Western Aramaic
Geographic
distribution		Levant (western & southern Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Transjordan), Sinai
Linguistic classificationAfro-Asiatic
Subdivisions
Glottologwest2815

The Western Aramaic languages represent a specific subgroup of Aramaic once spoken widely throughout the ancient Levant, predominantly in the south, and Sinai, including ancient Damascus, Nabatea, Judea, across the Palestine Region, Transjordan, Samaria as well as Lebanon in the north. The group was divided into several regional variants, spoken mainly by the Nabataeans, Mizrahi Jews, Melkites of Jewish descent,[4] Samaritans and Maronites. All of the Western Aramaic languages are considered extinct today, except Western Neo-Aramaic.[5]

History

A Western Aramaic text, written in Christian Palestinian Aramaic, utilizing a modified version of the Syriac alphabet.

In the middle of the fifth century, Theodoret of Cyrus (d. c. 466) noted that Aramaic, commonly labeled by Greeks as "Syrian" or "Syriac", was widely spoken. He also stated that "the Osroënians, the Syrians, the people of the Euphrates, the Palestinians, and the Phoenicians all speak Syriac, but with many differences in pronunciation",[6] thus recording the regional diversity of Eastern and Western Aramaic dialects during the late antiquity.[7][8][9]

Following the early Muslim conquests in the seventh century and the consequent cultural and linguistic Arabization of the Levant and Mesopotamia, Arabic gradually replaced Aramaic, including its Western varieties, as the primary language for most people.[10]

Despite this, Western Aramaic appears to have survived for a relatively long time, at least in some secluded villages in the mountains of Lebanon and in the Anti-Lebanon mountains in Syria. In fact, up until the 17th century, travelers in the Lebanon region still reported villages where Aramaic was spoken.[11]

Present

Modern state of Neo-Aramaic languages, showing the remaining enclave of Western Neo-Aramaic (in green color)

Today, Western Neo-Aramaic is the sole surviving remnant of the entire western branch of the Aramaic language,[12] spoken by no more than a few thousand people in the Anti-Lebanon mountains of Syria, mainly in Maaloula and Jubb'adin. Until the Syrian Civil War, it was also spoken in Bakhʽa, which was completely destroyed during the war, and all the survivors fled to other parts of Syria or to Lebanon.[13] Their populations of these areas avoided cultural and linguistic Arabization due to the remote, mountainous locations of their isolated villages.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Western Aramaic languages.

Notes

  1. ↑ The Palmyrene dialect has a dual affiliation because it combines features of both Western and Eastern Aramaic, but it is somewhat closer to the Eastern branch.[1][2][3]

References

  1. ↑ Tempus, Aspekt und Modalität im Reichsaramäischen (in German). Harrassowitz. p. 47. While the East Aramaic Palmyrene language seamlessly supplanted Imperial Aramaic as the language of Palmyra, likely in the second century BCE.…
  2. ↑ Aramaic Inscriptions and Documents of the Roman Period. OUP Oxford. p. 43. …Palmyrene was a continuation of Official Aramaic and a close reflection of the spoken language of the Palmyrene region, with eastern Aramaic features….
  3. ↑ Hellenistic and Roman Greece as a Sociolinguistic Area. John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 271. …Palmyrene Aramaic has preserved many old Aramaic features; on the other hand, it also shows isoglosses with the eastern dialects…
  4. ↑ Arman Akopian (11 December 2017). "Other branches of Syriac Christianity: Melkites and Maronites". Introduction to Aramean and Syriac Studies. Gorgias Press. p. 573. ISBN 9781463238933. The main center of Aramaic-speaking Melkites was Palestine. During the 5th-6th centuries, they were engaged in literary, mainly translation work in the local Western Aramaic dialect, known as "Palestinian Christian Aramaic", using a script closely resembling the cursive Estrangela of Osrhoene. Palestinian Melkites were mostly Jewish converts to Christianity, who had a long tradition of using Palestinian Aramaic dialects as literary languages. Closely associated with the Palestinian Melkites were the Melkites of Transjordan, who also used Palestinian Christian Aramaic. Another community of Aramaic-speaking Melkites existed in the vicinity of Antioch and parts of Syria. These Melkites used Classical Syriac as a written language, the common literary language of the overwhelming majority of Christian Arameans.
  5. ↑ Beyer 1986, p. 46, 55.
  6. ↑ Petruccione & Hill, p. 343.
  7. ↑ Brock 1994, p. 149-150.
  8. ↑ Taylor 2002, p. 302-303.
  9. ↑ The Church of Jerusalem and Its Liturgy in the First Five Centuries. ISBN 9781728360140. Late Aramaic dialects are divided into Western and Eastern. In the fifth century, Theodoret of Cyrus distinguishes the dialects of the Osrhoenoi, Syroi, Euphratesioi, Palestininoi and Phoinikes, saying that there are differences between them.
  10. ↑ Griffith 1997, p. 11–31.
  11. ↑ Arnold 2000, p. 347.
  12. ↑ Arnold 2012, p. 685–696.
  13. ↑ https://www.aymennjawad.org/2020/01/the-village-of-bakha-in-qalamoun-interview

Sources


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