[8] Today, it is spoken by Christian and Muslim Arameans (Syriacs)[9][10][11][12][13][14][15] in only three villages – Maaloula, Jubb'adin and Bakhʽa – in the Anti-Lebanon mountains of western Syria.
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.
Despite this, Western Aramaic appears to have survived for a relatively long time at least in some remote mountain villages in Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon.
[24] Other strong linguistic influences on Western Neo-Aramaic include Akkadian during the Neo-Babylonian period, e. g. the names of the months: āšbaṭ (Akk.
However, the first Muslims were not native converts, but Arab families from Homs who were settled in the villages during the Ottoman era to monitor the Christian population.
[29] Maaloula glows in the pale blue wash with which houses are painted every year in honor of Mary, mother of Jesus.
[citation needed] Historical accounts, as documented by the French linguist Jean 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 and traversed the Palmyrene desert, eventually finding a lasting sanctuary among Western Aramaic-speaking communities in the highlands of eastern Syria.
[32] Unlike Syriac, which has a rich literary tradition, Western Neo-Aramaic was solely passed down orally for generations until 2006 and was unwritten.
The labial consonants of older Western Aramaic, /p/ and /f/, have been retained in Bakhʽa and Maaloula while they have mostly collapsed to /f/ in Jubb'adin under influence from Arabic.
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 Bakhʽa, and /tʃ/ in Maaloula and Jubb'adin.
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.
The script is used as a true alphabet with distinct letters for all phonemes including vowels instead of the traditional abjad system with plosive-fricative pairs.
There are various versions of the Lord's Prayer in Western Neo-Aramaic, incorporating altered loanwords from several languages, notably Arabic: Šēḏa (from Akk.
Pastor Edward Robinson reported that his companion, Eli Smith, found several manuscripts in the Syriac language in Maaloula in 1834, but no one could read or understand them.