Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible (1898)
SYR'IAC, the ancient language of Syria, a dialect of the Aramaean. The word occurs in Dan 2:4. where it should be "Aramaic," as it is in the Hebrew. The Chaldaeans spoke in Aramaic in order to conform to the custom of the court, but this was not their proper or scientific language. Daniel at this point begins to employ Chaldee in his book, and continues its use to the end of the seventh chapter. "The tongue of the Chaldaeans," Dan 1:4, was the old Chaldee, the language of Akkad, used by the original inhabitants of Babylonia, and in the time of Nebuchadnezzar a dead language.
, but ceased to be avernacular before the twelfth century. It contains the most extensive literature of any Aramaean dialect, chiefly theological, and, of greatest importance, a translation of the Bible - commonly called Peshito ("simple"), because it was literal and not paraphrastic - which was made in the second century. It is the earliest of the direct versions.