Hebrew is a West Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is regarded as the language of the Hebrews / Israelites and their ancestors. The earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date from the 10th century BCE, in the form of primitive drawings. Aramaic is a family of languages (traditionally referred to as 'dialects') belonging to the Semitic family. More specifically, it is a 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.