Western Neo-Aramaic - Distribution and History

Distribution and History

Western Neo-Aramaic probably is the surviving remnant of a Western Middle Aramaic dialect which was spoken throughout the Orontes Valley area and into the Anti-Lebanon in the 6th century. It now is spoken solely by the villagers of Ma`loula (Arabic: معلولة‎), Bakh'a (Arabic: بخعة‎) and Jubb'adin (Arabic: جبّعدين‎), in the Anti-Lebanon (modern day Syria), about 60 km north east 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 communities.

Following the rise of Islam and ensuing mass conversions of the local indigenous populations, cultural and linguistic Arabization of the newly converted Muslims, but also the remaining Christians, soon followed, and the Arabic language displaced various Aramaic languages (including the Western Aramaic varieties) as the mother tongue of the majority of the people. Despite this, Western Aramaic appears to have survived for a relatively long time at least in some villages in mountainous areas of the Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon (in modern Syria). In fact, up until the 17th century, travellers in the Lebanon still reported on several Aramaic-speaking villages.

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 It has been less influenced by Arabic than the other dialects, and retains some vocabulary that is obsolete in other dialects.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 Ma`loula (or Malula) 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.

As in most of the Levant prior to the introduction of Islam in the 7th century AD, the villages were originally all Christian. However, Ma'loula is the only village that retains a sizeable Christian population (they mostly belong to the Melkite Catholic Church) as most of the inhabitants of Bakh'a and Jubb'adin adopted Islam over the generations, and are now all Muslim. Ma'loula glows in the pale blue wash with which houses are painted every year in honour of the Virgin Mary.

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 Neo-Aramaic as a language of daily use. Also, the Syrian government, as towards other minority cultures, has done little to support or protect the language, forcing community monasteries and independent institutions to be solely responsible for passing the language on, even if through very limited use.