What language did Aramaic resemble most closely, if any?
It’s similar to Hebrew and Arabic. From Wikipedia: Aramaic belongs to the Afro-Asiatic language family. Within that diverse family, it belongs to the Semitic subfamily. Aramaic is a part of the Northwest Semitic group of languages, which also includes the Canaanite languages (such as Hebrew). It is also related to Arabic, being part of the more diverse Central Semitic languages; one possible source for the Arabic alphabet is Nabataean Aramaic script.
