Despite this, Western Aramaic appears to have survived for a relatively long time, at least in some secluded villages in the mountains ofLebanon and in theAnti-Lebanon mountains in Syria. In fact, up until the 17th century, travelers in the Lebanon region still reported villages where Aramaic was spoken.[21]
Today,Western Neo-Aramaic is the sole surviving remnant of the entire western branch of the Aramaic language,[22] spoken by no more than a few thousand people in the Anti-Lebanon mountains of Syria, mainly inMaaloula andJubb'adin. Until theSyrian Civil War, it was also spoken inBakhʽa, which was completely destroyed during the war, and all the survivors fled to other parts of Syria or to Lebanon.[23] Their populations of these areas avoided cultural and linguistic Arabization due to the remote, mountainous locations of their isolated villages.
^The Palmyrene dialect has a dual affiliation because it combines features of both Western andEastern Aramaic, but it is somewhat closer to the Eastern branch.[2][3][4]
^ Also known as East Jordanian Aramaic or Transjordan Aramaic.
^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.…
^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….
^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…
^Pereira, Rodrigues (2018).Studies in Aramaic Poetry (c. 100 B.C.E.-c. 600 C.E.). BRILL. p. 7.ISBN9789004358645.a number of elements which Syriac has in common with the Western Aramaic dialects. In a later study, Boyarin describes two phonetic changes which are apparently shared by Syriac and the Palestinian dialects. With the caution which is compulsory in such cases of parallel development, he ventures the hypothesis of the existence of certain isoglosses of Syriac and Palestinian Aramaic. According to Boyarin, besides those common features of Aramaic dialects which were inherited from earlier times, others may be supposed to rest upon innovations which spread through the dialects by diffusion. The main direction of this diffusion may have been either westward or eastward. This does not mean, of course, that Syriac should now be assigned to the group of the Western dialects. It may just demonstrate that in the course of the evolution of the Aramaic dialects it removed itself from Western Aramaic to a lesser extent than the other Eastern dialects.
^Greenblatt, Jared (2010).The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Amadya. BRILL. p. 2.ISBN9789004182578., these dialects are the remnants of the western dialects of the Late Aramaic period
^Schami, Rafik (2011).Märchen aus Malula [Stories [Fairy Tales] from Malula] (in German).Carl Hanser Verlag. p. 151.ISBN9783446239005."Ich kenne das Dorf nicht, doch gehört habe ich davon. Was ist mit Malula?" fragte der festgehaltene Derwisch. "Das letzte Dorf der Aramäer", lachte einer… ["I don't know the village, but I've heard of it. What about Malula?" asked the detained dervish. "The last village of the Aramaeans," one laughed...]]
^Prof. Dr. Werner Arnold; P. Behnstedt (1993).Arabisch-aramäische Sprachbeziehungen im Qalamūn (Syrien) (in German). Harassowitz. p. 42.ISBN9783447033268.Die arabischen Dialekte der Aramäer
^Prof. Dr. Werner Arnold; P. Behnstedt (1993).Arabisch-aramäische Sprachbeziehungen im Qalamūn (Syrien) (in German). Harassowitz. p. 5.ISBN9783447033268.Die Kontakte zwischen den drei Aramäer-dörfern sind nicht besonders stark.
^Prof. Dr. Werner Arnold (2006).Lehrbuch des Neuwestaramäischen (in German). Harrassowitz. p. 15.ISBN9783447053136.Viele Aramäer arbeiten heute in Damaskus, Beirut oder in den Golfstaaten und verbringen nur die Sommermonate im Dorf.
^McNamara, Martin (2011).Targum and New Testament. Mohr Siebeck. p. 186.ISBN9783161508363.a) Old Aramaic from the beginning (through Biblical Aramaic, Nabataean, Palmyrene) down to the established eastern and western branches; b) Middle Aramaic, with two branches, eastern and western; c) Late Aramaic, with the contemporary western (Ma'alula) and eastern branches. This older terminology is still followed by M. Sokoloff in his recent work, A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine Period.'1 A different division, now widely accepted, has been put forward by J. A. Fitzmyer.2 It is as follows: a) Old Aramaic, up to 700 B.C.E.; b) Official Aramaic, 700-300 .c.E.; c) Middle Aramaic, 300 ..E.-200 c.E.; d) Late Aramaic (= Middle Aramaic of Rosenthal's division), with two branches: the eastern branch consisting of Syriac, Mandaic, the Aramaic of the Talmud Babli, the Gaonic Literature and incantation texts found mainly in Nippur; and the western, consisting of Samaritan Aramaic, Christian Palestinian Aramaic, Galilean Aramaic (which some, for example Sokoloff, prefer to call Jewish Palestinian Aramaic) found in the Aramaic portions of the Palestinian Talmud and haggadic midrashim and other sources; e) Modern Aramaic (in its eastern and western [Ma'alula] dialects).
^Aziz Halaweh, Fr (July 2020).The Church of Jerusalem and Its Liturgy in the First Five Centuries. AuthorHouse.ISBN9781728360140.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.
