CHALDEE, Icirde, LANGUAGE, a form or dialect of the Babylonian and also of the Aramean, one of the three principal varieties of the ancient Semitic. The region called in Scripture Aram may be described generally as occupying the northern and northeastern divi sions of that corner of Asia which was the home of the Semitic languages. It was bounded on the north by the Taurus Range and the river Tigris, which latter also formed its eastern boundary; on the west by the Mediter ranean and Mount Lebanon; and on the south by Palestine and the Arabian desert. The Ara mean language was very extensively known, not only within the limits above mentioned, but beyond them. The princes of Judea and As syria were familiar with it; it was spoken in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar, and even formed the medium of communication between the Persian court and its subjects in Judea and Samaria. It may also lay claim to a high an tiquity, being probably the language of Abraham previous to his migration into Palestine, and certainly of his grand-nephew Laban. Un fortunately the older monuments of the lan guage have perished, the Chaldee portions of Daniel and Ezra being the earliest specimens we possess of a language which had probably existed and flourished at least 2,000 years be fore. There is another dialect of the Aramean
besides the Chaldee, namely, the Syriac, and in this as well as in the Chaldee numerous writ ings are still extant, but they are all of com paratively recent date. The Chaldee literature is usually arranged in two divisions: the bibli cal Chaldee, or those of the Old Tes tament which are written in Chaldee, namely, Daniel from ii, to vii, 28; Ezra iv, 8 to vi, 18 and vii, 12-26; and Jeremiah x, 11; and the Chaldee of the Targums and other later Jewish writings. The former is distinguished by a closer approach to the Hebrew idiom, and is therefore considered less pure than the Chaldee of the Targum of Onkelos, the oldest and most valuable of the Targums. Consult Brinton, 'Protohistoric Ethnography of Western Asia' (Philadelphia 1895) ; Delattre, "Les Chaldeens" in 'Revue des questions historiques) (Paris 1896) ; Meyer, Edward, 'Geschichte des Alter turns' (3d ed., Leipzig 1913) ; Winckler, (Un tersuchungen zur altorientalischen (Leipzig 1889).