Alaph (אֲלַף) is an Aramaic verb meaning "to instruct, to teach, to train" — and reflexively: "to learn." It appears in Daniel 1:4 in the context of Nebuchadnezzar's royal education program: young men being trained in the language and literature of the Chaldeans.
Daniel 1 is one of Scripture's most significant discipleship-under-pressure narratives. Daniel and his friends received Babylonian education while retaining covenant identity. God permitted the training and then gave supernatural wisdom that surpassed all their instructors (Daniel 1:20). True formation comes from God, not from the academy of the age. Jesus commissions His disciples with His own forming authority (Matthew 28:19–20): make disciples — mathēteuō — the NT equivalent of alaph.