SYRIAN GOVERNMENT SUPPORTS ACADEMY THAT TEACHES HISTORIC LANGUAGE OF CHRIST

Irish Times
09/0416/1224244810646.html
Thursday, April 16, 2009

ILYANA BARQIL wears skinny jeans, boots and a fur-lined jacket,
handy for keeping out the cold in the Qalamoun mountains north
of Damascus. She likes TV quiz shows and American films and enjoys
swimming. But this thoroughly modern Syrian teenager is also learning
Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus.

Ilyana (15) is part of a big effort to preserve and revive the world’s
oldest living tongue. Last November she started classes at the newly
established Aramaic Language Academy in the picturesque village of
Maaloula, where the residents speak more or less the same language
as Galileans did 2,000 years ago.

"My father speaks Aramaic but my mother doesn’t as she’s from Lebanon,"
Ilyana says. "I want to be fluent. I don’t know too much about the
Aramaic language but I do know it’s ancient."

Aramaic is a Semitic tongue related to Hebrew and Arabic and
was once the day-to-day language of parts of modern-day Syria and
Israel. Christ’s lament on the cross – "Eli, Eli, lama sabachtani?" (my
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?) – was uttered in Aramaic. The
long decline of the language accelerated as the region opened up in
the 1920s when the French colonial autho rities built a road from
Damascus to Aleppo. Television and the internet, and youngsters
leaving to work, reduced the number of speakers.

Recognised by Unesco as a "definitely endangered" language, Aramaic
is spoken by just 7,000 people in Maaloula, and about 8,000 in two
nearby villages.

But things are looking up, particularly since the University of
Damascus founded its language academy, with government help. The
facility has modern premises, a bank of PCs, new textbooks, a teaching
staff of six and 85 students at three levels.

"When I was at school over 30 years ago we were not allowed to speak
Aramaic," says Mukhail Bkheil, standing behind the counter in Abu
George’s souvenir shop in Maaloula’s main square. "Now, thanks to
President Assad we even have an institute teaching it."

Syria being Syria, there are political sensitivities, not least because
"Arabisation" was a key feature of government education policy after
the Baath party came to power in the 1960s.

"In Syria there are a lot of minority groups – Circassians, Armenians,
Kurds and Assyrians – so it’s a big decision to allow the teaching
of other languages in government schools," says Imad Reihan, a pillar
of the Aramaic academy.

"But the government is interested in promoting the Aramaic language
because it goes back so deep into Syria’s history .."

Reihan and colleagues were delighted recently when a Unesco team
visited, and they are now hoping for funds to allow them to collate
the vanishing words into proper dictionaries.

Improbably, Aramaic was given a boost by a Hollywood film – Mel
Gibson’s controversial Passion of the Christ , which was released in
2004 before the academy was set up.

Observers say the opening of the school indicates a more relaxed
attitude by the regime. Considering the bitter enmity between
Syria and Israel, which dispute sovereignty over the Golan Heights –
declared an Israeli occupied territory by the UN – it is striking that
Aramaic letters are so similar to the Hebrew of rabbinical texts –
one reason, perhaps, why the only Aramaic sign in Maaloula is on the
academy. "Otherwise people might think some buildings were Israeli
settlements," jokes one visitor from Damascus.

Linguists say Syria is doing well in fostering this heritage. "Aramaic
is actually pretty healthy in Maaloula," said Prof Geoffrey Kahn, who
teaches Semitic philology at Cambridge University. "It’s the eastern
Aramaic dialects in Turkey, Iraq and Iran that are really endangered."