Learn Aramaic

At its height the Persian Empire was huge stretching from Macedonia and Thrace to the Indian Subcontinent.  Occupation of Upper Mesopotamia. In the 6th century B.C.E. the Persian Empire devastated the lands of Mesopotamia incorporating them into the Empire. These lands formerly belonged to the Median and Neo-Babylonian Empires which themselves in turn took them after destroying the Neo-Assyrian Empire.  Adoption of Aramaic. The Achaemenids after capturing Upper Mesopotamia- the land of the Arameans- adopted the Aramaic language as a means of communication,trade and official purposes for the entire Empire. This language was called retrospectively Imperial Aramaic or Official Aramaic and served as a very important means of running and keeping the vast Empire together. Imperial Aramaic was written in the Imperial Aramaic alphabet which dates from the 5th century B.C when Aramaic was adopted as the lingua franca -the language of trade, official documents and communication bet...

Aramaic is a Semitic language related to Arabic,Hebrew,Amharic,Tigrinia and Akkadian the oldest Semitic language we know,more closely related to Hebrew. During its' existence it has gone through many phases.It was never a uniform language but had many dialects influenced by various languages.Aramaic is still spoken today in small Aramaic speaking enclaves in the Middle East.These people speak the so-called Neo-Aramaic languages. There is a lot of confusion all over the internet as to what Aramaic is with people posting links with e.g. the Lord's Prayer in Aramaic  in the language of Jesus Christ as they claim. That is very wrong which I explain in my ' Aramaic monolith' article. It was originally the native tongue of the Arameans -a Semitic people native to northern Syria.The Arameans lived divided in small kingdoms which disappeared rather early in history in what is now modern-day Syria and Mesopotamia. In contrast,their language had a different fate...

 Ālap   /ʔ/ ; /aː/ , /eː/ Handwritten form 𐡀 ‎ This is the first letter of the Imperial Aramaic alphabet the modern version.