26503 10-99 ~16 The dialect of Barzan, now in Jerusalem and the vicinity, has hardly a dozen active speakers, all in their seventies and eighties. The impact of Zakho JNA on most speakers renders the condition of their dialect all the more grave. Some other Barzanis are passive speakers who have no more than a smattering of active competence in Barzani. Shahe Aramaic is even more desperately endangered, with only a handful of octogenarian speakers in the southern moshav of Menuha and in Tiberias. Bejil Aramaic was until recently still spoken by a few elderly Jews in the moshav of Zekharya near Bet-Shemesh. In 1998 Bejil JNA became extinct with the death of its last speaker, Mrs. Rahel Avraham. The Marzani Neo-Aramaic of Nerem is in all likelihood extinct or well nigh so. Barzani Jewish Neo-Aramaic and its dialects On ~16 10-99