Aramaic DNA Project

ARAMAIC WATCH: There's an Aramaic DNA Project:

A. INTRODUCTION The Aramaic DNA Project hopes to bring together all Aramaic (also known as Modern or Neo-Aramaic) speaking people and people of Aramaic-speaking heritage of the world. For 3000 years, and despite unrelenting strife of every conceivable sort, the Aramaic language has steadfastly retained a continuous presence in the region known as the Fertile Crescent.

The people who retained a form of the Aramaic language as their mother tongue offer a tremendous opportunity to catch a glimpse many centuries, and perhaps even millennia, into the past. The testing of DNA, specifically one's mtDNA and Y-DNA, is ideally suited for discovering one’s deep ancestral roots. This is because mtDNA and Y-DNA remain more or less unchanged for thousands of years. If we wish to understand the origins of the Aramaic-speaking people, it is imperative to undertake this task now. The growing diasporic aspect of many, if not all, Aramaic-speaking communities is at the root of this urgency. If this project were not undertaken, or pursued with sufficient zeal, we may forever squander our ability to peer, with least obstruction, back to the dawn of our civilization.

The Aramaic DNA Project aims to answer questions of interest to Aramaic-speakers regarding their recent and distant origins. It will also delve into the relationships between the different Aramaic-speaking groups with ancestral origins from different geographical regions including, but by no means limited to: Diyarbakir, Hakkari, Harput, Mardin, Mosul, Salamas, Seert, Urfa, Urmia, Tur Abdin, and Zakho.

The Project, in remaining true to standard scientific practices, as well as FTDNA’s terms of agreement, will remain objective and has no affiliations whatsoever. We encourage all Aramaic-speaking people and people of Aramaic-speaking heritage to join our Project regardless of self-designation including, but not limited to: Aramaeans, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syrians, Ancient Syrians, and Syriacs. People of Aramaic-speaking heritage who have lost usage of the language due to assimilation are encouraged to join. All participants will be offered the option to identify by their preferred self-designation.

The Project is open to all religious affiliations and not limited to Christian communities. We welcome, with open hearts, Aramaic-speakers among the Jewish and Mandaean communities, and Aramaic-speakers from other religious affiliations. All Aramaic-speakers will be classified according to their self-designation into the appropriate haplogroup categories. We sincerely hope all Aramaic-speaking people tested at Family Tree DNA will consider participating in this very special endeavor. The administrators are more than happy to discuss any questions pertaining to the project. Please refer to our contact details above. Yours truly, Paul Givargidze Jean Fathi Nenos Birko