ܣܘܪܝܬ
Turoyo Neo-Aramaic
Haworth (NJ)Community Profile: The term "Neo-Aramaic" is conventionally applied to modern varieties of Aramaic that have been used as spoken vernaculars since around 1200 AD. These language varieties exhibit substantial diversity, such that many are not mutually intelligible with each other, and have been spoken across a wide swath of the Middle East. Varieties of Neo-Aramaic have been spoken by individuals in the New York area for at least a century. One of the earliest waves of immigration from the Middle East to the U.S. consisted of Lebanese and Syrian Christians, many of whom at least would have known Syriac (a liturgical form of the language) if not actually spoken a variety of Western Aramaic, though most were already shifting to Arabic. Today, some of these speakers of Western and Central Neo-Aramaic varieties from Syria and Turkey live in such New Jersey communities as Paramus and Teaneck and may work in Manhattan's Diamond District. In more recent years, small numbers of speakers of Eastern Aramaic ("Assyrian" and "Chaldean") varieties have arrived in increasing numbers as refugees from Iraq, with some in the Middle Eastern matrix of Bay Ridge, though their largest communities are in Michigan, Illinois, and California. Forms of Aramaic/Syriac are important not just for religious purposes in Christian communities but also in Jewish communities, where Aramaic has scholarly and liturgical uses, and some communities maintain Jewish Neo-Aramaic spoken varieties.
A
community of around 200 Turoyo Neo-Aramaic-speaking families is centered on the Mor Gabriel Syriac Orthodox Church in Haworth, New Jersey. Hailing from 'Ayn Wardo in Turkey's Southeast Tur Abdin region, this group has been speaking their endangered Neo-Aramaic dialect in New Jersey since the 1970s. Though Turoyo speakers are declining in numbers, the community has committed to keeping their language alive by speaking it at home and in church, and bringing children to Sunday schools and local summer programs where Turoyo is taught. Read more here.
Note that the language above may be used throughout the New York area — this is just one significant site.