Aramaic is still spoken in Malula, a cliffside village in southwestern Syria. (Bryan Denton for The New York Times)
Posted on 04/24/2008 9:23:59 AM PDT by NYer
MALULA, Syria: Elias Khoury can still remember the days when old people in this cliffside village spoke only Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Back then the village, linked to the capital, Damascus, only by a long and bumpy bus ride over the mountains, was almost entirely Christian, a vestige of an older and more diverse Middle East that existed before the arrival of Islam.
Now Khoury, 65, gray-haired and bedridden, admits ruefully that he has largely forgotten the language he spoke with his own mother.
"It's disappearing," he said in Arabic, sitting with his wife on a bed in the mud-and-straw house where he grew up. "A lot of the Aramaic vocabulary I don't use any more, and I've lost it."
Malula, along with two smaller neighboring villages where Aramaic is also spoken, is still celebrated in Syria as a unique linguistic island. In the Convent of St. Sergius and Bacchus, on a hill above town, young girls recite the Lord's Prayer in Aramaic to tourists, and booklets about the language are on sale at a gift shop in the town center.
But the island has grown smaller over the years, and some local people say they fear it will not last. Once a large population stretching across Syria, Turkey and Iraq, Aramaic-speaking Christians have slowly melted away, some fleeing westward, some converting to Islam.
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
There’s a lesson here for everybody who wants to import Islam into their midst, in the name of “diversity”. The diversity disappears.
But I know he also spoke the language he gave to His People: Hebrew. He most likely spoke spoke the lingua franca: Koine Greek.I'm sure that Yah'shua spoke Aramaic.
shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua
Yes, of course He spoke Hebrew. St. Luke records our Lord speaking in the Synagogue Luke 4:16-24. Hebrew was the language of the Torah and used primarily in the synagogues.
Stories about small pockets of Christian believers fighting to keep their culture and faith from drowning in a sea of Islam always inspire me and make me realize the triviality of most of my daily worries.
Yes. They also lead me to wonder how I was spared and humbly thank God for the life He has given me. The next thought, however, comes from Scripture:
Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.
Luke 12:48
Do you know how I can get a book on prayers in Aramaic? I would like to learn some simple prayers,like the Our Father,and words of Praise to God.
There are probably several books but can you read Aramaic? Even if it were transliterated into western text, how would you know what you were reading? You might want to consider the Maronite Cathlic Divine Office that contains many beautiful Eastern prayers, translated into English. If this interests you, let me know and I will point you to a resource.
Yes, of course He spoke Hebrew. St. Luke records our Lord speaking in the Synagogue Luke 4:16-24. Hebrew was the language of the Torah and used primarily in the synagogues.
Many of the quotes used by Yah'shua were not from the Hebrew but were from the Greek.Many Jews during that time used the LXX in Koine Greek.
shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua
For this reason, we Catholics use LXX as our Old Testament.
Or could it be in order to include the extra-scriptural books ?
Not in the synagogue during the liturgy, they didn't.
Not in the synagogue during the liturgy, they didn't.
I never said that.
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