The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Aramaeans

nomadic Semitic tribes whose native land was the Arabian Peninsula. First mention of the Aramaeans dates from the middle of the third millennium B.C. In the 14th century B.C., the Aramaeans penetrated into the Syrian Desert as well as the central Euphrates region; by the turn of the 11th century B.C., they had overrun almost all of Southwest Asia. In a number of places (for example, to the East of the Jordan River), the Aramaeans became a settled people. By 1 A.D., Aramaic, which belongs to the Semitic group, had become the major spoken language of Southwest Asia. The descendants of the Aramaeans are the present-day Assyrians (Aisors).

REFERENCES

D’iakonov, I. M. “Narody drevnei Perednei Azii.” In Peredneaziatskii etnograficheskii sb., book 1. Moscow, 1958.
Dupont-Sommer, A. Les Araméens. Paris, [1949].

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References in periodicals archive

The Arameans didn't invent alphabetic script--this honour goes to the Phoenicians of the Lebanese coast--but they did popularise it.

OLD WORLD DISORDER

Lawson Younger Jr., who has now (2016) published a full-length book on the Arameans, is very cautious in his excellent essay "Aram and the Arameans" to avoid making a connection between the newly found inscription of Taita at Aleppo and Toi, ally of David in the Bible.

The World around the Old Testament: The People and Places of the Ancient Near East

Many Israelis would be surprised to learn of an Aramean people living here, but their language -- the Semitic language used in ancient times in the Land of Israel and its environs -- is known to every Hebrew speaker, since many Aramaic words made their way into contemporary Hebrew.

Neither Arab nor Jew: Israel's Unheard Minorities Speak Up

The Bible's first confession of faith begins with a story of pilgrimage and migration: "A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien" (Deut.

Xenophilia or xenophobia: towards a theology of migration

Did I not bring Israel up from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir?" (21) This verse may serve to challenge the idea that Christians alone are the recipients of God's salvation.

"Genuine pluralism" and Reformed christology

Joseph Patrich (1990) has argued that the Nabateans were in fact a state established when Arab traders from Himyaritic regions of southern and central Arabia "imposed their rule on the farmers of Transjordan," the "Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, Arameans, and even Israelites -- that is, the peasants of Transjordan" (p.38).

Of Nubians and Nabateans: Implications of research on neglected dimensions of ancient world history

Aram is what is now southern Syria, and Arameans were among Israel's enemies.

The prophet Elisha

The next verse (v.3) is in direct speech, and although it has been interpreted as the speech of the foreign kings, it makes more sense as Israel's defiant speech directed at the nations: "Let us break their chains apart, and let us hurl their fetters away from us." It was the nations, especially Assyria and the Arameans, who posed a threat to Israel during Isaiah's lifetime.

The Psalms (Part One)

From the apparent account, and according to the current understanding of this event, al-Mahdi's inquisition was directed against former Manichaean Muslims and their ideas which were popularized through the service of Persians and persianized Arameans. Since Manichaeans were not given Dhimmi status like other established religious groups,(6) their conversion to Islam had presumably been without much conviction and mainly in order to keep their employment in the Abbasid administration.(7) Nonetheless, they quickly came to constitute a powerful pressure group at the Abbasid court.(8)

Religious inquisition as social policy: the persecution of the 'Zanadiqa' in the early Abbasid Caliphate

These columns are the remains of an ancient temple built by the Arameans to worship Hadad-Romman , the god of fertility, thunderstorms and rain at the beginning of the first millennium BC, Assistant director of exploration and documentation at the General Directorate of Antiquities and Museums Hammam Saad said.

Columns of Temple of Jupiter narrate part of history of civilization in Damascus

Such scholars point to contacts between Arameans and speakers of other languages in the first millennium BCE, as a result of an assumed regional state of multilingualism.

Features of Aramaeo-Canaanite