What Effect Has Contact with Arabic Had on the Glottal Consonants in Western and Central Neo-Aramaic?

The present article examines whether the glottal stop /?/ and glottal fricative /h/ in Western Neo-Aramaic and Central Neo-Aramaic have been influenced by contact with Arabic. Both dialect groups are examined together, because both have been in extensive contact with Arabic, and both have retained the pharyngeal fricatives /?/, /ḥ/, whereas in other Neo-Aramaic dialects, those belonging to North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic (nena) and Neo-Mandaic, the pharyngeals have weakened considerably. The glottals are assessed in relation to a previously made argument that the pharyngeals have been preserved in Central Neo-Aramaic due to contact with Arabic. The present examination finds that rather than Arabic influence, the development of the glottal consonants, and in turn of the gutturals generally in those two dialect groups, largely reflects a typologically Aramaic phonology, which had existed before the intensive contact with Arabic following the Islamic conquests in the seventh century ce, and which persisted after the conquests.