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.
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