Yes they did mean it to be a Judaized version of Aramaic known as Chaldee, which was the spoken language of the 1st century Palestinian Jews, derived from Syriac (i.e. Aramaic), and sometimes called Judeo-Aramaic by some scholars.
Aramaic is not a single language but a group of related languages used by different tribes and cultures. References to Syriac in the pre-Babylonian period do refer to the language of Syria, that is Aramaic, which was not spoken by the Hebrews at that time.
That language began to be used by the Jews circa 7th century BC for official correspondence several centruies, the languges used by the Jewish homes. Both Targum (Tanakh) and Talmud are written in Chaldee Aramaic, which the Greeks call Hebraisti.
The Jews themsleves do not call OT Hebrew "Hebrew" (the proepr name Hebrew is Ibriy in Hebrew) but Yehudith. The Greeks (see 2 King 18:26 LXX) call the latter (OT Hebrew) Ioudaisti. Ioudaisti does not appear in the New Testament! Only Hebraisti does.
Unfortunately, Latin and subsequent translators translated Hebraisti as "Hebrew" because it was spoken by the 1st century Hebrews! And thence it went into the west as an error and now, after having been repeated enough times, it becomes the "gold standard" of truth!
St. Augustine (whose Greek was marginal) errnenously translated a section of Sirach as Qui vivit in eternum, creavit omnia simul which means "He that lives eternally created all things together" as "he who lives eternally created all thing at once!" Such one-word errors can have destastrous consequences over many repetitions. And such is the case with numerous other examples.
You keep treating Latin translations as accurate renditions of the Greek text when this is cleary not so. Hebraisti does not mean OT Hebrew. It means Chaldee Aramaic. The OT Hebrew is Ioudaisti in Greek.
This somehow became "truncated." The correct version was:
"That language began to be used by the Jews circa 7th century BC for official correspndence at first, then the marketplace and then if finally, after several centuries, it became the languges used in Jewish homes."
So then the Jews in Israel today aren't speaking and writing in Hebraisti -- Hebrew?????
Let's be clear here: Chaldee is often erroneously called by modern scholars as eastern Aramaic when it is really "Akkadic" not Aramaic. The term "Aramaic", though thrown around erroneously by pseudo scholars, means "Syriac" -- neither Chaldee [Akkadic] nor Hebrew -- although all of these are closely related. The Hebrew that Moses and the prophets and chroniclers of the OT wrote in had a lot of Chaldean words in it --- but it was still called HEBREW, whether it is spelled Ibriy or Hebraisti -- HEBREW nonetheless.
Targums were not the Tanakh. Targums were an oral paraphrase delivered in Aramaic [Syriac], extemporaneously by word of mouth, unofficially, varying from synagogue to synagogue, not originally committed to writing until well into the Christian period, and only given by word of mouth after the reading of the Tanakh in Hebraisti [Hebrew].
Chaldee Aramaic
It is either Chaldee [Akkadic] or Aramaic [Syriac]. It cannot be both. Make up your mind --