The Aramaic language is of historical importance to Christians, Jews and Mandaeans. The use of the language among Christians can be divided into four distinct areas:
the Aramaic of Jesus — Jesus most probably spoke a western Jewish variety of Aramaic as his mother tongue.
modern vernacular Christian Aramaic — a number of Neo-Aramaic languages developed from older colloquial Aramaic varieties and became influenced by Syriac. Still spoken to this day, Western Neo-Aramaic is the only western variety to survive, whereas Christians speak a number of varieties of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic.