The Semitic lingua franca of the ancient Near East — spoken by Jesus, used in parts of the Hebrew Bible, and still alive today in scattered Christian and Jewish communities.
Where it’s spoken
Aramaic spread from northern Syria across the Neo-Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian Empires from the 8th century BCE onward, becoming the international language of trade, diplomacy, and (after the Persian conquest) administration. Today scattered Neo-Aramaic dialects survive among Assyrian Christians, Mandaeans, and a few Jewish communities — most now in diaspora.
What it sounds like
A triconsonantal-root Semitic language closely related to Hebrew, with three numbers in older varieties and a distinctive “emphatic” state for nouns marked by a final -ā suffix.
How it’s written
The Aramaic alphabet — itself a development of Phoenician — became the ancestor of Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, and the Brahmi-derived scripts of India. Most surviving Aramaic literature is in Syriac script, especially in Christian liturgical use.
Find more languages by letter
Aramaic starts with A and ends with C. Browse other languages along the same letter.
Languages that contain a letter from "Aramaic":