Arameans dwelt in Aram-Naharaim or Aram of the two rivers which was a term used by the Israelites to distinguish these closely related Arpachshadite Hebrew tribes from their more distant shemite cousins to the east known as Aram. Originally Hurrian speakers they soon adopted a form of Akkadian from which descended the Aramaic language (which replaced Hebrew as the Jewish vernacular toungue in the early centuries of the common era) as well as the modern Chaldean.
