Biblical Aramaic

Biblical Aramaic is the form of Aramaic that is used in the books of Daniel, Ezra and a few other places in the Hebrew Bible. It should not be confused with the Aramaic paraphrases, explanations and expansions of the Jewish scriptures, which are known as targumim.

As Old Aramaic had served as a lingua franca in the Neo-Assyrian Empire from the 8th century BCE,linguistic contact with even the oldest stages of Biblical Hebrew is easily accounted for.

During the Babylonian exile, Aramaic became the language spoken by the Jews, and Aramaic square script replaced the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet. After the Achaemenid Empire captured Babylon, Aramaic became the language of culture and learning. King Darius I declaredImperial Aramaic to be the official language of the western half of his empire in 500 BCE, and it is that Imperial Aramaic that forms the basis of Biblical Aramaic.

Biblical Hebrew was gradually reduced to the status of a liturgical language and a language of theological learning, and the Jews of the Second Temple period would have spoken a western form of Old Aramaic until their partial Hellenization from the 3rd century BCE and the eventual emergence of Middle Aramaic in the 3rd century CE.

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