Aramaic in the Bible
Most of the Tanakh is Hebrew. Several stretches are Imperial Aramaic, written in the same square letters.
Where it appears
The long blocks are Daniel 2:4b–7:28 and Ezra 4:8–6:18 plus 7:12–26. Two brief pieces are Jeremiah 10:11 and the place-name pair in Genesis 31:47. Biblical Aramaic is not the same as later Talmudic Aramaic, though a Hebrew reader will recognize a lot.
What looks different
The definite ending is often א־ rather than Hebrew הַ־. The relative is דִּי. Pronouns and some verbs diverge (הֲוָה for "to be"). You can finish a first pass of Biblical Hebrew before treating Aramaic as a separate grammar.
who, which (Aramaic relative)
the king (Aramaic determined form)
heap of witness (Aramaic name)
Gen 31:47Hebrew beside Aramaic
Daniel and Ezra switch languages in the middle of a narrative. A pointed edition will not warn you in English; the grammar will. Keep a one-page Aramaic chart for those chapters.
Read next
Biblical vs modern Hebrew
Same letters and a shared core of roots; different tense system, particles, and everyday lexicon.
The Dead Sea Scrolls and Hebrew
Scrolls from the Judean Desert give Hebrew (and Aramaic) copies from around the last centuries BCE to the first century CE, without Masoretic pointing.
What is Biblical Hebrew?
Biblical Hebrew is the language of the Tanakh: a Northwest Semitic tongue written in a 22-letter abjad, later pointed by the Masoretes.