ABSTRACT
Spoken vernacular dialects of Aramaic, generally known as Neo-Aramaic dialects, have survived down to modern times in four subgroups: Central Neo-Aramaic, North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic, Neo-Mandaic, and Western Neo-Aramaic. The dialect geography of Neo-Aramaic has undergone radical changes over the last one hundred years, as a result of which a large number of the speakers of the dialects have been displaced from the places where they have lived for many centuries. In the first half of this paper, I present a classification of the dialects and a description of the current situation of the communities who speak them. This is followed by a description of selected grammatical features of the dialects that diverge across the various subgroups. These features include the development of (i) the bgdkpt consonants, (ii) the pharyngeal consonants, and (iii) the verbal system.
