How did Aramaic come to be spoken throughout the Fertile Crescent?

Answer 1

The Afro-Asiatic language group covers languages spoken from Syria south to Yemen and across the Red Sea down to Kenya and west across both North Africa and Central Africa. The Semitic languages are the most widespread of the Afro-Asiatic languages spoken from the Atlantic coast across North Africa to Syria, through the Arabian Peninsula to Ethiopia, Aramaic, Hebrew, Arabic and Amharic are the modern languages. Accadian, Ancient and Middle Babylonian, Phoenician, and Cannanite are older examples. All of the literate Semitic languages use and used essentially the same alphabet -- the handwriting differs, but the names of the letters are and the conventional alphabetical order are pretty much the same. Arabic is the most widespread of these languages today, but part of that is due to the power of Islam and the Koran. Literature can spread languages! Earlier, Phoenician was spoken across the entire Mediterranean coast from Syria all the way west, and until the rise of the Greek and Roman empires, it was the trade language of the entire Mediterranean. Aramaic was the language of the Babylonian Empire, and before that, the Assyrians. It was spoken throughout those empires, and hangs on today in the face of overwhelming pressure from Arabic largely because it is the language of the Syriac Christian liturgy and the language of Talmud scholarship.

Answer 2

Aramaic originated as a language spoken by ancient Semitic people in the region of modern-day Syria. Through conquests and political influence, Aramaic gradually spread throughout the Fertile Crescent, becoming the lingua franca of the region by the 6th century BCE. Its use was further promoted by the Assyrian and Babylonian empires, as well as by the Persian Empire in later centuries.