Aramaic as Lingua Franca

This chapter discusses various linguistic aspects of the rise and use of Aramaic as the lingua franca of three successive Near Eastern empires – the Neo-Assyrian, the Neo-Babylonian, and the Achaemenid (also "Persian") empires. In striving to extend their territories, the administrations of the empires incorporated regions with other spoken and written native languages, which were often unrelated linguistically to the native languages of the conquerors (Neo-Assyrian, Late Babylonian and Old Persian). The resulting empires were of immense dimensions and comprised both multi-ethnic and multi-lingual populations. Aramaic – the language of the conquered Arameans – was adopted as a useful medium for the communicative and administrative needs of these empires, and proved vital to their unification. The chapter considers the survival and gradual decline of Aramaic as a language of communication in the post-Achaemenid Hellenistic world, which promoted (koine) Greek as its language of communication.