Western Aramaic
| Western Aramaic | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution |
Middle East |
| Linguistic classification |
Afro-Asiatic
|
| Subdivisions | |
| Glottolog | west2815 |
Western Aramaic languages is a group of several Aramaic languages developed and once widely spoken throughout the ancient Levant, as opposed to those from in and around Mesopotamia, which make up what is known as the Eastern Aramaic languages, which are still spoken as mother tongues by the Assyrians and Mandeans of Iraq, north eastern Syria, south eastern Turkey and north western Iran. All of the Western Aramaic languages are extinct today except Western Neo-Aramaic.
Following the Arab Islamic Conquest of the 7th century AD, and ensuing mass migration of Arabs from the Arabian peninsula, together with cultural and linguistic Arabization of Levantine Arameans and Canaanites, Arabic gradually displaced various Aramaic languages (including the Western Aramaic varieties) as the first language of most people. Despite this, Western Aramaic appears to have survived for a relatively long time, at least in some villages in mountainous areas of the Mount Lebanon range and the Anti-Lebanon Mountains (in modern Syria). In fact, up until the seventeenth century, travelers in the Lebanon region still reported Aramaic-speaking villages.
Today, Western Neo-Aramaic is the sole surviving remnant of the entire Western branch of the Aramaic languages, spoken by no more than a few thousand people in the Anti-Lebanon of Syria, mainly in Ma'loula, Jubb'addin and Bakhah. The speakers consist of both Mhallami and Syriac Christians who avoided cultural and linguistic Arabization due to the remote mountainous isolation of their villages.
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