Resurrect Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ

Malula, Syria

While millions will commemorate the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ this Easter Sunday, only a handful of people could discuss his works in the language of his day: Aramaic.

Nearly all of them live in three Syrian villages, the last outposts in a region largely swept by the Arabic of Islam. In a bid to preserve its ancient heritage, Syria launched a series of language courses in 2007 to bolster the fading influence of a 3,000-year-old language that once reigned supreme in the Middle East.

And so it was that an Aramaic institute joined the cluster of buildings that cling to a rocky spine in the village of Malula, about 35 miles northwest of Damascus. But the program ran into trouble recently, when a Syrian newspaper suggested that the alphabet being used to teach written Aramaic bore an uncanny resemblance to the Hebrew characters found in modern-day Israel.

Worried that a flagship heritage scheme might in any way be associated with the country’s neighboring enemy, the government-run University of Damascus, which established the institute, acted quickly to freeze the Aramaic program.

“There were some people in the press trying to cause trouble,” says George Rezkallah, an elderly villager from Malula who runs the institute. He is hopeful that classes will be able to resume this summer.  (continue at Christian Science Monitor)

Comments

[David (DW)]

I'll bet Obama is jumping up and down with joy. Hey, Barry, next time you go out of town, here's a suitcase for ya.

[Philippe Öhlund]

Happy Easter to you and yours Debbie! :-)

I hope all is well with you.

Very interesting post btw.

[Debbie]

Philippe: Thank you so much. A blessed Passover week to you and a blessed Easter to all.

David: Not sure if Obama cares about this one.

[Philippe Öhlund]

Thank you Debbie! :-)

[Z]

Debbie, seems as if Obama does jump for joy at having something dismissed because it was 'close to Hebrew'...

Happy Easter, Debbie, I hope you have a beautiful day.

[Aramaic Scholar]

Cancelling the Aramaic programme for these political reasons is a real tragedy. It would be awesome and amazing if Aramaic was revived and saved from extinction, and if Syria did it. Tourists and Christians would flock to Syria because of its incredible Aramaic history and heritage.

[Maurice]

Aramaic is still used, though not as a spoken day-to-day language, in Judaism: We have prayers that are said in Aramaic, the most famous of which is the Kaddish, mistakenly characterized as the Prayer for the Dead", though we do use it, among other reasons, as a prayer for mourners'.

The Talmud in both its Israeli (Jerusalem) redaction, and its main iteration, the Babylonian Talmud, are mainly written in Aramaic dialects. The Jerusalem version is a different Aramaic dialect, reflecting the geographic distances between where the two versions of the Talmud were written.

So, the situation is NOT analogous to these villages. We don't "speak" Aramaic at home, as some of these folks apparently do.

But I just wanted to point out that some Jews, mainly Orthodox ones, still say words in Aramaic literally daily.