Last outpost saves Jesus of Nazareth’s mother tongue. Aramaic was the language spoken at the time of Jesus and is still in the remote mountains of ancient Syria. It was the mother tongue of Jesus, his disciples, and most people who attended their gigs. It has survived wars and changing dynasties and remains the language of Christians and Muslims living peacefully in its last outpost – a biblical-style village called Maaloula that I have visited.
| by Terry Walker | AS280924 | 5 minute read |
One medieval despot threatened to cut out the tongues of anyone heard speaking their exclusive language. Despite this, generations of ancestors have spoken Aramaic and successfully passed it on to today’s population.
Maaloula is known to scholars as the last surviving place where Western Aramaic is still spoken widely. Anthropological linguists now reckon the dialect is still pretty close to that used in the first century when Jesus and his followers went walkabout and originates many years before that.
One day, during an official press visit to Syria, I led a party of British journalists out of Damascus and across the desert. A couple of sightseeing hours later, our convoy of Mercedes limos arrived at the last outpost, Maaloula, in the Rif Dimashq mountains.
Our arrival was years ahead of the ongoing Syrian uprising against the Assad regime that has seen more than a decade of fierce fighting between Government forces and rebels that has seen control of towns, including Maaloula, changing hands.
Going back to Biblical times
At an altitude of more than 1,500 metres, Maaloula’s cave homes are built into the rugged mountainside. At the time of our visit, there was little motor transport, but the many donkeys were able to negotiate the steep, narrow streets. Our sweating but fascinated journalists were pretty nimble as we explored churches, a mosque and a monastery.
Our Arabic-speaking Syrian Government minders from Damascus could hardly converse with the villagers we met. International sign language saved the day and helped dispel the surprise of our party’s arrival. The Syrian Government had not hosted the international Press in numbers previously. A gang of UK media types can be disconcerting anywhere in the world. But we were welcomed and assisted by officials and the public in Maaloula, Damascus and other places.
It was like going back to Biblical times. I estimated fewer than 4,000 people still lived in the village, many of whom appeared to own working donkeys. These donkeys often had wicker panniers, some with building materials, others offered goods for sale.
There was a Coca-Cola vendor donkey in the shade near the base of the cliff-face village. I was dehydrated and still suffering from the gut-busting spit-roast lamb banquet we’d shared in Damascus a few days before. Our group wandered over to see what was on offer. I selected a standard-size Coke bottle. Then I showed the kaftan-wearing donkey owner my loose change displayed in the palm of my hand. He took the local equivalent of 6p and looked happy. Whatever happened to inflation over the 2,000 years since St Paul was last seen in these parts?
Last outpost saves Jesus’ language
It might have been a gesture to have learned to ask for a drink in Aramaic, but it’s unlikely that anyone in my local pub would understand it… A shepherd in Maaloula talks to his sheep in Aramaic and Arabic and he swears they understand both languages. His favourite movie was Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ (2004), which he claimed to have seen many times. The dialogue is in Aramaic throughout.
Aramaic was one of the major languages of the ancient Near East. Since the Middle Ages, it has largely been replaced by Arabic, but it has survived as a spoken language in some Jewish communities in the mountainous regions of northern Iraq, south-eastern Turkey, and western Iran down to modern times. Spoken Aramaic also survived to modern times among Christian communities in the same regions and a few remote villages in Syria.
Aramaic speakers in Maaloula seemed determined to keep the language alive in the Christian and Muslim communities, and they coexist happily in the village.
Our Press party was surprised at the extent of the commuity commitment to safeguarding Aramaic across sectarian lines. Although some Muslims claimed to speak it better than the Christian villagers it would need an expert to verify that. But there seemed little doubt that sharing such a rare language has helped to secure Maaloula’s unity and community spirit.
Listen as Maaloula villagers speak Aramaic
UPDATE
UPDATE
Aramaic is a Semitic language that originated in Syria and has been spoken and written for more than 3,000 years. It is closely related to Hebrew and Arabic and is part of a group of Ethiopic and Akkadian languages. The Aramaic alphabet has 22 characters and is the ancestor of the Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic alphabets. Jewish Palestinian Aramaic (JPA) was a Western Aramaic language spoken by the Jews during the Classic Era in Judea and the Levant. Specifically in Hasmonean, Herodian and Roman Judea and adjacent lands in the late first millennium BCE and later in Syria Palaestina and Palaestina Secunda in the early first millennium CE. The Son of God Text (4Q246), found in Qumran, is also written in this language. Source: Wikipedia.
The Hollywood actor Mel Gibson funded and starred in the movie Passion of the Christ (2004), which, despite the dialogue being in Western Aramaic, became a worldwide box-office success. The actor/director invested the full $30 million production cost and received 50 percent of the £611 million box office take – plus $75 million from DVD sales.
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