ARAMAIC WATCH: The Syrian town of Maaloula is featured in yet another article.

Aramaic has gained new prominence with `Passion' movie

By Warren P. Strobel

Knight Ridder Newspapers

MA'ALOULA, Syria - Completing a tour of his 1,700-year-old church, with its ancient altar, precious icons and wooden beams that have stood for nearly two millennia, the Rev. Toufic Eid stopped, closed his eyes and recited the Lord's Prayer.

His handful of visitors speak English, Arabic, Italian and Norwegian. But the language Eid used for the prayer was Aramaic - the language of Christ.

"Abunah ti bishmo," he said. "Our Father who art in heaven."

Aramaic, long the preserve of scholars and theologians, is making something of a popular return, thanks to the hugely successful (and hugely controversial) Mel Gibson epic "The Passion of the Christ." Gibson's characters speak Aramaic and Latin on-screen.

But in Ma'aloula, a town of 5,000 tucked into the mountains about 35 miles northeast of Damascus, and in two other villages nearby, the locals have been speaking Aramaic for 25 centuries. They have preserved it in their rocky enclave as invasions, conquests and a long parade of cultures have come and gone.

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But pockets survived in places such as Ma'aloula, where a dialect known as Western Aramaic is spoken, and in small Christian communities in Iraq, Turkey and Iran, where the dialect is known to scholars as Eastern Aramaic. The Chaldeans of Iraq, who have a large community in the Detroit area, use Aramaic as the language of the Bible, their prayers and their native villages, while using English or Arabic for everyday communication.

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The man who translated the dialogue into Aramaic and Latin for "The Passion" is the Rev. William J. Fulco, a professor of ancient Mediterranean studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

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Townspeople in Ma'aloula often speak Arabic in public, saving Aramaic for at home.

Eid, the superior at the Monastery of Saints Serge and Bacchus, said Syria's youngish president, Bashar Assad, has taken an interest in the issue. And the regional government recently decided to create an Institute of Aramaic in Ma'aloula and has purchased a parcel of land.

"It will survive because we still have people in Ma'aloula who speak the language - not because of academic effort," said Eid, who's from neighboring Lebanon. "If it becomes an academic language, it will die."

But others, including Fulco, say modern-day Aramaic is likely to die out in a few more decades, as globalization and international culture reach even the mountains of Syria.

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