MORE NATIVE SPEAKERS OF ARAMAIC, this time in Cyprus:

Aramaic, language of Jesus, lives on in Cyprus

A Maronite village, isolated by the island's division, struggles to carry on the tongue.
By Michael Theodoulou | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

KORMAKITI, CYPRUS � If the people of this remote village were to travel back to Jesus' time and hear him preach, they wouldn't need an interpreter to understand the Sermon on the Mount or the parable of the prodigal son.

That's because they speak the same language as the Son of God. Literally.

Spoken in the Middle East during Jesus' time, Aramaic is still used in everyday life by most of the 130 elderly Maronite Catholics in Kormakiti, which overlooks the Mediterranean Sea.

This could be good news for Mel Gibson. If the megastar has trouble finding an audience for "Passion," his upcoming movie about the final hours of Jesus' life on Earth with dialogue mostly in Aramaic, due to be released next month, the folks here should have no trouble with the original biblical tongue.

Still, Kormakiti's unique diluted version of Aramaic, called Cypriot Maronite Arabic, is in danger of extinction. Once the thriving center of the island's Maronite community, Kormakiti now has the eerie atmosphere of a ghost town.

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Actually, I doubt that the modern brand of Aramaic they speak would be mutually comprehensible with the first-century Galilean dialect.