Aramaic (Aramaya, ) is a family of languages or dialects belonging to the Semitic family. More specifically, it is part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily, which also includes Canaanite languages such as Hebrew and Phoenician. The Aramaic script was widely adopted for other languages and is ancestral to both the Arabic and modern Hebrew alphabets. Accordingly,  Jesus Christ, the central figure of Christianity, spoke the Aramaic dialect during his public ministry.