Ancient Semitic language, predominant in the Middle East for almost two thousand years, up to the seventh century AD. (Jews and most Arabs are "Semites," descended from Noah's son Shem.) During the twelfth century BC, the Arameans migrated into the Middle East, bringing with them the language that would eventually become Aramaic; the Jewish people used the Aramaic alphabet as the basis for written Hebrew. Ezra 4-7 and Daniel 2-7, in the Hebrew Scriptures, are written in Aramaic; Aramaic was one of the languages Jesus spoke. (See Mark 5:41; 7:34; 14:36; 15:34 for Aramaic words in the Greek New Testament.) See also "companion," Aramaic word for.