Western Neo-Aramaic

Western Neo-Aramaic is the last surviving remnant of a Western Middle Aramaic dialect which was spoken throughout the Orontes River Valley area and into the Anti-Lebanon Mountains in the 6th century. It now is spoken solely by the villagers of Maaloula, Jubb'adin and Bakh'a, about 60 kilometres (37 mi) northeast of Damascus. The continuation of this little cluster of Aramaic in a sea of Arabic is partly due to the relative isolation of the villages and their close-knit Christian and Muslim communities.

Following the Muslim conquest of the Levant, there was a linguistic shift to Arabic for local Muslims and later for remaining Christians; Arabic displaced various Aramaic languages, including Western Aramaic varieties, as the first language of the majority. Despite this, Western Aramaic appears to have survived for a relatively long time at least in some villages in mountainous areas of Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon (in modern Syria). In fact, up until the 17th century, travellers in Lebanon still reported on several Aramaic-speaking villages.[10]

In the last three villages where the language still survives, the dialect of Bakh'a appears to be the most conservative. It has been less influenced by Arabic than the other dialects, and retains some vocabulary that is obsolete in other dialects. The dialect of Jubb'adin has changed the most. It is heavily influenced by Arabic, and has a more developed phonology. The dialect of Maaloula is somewhere between the two, but is closer to that of Jubb'adin. Cross-linguistic influence between Aramaic and Arabic has been mutual, as Syrian Arabic itself (and Levantine Arabic in general) retains an Aramaic substratum.[11] Similar to the Eastern Neo-Aramaic languages, Western Neo-Aramaic is heavily using Kurdish loanwords unlike other Western Aramaic dialects, e. g. in their negation structure:”Čū ndōmex“ meaning "I do not sleep“ in the Maalouli dialect.[12][13] These influences might indicate an older historical connection between Western Neo-Aramaic and Eastern Aramaic speakers.[14] Other strong linguistic influences on Western Neo-Aramaic include Akkadian during the Neo-Babylonian period.[15]

As in most of the Levant prior to the introduction of Islam in the seventh century, the villages were originally all Christian. However, Maaloula is the only village that retains a sizeable Christian population (they belong to the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and Melkite Greek Catholic Church) as most of the inhabitants of Bakh'a and Jubb Adin adopted Islam over the generations, and are now all Muslim. Maaloula glows in the pale blue wash with which houses are painted every year in honour of Mary, mother of Jesus.

Historical accounts, as documented by Parisot in 1898, suggest that the people of Maaloula and nearby areas claim to be descendants of migrants from the Sinjar region (modern Iraq). According to their oral traditions, their ancestors embarked on a substantial migration in ancient times, driven by the challenges posed by the Muslim occupation of the northern part of Mesopotamia. Seeking refuge, they crossed the Euphrates River and traversed the Palmyrene desert, eventually finding a lasting sanctuary among Western Aramaic-speaking communities in the highlands of eastern Syria.[16]

All three remaining Western Neo-Aramaic dialects are facing critical endangerment as living languages. As with any village community in the 21st century, young residents are migrating into major cities like Damascus and Aleppo in search of better employment opportunities, thus forcing them into monolingual Arabic-speaking settings, in turn straining the opportunity to actively maintain Western Neo-Aramaic as a language of daily use. Nevertheless, the Syrian government provides support for teaching the language.[17] Since 2007, Maaloula has been home to an Aramaic institute established by the Damascus University that teaches courses to keep the language alive. The institute's activities were suspended in 2010 amidst fears that the square Aramaic alphabet used in the program too closely resembled the square script of the Hebrew alphabet and all the signs with the square Aramaic script were taken down. The program stated that they would instead use the more distinct Syriac alphabet, although use of the Aramaic alphabet has continued to some degree.[18] Al Jazeera Arabic also broadcast a program about Western Neo-Aramaic and the villages in which it is spoken with the square script still in use.[19]

In December 2016 during an Aramaic Singing Festival in Maaloula, a modified version of an older style of the Aramaic alphabet closer to the Phoenician alphabet was used for Western Neo-Aramaic. This script seems to be used as a true alphabet with letters to represent both consonants and vowels instead of the traditional system of the Aramaic alphabet where it's used as an abjad. A recently published book about Maaloula Aramaic also uses this script.[20][21]

Aramaic Bible Translation has worked for over 10 years on the translation of the Bible to Suryon (Malouli Dialect) and the audio recording of Portrait of Jesus, and The Syriac language organization Rinyo has published the content made by ABT, and developed by Kanusoft.com, Book of Psalms from the Old Testament, in writing and the book Portrait of Jesus in writing with audio in Aromay (Suryon/Seryenai) in the Syriac Serto script on their website and a translation of the New Testament into Aromay has been finished in 2017 and is now available online.[22][23][24]

In July 2017 a free course in Western Neo-Aramaic started at Damascus University.[25][26][27][28]

The phonology of Western Neo-Aramaic has developed quite differently from other Aramaic languages. The labial consonants of older Western Aramaic, /p/ and /f/, have been retained in Bakh'a and Maaloula while they have mostly collapsed to /f/ in Jubb'adin under influence from Arabic. The labial consonant pair /b~v/ has collapsed to /b/ in all three villages. Amongst dental consonants, the fricatives /θ ð/ are retained while /d/ have become /ð/ in most places and /t/, while remaining a phoneme, has had its traditional position in Aramaic words replaced by /ts/ in Bakh'a, and /tʃ/ in Maaloula and Jubb'adin. However, [ti] is the usual form for the relative particle in these two villages, with a variant [tʃi], where Bakh'a always uses [tsi]. Among the velar consonants, the traditional voiced pair of /ɡ ɣ/ has collapsed into /ɣ/, while /ɡ/ still remains a phoneme in some words. The unvoiced velar fricative, /x/, is retained, but its plosive complement /k/, while also remaining a distinct phoneme, has in its traditional positions in Aramaic words started to undergo palatalization. In Bakh'a, the palatalization is hardly apparent; in Maaloula, it is more obvious, and often leads to [kʲ]; in Jubb'adin, it has become /tʃ/, and has thus merged phonemically with the original positions of /t/. The original uvular plosive, /q/, has also moved forward in Western Neo-Aramaic. In Bakh'a it has become a strongly post-velar plosive, and in Maaloula more lightly post-velar. In Jubb'adin, however, it has replaced the velar plosive, and become /k/.

Lord's Prayer in Western Neo-Aramaic, Turoyo, Syriac and Hebrew.

• Eugen Prym
• Albert Socin
• Neo-Aramaic languages
• Western Aramaic languages
• Syriac script#West Syriac Serṭā

• Arnold, Werner: Das Neuwestaramäische (Western Neo-Aramaic), 5 volumes. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden (Semitica Viva 4),
  • Volume 1: Texte aus Baxʿa (Texts from Baxʿa), 1989, ISBN 3-447-02949-8,
  • Volume 2: Texte aus Ğubbʿadīn (Texts from Ğubbʿadīn), 1990, ISBN 3-447-03051-8,
  • Volume 3: Volkskundliche Texte aus Maʿlūla (Texts of folk tradition from Maʿlūla), 1991, ISBN 3-447-03166-2,
  • Volume 4: Orale Literatur aus Maʿlūla (Oral Literature from Maʿlūla), 1991, ISBN 3-447-03173-5,
  • Volume 5: Grammatik (Grammar), 1990, ISBN 3-447-03099-2/
• Arnold, Werner: Lehrbuch des Neuwestaramäischen (A Manual to Western Neo-Aramaic), Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1989, ISBN 3-447-02910-2.
• Wehbi, Rimon (2021). "Zwei neuwestaramäische Texte über die Wassermühlen in Maalula (Syrien)". Mediterranean Language Review. 28: 135–153. doi:10.13173/medilangrevi.28.2021.0135. S2CID 245214675.

• Yawna – Maaloula Aramaic a non-profit educational initiative dedicated to the preservation of Aramaic – the language of Jesus – and the rich cultural heritage of Maaloula.
• Western Neo-Aramaic alphabet and pronunciation at Omniglot
• (in German) Archived 2005-12-16 at the Wayback Machine.
• The dialect of Maaloula. Grammar, vocabulary and texts. (1897–1898) By Jean Parisot (in French): Parts 1, 2, 3 at the Internet Archive.