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==Ancient Chaldeans==
Unlike the [[East Semitic languages|East Semitic]] [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]]-speaking [[Akkadian Empire|Akkadians]], [[Assyria]]ns and [[Babylonians]], whose ancestors had been established in Mesopotamia since at least the 30th century BC, the Chaldeans were not a native Mesopotamian people, but were late 10th- or early 9th-century BC [[West Semitic languages|West Semitic]] [[Levant]]ine migrants to the southeastern corner of the region, who had played no part in the previous three millennia  of Sumero-Akkadian and Assyro-Babylonian [[Mesopotamian civilization]] and history.<ref>A. Leo Oppenheim – Ancient Mesopotamia</ref>{{sfn|Roux|1992|p=}}{{page needed|date=August 2022}}

The ancient Chaldeans seem to have migrated into Mesopotamia sometime between c. 940 and 860 BC, a century or so after other new [[ancient Semitic-speaking peoples|Semitic arrivals]], the [[Arameans]] and the [[Suteans]], appeared in Babylonia, c. 1100 BC. According to Ran Zadok, they first appear in [[Recorded history|written record]] in cylinder inscriptions of the King of [[Mari, Syria|Mari]] Aššur-ketta-lēšir II (late 12th-early 11th century BC), which record them reaching Mesopotamia as early as the 11th century BC.{{sfn|Zadok|2017|p=333}} They later appear in the annals of the Assyrian king [[Shalmaneser III]] during the 850s BC. This was a period of weakness in Babylonia, and its ineffectual native kings were unable to prevent new waves of semi-nomadic foreign peoples from invading and settling in the land.<ref>A. Leo Oppenheim, ''Ancient Mesopotamia''</ref>

Though belonging to the same West Semitic speaking ethnic group and migrating from the same Levantine regions as the earlier arriving Aramaeans, they are to be differentiated; the Assyrian king [[Sennacherib]], for example, carefully distinguishes them in his inscriptions.

The Chaldeans were for a time able to keep their identity despite the dominant native Assyro-Babylonian (Sumero-Akkadian-derived) culture although, as was the case for the earlier [[Amorites]], [[Kassites]] and [[Suteans]] before them, by the time [[Fall of Babylon|Babylon fell]] in 539 BC, perhaps before, the Chaldeans ceased to exist as a specific [[ethnic group]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Boldt |first=Andreas |title=Historical Mechanisms: An Experimental Approach to Applying Scientific Theories to the Study of History |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2017 |isbn=9781351816489 |pages=154}}</ref>

In the [[Hebrew Bible]], "[[Ur of the Chaldees]]" ([[Ur Kaśdim]]) is cited as the starting point of the patriarch [[Abraham|Abraham's]] journey to [[Canaan]].

===Language===
Ancient Chaldeans probably spoke a [[West Semitic languages|West Semitic]] language similar to [[Old Aramaic]].{{sfn|Vanderhooft|2017|p=173}} 

During the [[Neo-Assyrian Empire]], [[Imperial Aramaic]] became the [[lingua franca]] of the empire under the rule of the [[Assyria|Assyrian]] king [[Tiglath-Pileser III]] in the mid-8th century BC. As a result, in late periods both the Babylonian and Assyrian dialects of [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]] became marginalized, and Aramaic took its place across Mesopotamia, including among the Chaldeans, and later, also the [[southern Levant]]. One form of this once widespread Aramaic language was used in some books of the [[Hebrew Bible]] (the [[Book of Daniel]] and the [[Book of Ezra]]). The use of the name "Chaldean" (Chaldaic, Chaldee) to describe it, first introduced by [[Jerome of Stridon]] (d. 420),{{sfn|Gallagher|2012|p=123-141}} became common in early [[Aramaic studies]], but that [[Chaldean language (misnomer)|misnomer]] was later corrected, when modern scholars concluded that the [[Biblical Aramaic|Aramaic dialect]] used in the Hebrew Bible was not closely related to the ancient Chaldean language.{{sfn|Nöldeke|1871|p=113-131}}