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The Aramaic Language
Aramaic is a semitic language. In spite of Aramaic extent and its high position, almost all Aramaic material has been ruined during different time caps. Aramaic inscriptions which has been found lately give us valuable information about Aramaic origin and about the Arameans political power in different regions. These documents wich mainly are from the 8 and 9th century B.C unveils a lot about different regions such as Guzana, Sam'al, Arpad, Hamat, Damaskus more or less all the important parts of the political world of Arameans.
The Aramaic language, was from the 8th century B.C a diplomatic - and dealing language in the Middle East. In 539 B.C, when the Persian king Cyrus conquered Babylon and the old Chaldean empire, Aramaic became the official language of the Persian empire. This Persian empire under Darius (521-485 B.C) extended from the river Nile to Indus and included countries such as Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Palestine, and Egypt. The Aramaic language served as, with other domestic languages, the common language for as well as political, cultural and as commercial relations between theese different nations within the Persian empire.
The conquering of the Orient by Alexander the great (356-323 B.C), introduced Greek as the official language of its empire. Even after the death of Alexander and the disintegration of the empire, Greek continued as the official language in the two important kingdoms of Middle East. This made the Aramaic language loose its role as the "universal language" and began to develope more regionally with different accents and writing techniques such as Eastern Aramaic in Mesopotamia and Western Aramaic in Syria, Phoenicia, Palestine and among others.
Aramaic was continued to be spoken in Palestine. By the time before Jesus birth it was the only common language for most of the people. Jesus and his apostles spoke Aramaic. The readings of the Holy Scripts in the synagogues was in Hebrew for the Jewish, but since very few knew Hebrew it was allowed to retell them in Aramaic. These relates are called targumes. A brilliant example of a targume is in Luke 4:16.
The Arabic conquerings in the 7th century forced the Aramaic language to leave space for Arabic. Despite the spreading of Arabic and its dominance the Aramaic language survived until 13th century as a literary language. Most of the mediation of the important Greek scientific works to the Arabs was made by the Aramaic language. Even today Aramaic(Syriac) is a living language and the liturgical language for the Christians in the Middle East. Because of the geographical division, two main accents developed. We call them Western and Eastern Aramaic(Syriac). The Arameans who later came to be called nestorians (Eastern
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