Aramaic

Aramaic is the ancient language of the Semitic family group, which includes the Assyrians, Babylonians, Chaldeans, Arameans, Hebrews, and Arabs.  In fact, a large part of the Hebrew and Arabic languages is borrowed from Aramaic, including the Alphabet.  The modern Hebrew (square) script is called  "Ashuri", and is the Hebrew name for Assyrian, the name being used to signify the ancestor of the Assyrians, Ashur the son of Shem, the son of Noah (Genesis 10:22).  Aramaic is quoted in the very first book of the Bible, Berisheth (Genesis) in Chapter 31:47.  In fact, many portions of the Old Testament are penned originally in Aramaic, including Daniel chapter 2:4 thru chapter 7.

The first known inscriptions of Aramaic date to the late tenth or early ninth century B.C.  In  a phenomenal wave of expansion, Aramaic spread over Palestine and Syria and large tracts of Asia and Egypt, replacing many languages, including Akkadian and Hebrew.  For about one thousand years it served as the official and written language of the Near East, officially beginning with the conquests of the Assyrian Empire, which had adopted Aramaic as its official language, replacing Akkadian.

During the later Chaldean (Neo-Babylonian) and Persian conquests, Aramaic had become the international medium of exchange.  Despite Hellenistic influences, especially in the cities, that followed the conquests of Alexander the Great of Macedonia, Aramaic remained the vernacular of the conquered peoples in the Holy Land, Syria, Mesopotamia and the adjacent countries.  It ceded only to Arabic in the ninth century A.D., two full centuries after the Islamic conquests of Damascus in 633, and Jerusalem in 635.  Arabic has never supplanted Aramaic. Aramaic was adopted by the deported Israelites exiled from Bashan and Gilead in 732 B.C. Aramaic was also adopted by the tribes of the Northern Kingdom taken by Sargon II who overpowered Samaria in 721, and the two tribes of the Southern Kingdom of Judah who were taken into captivity to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar in 587.  Hence, the Jews who returned from the Babylonian Captivity brought Aramaic back with them to the Holy Land, and this continued to be their native tongue throughout the lifetime of the Messiah.