Aramaic Language - Geographic Distribution

Geographic Distribution

During the Neo-Assyrian and the Neo-Babylonian period, Aramaeans, the native speakers of Aramaic, began to settle in greater numbers, at first in Babylonia, and later in Assyria (Upper Mesopotamia; modern-day northern Iraq, northeast Syria, northwest Iran), and south eastern Turkey). The influx eventually resulted in the Neo Assyrian Empire and Chaldean Dynasty of Babylonia becoming operationally bilingual in written sources, with Aramaic used alongside Akkadian. As these empires, and the Persian Empire that followed, extended their influence in the region, Aramaic gradually became the lingua franca of most of Western Asia and Egypt. From the late 7th century CE onwards, Aramaic was gradually replaced as the lingua franca of the Middle East by Arabic. However, Aramaic remains a spoken, literary and liturgical language among indigenous Assyrian Christians, Jews, Mandaeans and some Syriac/Aramean Christians It is spoken by the Assyrians and Mandeans of Iraq, northeast Syria, southeast Turkey and northwest Iran, with diaspora communities in Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and southern Russia. Syriac/Aramean Christians, although largely now Arabic speaking, have a small number of native speakers of Western Aramaic in isolated villages in western Syria. The turbulence of the last two centuries (particularly the Assyrian Genocide) has seen speakers of first-language and literary Aramaic dispersed throughout the world. However, there are a number of sizeable Assyrian and Chaldean towns in northern Iraq such as Alqosh, Bakhdida, Bartella, Tel Esqof and Tel Keppe, where Aramaic is still the main spoken language, and many cities and towns in this region also have Assyrian Aramaic speaking communities.