| The term Aramaic is derived from Aram, the fifth son of Shem (Sam); who is the father of the semitic people (genesis 10:22). The Aramaic dwelled most likely in what is known in Aramaic as Bin Alnahrin, in today's Mesopotamia. They immigrated to Syria and created small number of kingdoms which controlled most of the land. Their language dominated the land with its different dialects, from Assyrian and chaldenian in the east to the Noe-aramaic in the west, which is known to scholar as Western Aramaic. This is what is important to us in this page. Western Aramaic is the language that still in use in three villages in Syria and according to the language of the world the language is dead but from these three villages http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=AMW Aramaic language is among the family of the semitic languages which includes Hebrew, Arabic. According to the encyclopedia, "Aramaic Language, Semitic language closely related to Hebrew. Originally the language of the Aramaeans (see Aram), it was used, in many dialectical forms, in Mesopotamia and Syria before 1000 BC and later became the lingua franca of the Middle East. Aramaic survived the fall of Nineveh (612 BC) and Babylon (539 BC) and remained the official language of the Persian Empire (539-337 BC). Ancient inscriptions in Aramaic have been found over a vast area extending from Egypt to China. Before the Christian era, Aramaic had become the language of the Jews in Palestine. Jesus preached in Western Aramaic (Syriac), and parts of the Old Testament and much of the rabbinical literature were written in that language. Christian Aramaic, usually called Syriac, also developed an extensive literature, especially from the 4th to 7th centuries. The influence and diffusion of Aramaic began to decline in favor of Arabic at the time of the Arab conquest in the 7th century AD ." In encyclopedia britanica we find this article about Maaloula "Ma'lula: also spelled Maalula, village in southern Syria about 30 mi (50 km) north of Damascus. The houses are built on the slopes of a huge cirque of rocks that encloses the village; the houses are constructed of stones with flat beam roofs. Most of the houses have blue plaster on the outside, a Christian custom. Most of the inhabitants are Greek-Catholic and Greek Orthodox and have preserved in their spoken language a dialect of Syriac (Western Aramaic). The Catholic monastery of Mar Sarkis (St. Sergius) has a Byzantine church and Byzantine-period tombs cut into the rock behind. There is also an Orthodox monastery, Mar Takla (St. Thecla), which has a modern church " In his book "the Aramaic for Dr. Assaf, Ali we find that Aramaic was the language that controlled the area and the capital of the Aram people was Damascus (Thimsek). Many Aramaic words still used in the common Arabic of Damascus such as (Ino Minon, Winkon, Am) and many more. Many scholars have visited Maaloula and spent few years learning the dialect of it. Among them is Dr. Werner Arnold from Germany. He published many books and if you want to hear how the aramaic sounds you can go to this link. you will need to ignore the German language and hear the recording, or if you know Germany it is even better. I did mange to know few words Like fest means feast. I am sure you can find your way through it. http://www.semarch.uni-hd.de/tondokumente.php4?&GR_ID=3&LD_ID=8&RG_ID=5&ORT_ID=5 Also you can find out more about the journey that Dr. Arnold took if you follow this link. It is in English this time.. Please Click on the Photo that was taken by Dr. Werner Arnold to get to his lpage. |
