Syria

(800 B.c.), and afterwards on weights, and tablets, of the 8th and 7th centuries B.c. in As syria and Babylonia, showing a population (perhaps of Syrian merchants) speaking a dialect different from A yrian or Babylonian. The Aramaik was used by the Jews, from the 5th century B.c., as their common dialect (in Palestine, Egypt, Asia Minor, and Babylonia), and by the Rabbis in the Talmud commentaries (300 to 800 a.c.), when Hebrew was a dead language. [It is grammatically an older dialect than Hebrew, as Sir H. Rawlinson has remarked.—Ep.] In later literature the Aramaik is divided into dialects. I, astern Aramaik (once called Chaldee) as found in the Book of Daniel for instance. IT.