Appunti sulle minoranze linguistiche arameofone in Siria

This paper assesses the sociolinguistic situation of the 3 Neo-Aramaic varieties still spoken as minority languages in the Syrian Arabic Republic: 1) Assyrian, spoken by about 20.000 East Syrian Christians, who mostly live in over 30 villages on the banks of the Khabur river, in northern Syria; 2) Turoyo, spoken by at least 7.000 West Syrian Christians, mainly in the Syrian Jazirah and in the northern towns of Aleppo and Qamishli; 3) Western Neo-Aramaic, which has over 15.000 speakers in 3 villages of the Qalamun plateau in southern Syria: 8.000 people (1/3 Greek Catholics, 1/3 Greek Orthodox, 1/3 Sunni Muslims) live in Ma’lula, advertised by the Syrian Ministry of Tourism as the village where “alone in the world, the people … still speak the language of Christ.” A tentative prognosis of their respective chances of survival in the next few decades is then submitted. The peculiarity of the case of Ma’lula is stressed, as being possibly the only “threatened” variety to have been guaranteed a few decades of respite because of its high (religio-) touristic value.