Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preliminary Material -- Introduction: Aramaic among the Semitic Languages -- The Emergence of Aramaic Dialects in the Fertile Crescent -- The Spread of Aramaic in the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires -- Official Aramaic and the Achaemenid Chancellery -- Aramaic in the Hellenistic and Early Roman Near East -- Western Aramaic in Late Antique Palestine -- Eastern Aramaic in Late Antique Syria and Mesopotamia -- Epilogue -- Bibliography -- Modern Authors -- Index of Subjects -- Sources.

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Aramaic is a constant thread running through the various civilizations of the Near East, ancient and modern, from 1000 BCE to the present, and has been the language of small principalities, world empires, and a fair share of the Jewish-Christian tradition. Holger Gzella describes its cultural and linguistic history as a continuous evolution from its beginnings to the advent of Islam. For the first time the individual phases of the language, their socio-historical underpinnings, and the textual sources are discussed comprehensively in light of the latest linguistic and historical research and with ample attention to scribal traditions, multilingualism, and language as a marker of cultural self-awareness. Many new observations on Aramaic are thereby integrated into a coherent historical framework.