaced the Aramaic through out the ancient world it lost its prominence and authority. Aramaic has survived to modern times and is spoken mostly by the modern Assyrians but its ancient dialects and influence have long since gone.

The information contained on this site cannot be reproduced without strict permission and an active link must always be added to  www.foreign-languages-school.com