Is aramaic Hebrew

Answer 1

Aramaic and Hebrew are what you might call sister languages. Hebrew is otiginally a Canaanite language. Hebrew is the language of the entire Holy Bible but many scrolls were also written in Aramaic. By the 3rd century A.D. Hebrew became a dead language and when it was revived in the 19th century it was remodeled after Aramaic.

Answer 2

Yes and no.

For the most part, both Hebrew and Aramaic "share" the same 22 consonant letters; however their forms differ significantly depending on several factors.

Originally Aramaic and Hebrew were written using an alphabet borrowed from Phoenician, and used primarily in carvings upon stone. Over time as writing implements changed, the script to write Aramaic took on unique characteristics, which were further developed during the Persian Empire.

When the Jewish people were exiled to Babylon, as a matter of survival, they adopted not only the Aramaic writing system to write Hebrew, but also the Aramaic language as their vernacular, and from that point on, Jewish dialects of Aramaic as well as Hebrew were forever entangled in influence and shared what we know as "Hebrew" or "Square" letters today.

Meanwhile, other Aramaic dialects continued to develop and use their own versions of the 22 letter alphabet. From there other scripts evolved such as Syriac Estrangela (so named as it is a "cursive" connected script), Madnhaya/Swadaya (Eastern Syriac) and Serto (Western Syriac).

Furthermore, some dialects of Aramaic, abandoned the 22 letter alphabet altogether and derived their own. Mandaic Aramaic is the best example of this with a 24 letter alphabet that includes vowels.

So to wrap up:

• Hebrew and Jewish dialects of Aramaic share the same alphabet where other dialects of Aramaic have their own distinct scripts.