and Jews speak mutually unintelligible varieties of Modern Eastern Aramaic in the same place. In others, the Nineveh Plains around Mosul for example, the varieties of these two ethnic communities (Assyrians and Iraqi Jews) are similar enough to allow conversation. Modern Central Neo-Aramaic, being in between Western Neo-Aramaic and Eastern Neo-Aramaic) is generally represented by Turoyo, the language of the Assyrians of Tur Abdin. A related Assyrian language, Mlaḥsô, has recently become extinct. Mandaeans living in the Khuzestan province of Iran and scattered throughout Iraq, speak Neo-Mandaic. It is quite distinct from any other Aramaic variety. Mandaeans number some 50,000–75,000 people, but it is believed Neo-Mandaic may now be spoken fluently by as few as 5000 people, with other Mandaeans having varying degrees of knowledge. Modern Western Aramaic Very little remains of Western Aramaic. Its only remaining vernacular is the Western Neo-Aramaic, which is still spoken in the Aramean villages of Maaloula, al-Sarkha (Bakhah), and Jubb'adin on Syria's side of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains, as well as by some people who migrated from these villages, to Damascus and other larger towns of Syria. All these speakers of Modern Western Aramaic are fluent in Arabic as well. Other Western Aramaic languages, like Jewish Palestinian Aramaic and Samaritan Aramaic, are preserved only in liturgical and literary usage. Phonology Each dialect of Aramaic has its own distinctive pronunciation, and it would not be feasible here to go into all these properties. Aramaic has a phonological palette of 25 to 40 distinct phonemes. Some modern Aramaic pronunciations lack the series of "emphatic" consonants, and some have borrowed from the inventories of surrounding languages, particularly Arabic, Azerbaijani, Kurdish, Persian and Turkish. Vowels As with most Semitic languages, Aramaic can be thought of as having three basic sets of vowels: Open a-vowels Close front i-vowels Close back u-vowels These vowel groups are relatively stable, but the exact articulation of any individual is most dependent on its consonantal setting. The open vowel is an open near-front unrounded vowel ("short" a, somewhat like the first vowel in the English "batter", ). It usually has a back counterpart ("long" a, like the a in "father", , or even tending to the vowel in "caught", ), and a front counterpart ("short" e, like the vowel in "head", ). There is much correspondence between these vowels between dialects. There is some evidence that Middle Babylonian dialects did not distinguish between the short