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Aramaic is a group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic language phylum. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic family, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily, which also includes Canaanite languages such as Hebrew and Phoenician. Aramaic script was widely adopted for other languages and is ancestral to both the Arabic and modern Hebrew alphabets. During its 3,000-year written history, Aramaic has served variously as a language of administration of empires and as a language of divine worship. It was the day-to-day language of Israel in the Second Temple period (539 BCE - 70 CE), was the language spoken by Jesus, is the language of large sections of the biblical books of Daniel and Ezra and is the main language of the Talmud. The Arabic word "Allah" which is used for "God" In Islam, has cognates in Aramaic and in Hebrew. Aramaic's long history and diverse and widespread use has led to the development of many divergent varieties which are sometimes called as dialects, though they are quite distinct languages. Therefore, there is no one singular Aramaic language, but each time and place has had its own variation. Aramaic is retained as a liturgical language by certain Eastern Christian churches, in the form of Syriac, the Aramaic variety by which Eastern Christianity was diffused, whether or not those communities once spoke it or another form of Aramaic as their vernacular, but have since shifted to another language as their primary community language. Modern Aramaic is spoken today as a first language by many scattered, predominantly small, and largely isolated communities of differing Christian, Jewish and Mandean ethnic groups of West Asia-most numerously by the Assyrians (also known as Chaldo-Assyrians) in the form of Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and Chaldean Neo-Aramaic -that have all retained use of the once dominant lingua franca despite subsequent language shifts experienced throughout the Middle East. The Aramaic languages are considered to be endangered. |