Aramaic

About Aramaic

Aramaic is an ancient Semitic language that was once the common language of much of the Middle East and was spoken by Jesus. It lives on today in several modern varieties, spoken by Assyrian, Chaldean and Syriac Christian communities in Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran and in a worldwide diaspora, and as Syriac, a liturgical language of several churches. The guides in this category include both ancient Aramaic and modern forms under the names Assyrian, Chaldean and Syriac.

Aramaic is written from right to left. Modern speakers mostly use the Syriac alphabet, and the square Hebrew letters also descend from the Aramaic script. Modern varieties differ from ancient Aramaic and from each other, so a phrase from one may not be what speakers of another would say.

FamilyAfroasiatic, Semitic, Northwest Semitic
Where spokenIraq, Syria, Turkey, Iran and diaspora communities
ScriptSyriac alphabet, earlier Aramaic alphabet
Codesarc (ancient Aramaic), aii (Assyrian Neo-Aramaic), cld (Chaldean Neo-Aramaic), all ISO 639-3

Classification: Wikidata. Retrieved 26 September 2026.

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