As part of the Spring 2012 World Policy Journal issue Speaking in Tongues, we invited acclaimed Lebanese singer Ghada Shbeir to write for The Big Question about the importance of keeping endangered languages alive. Shbeir writes and sings in the ancient language of Syriac, drawing attention to the beauty of the endangered Aramaic dialect that originated in the Mesopotamian city of Edessa, which now lies in Turkey. Syriac was the lingua franca of much of the Middle East from about the 7th century BC until the 7th century AD, when Arabic pushed the language to obscurity. After persecution of Syriac speakers in Ottoman Turkey during the 1890s and in the period of 1922-1925, the cities of Edessa and Diyarbakir in southeast Turkey, home to major Syriac populations, were abandoned. Some Syriacs stayed in the region of Tur Abdin, while many fled to neighboring countries like Syria and Lebanon in the late 19th and early 20th century or later immigrated to the West. Shbier is one of the last artists innovating and pushing the rich Syriac language forward, creating new and beautiful language in Christianity's ancient tongue. Shbier's short piece is a call to arms to preserve languages on the brink of disappearing.Not to be too picky, but it's Aramaic (the diplomatic dialect of the Persian empire) that was the lingua franca of the Middle East in the-mid first millennium BCE. It was displaced as a diplomatic language by Greek after Alexander's conquest, but was still spoken very widely in the area for centuries. Syriac, as the article notes, started as the Aramaic dialect spoken in the Anatolian city of Edessa, but became the main language of Eastern Christianity.
Also, an excerpt from Shbier's statement:
What is being done to sustain the remains of a language that has made such tremendous contributions to world literature? After hundreds of years with fewer and fewer speakers, those familiar with the Syriac language are still fighting to keep it alive by preserving and expanding its dictionaries and grammar books. And, as one of the few remaining believers in Syriac, I am contributing to the spread of this historical language in every possible way by writing texts and manuscripts that I record on CD. As a musician, I use Syriac's unique and complex sounds to create a new way of singing in Arabic. In order to do so, I drew from famous and great works of ancient Syriac writers, such as father Mar Evram. All these efforts seek to ensure that Syriac is passed on from one generation to the other in a truthful and authentic way.Strength to her arm.
