Does anyone still speak aramaic

Some modern speakers of Aramaic call their variety Assyrian, others Mandaic. Aramaic, then, is in a splintered and tenuous state. But they were seekers, and by the 11th century B. On the basis of this expansion alone, however, theirs would likely have become just one of various languages of the area that briefly enjoyed fame and then vanished in the endless game of musical chairs that was ancient Middle Eastern politics.

The Aramaeans themselves were in Babylon only temporarily: In B. Namely, the Assyrians deported Aramaic-speakers far and wide, to Egypt and elsewhere.

The Assyrians may have thought they were clearing their new territory, but this was like blowing on a fluffy milkweed and thinking of it as destruction rather than dissemination: The little seeds take root elsewhere. Aramaic had established itself as the language of authority and cross-cultural discourse in Babylon and beyond, and with language as with much else, old habits die hard.

People were soon learning Aramaic from the cradle, no longer just in one ruling city, but throughout the Fertile Crescent stretching from the Persian Gulf through northern Arabia to the Nile. Even the Assyrians found it easier to adjust to Aramaic than to impose Akkadian, just as in the ninth century C. Scandinavian Vikings invading England learned English instead of imposing their Norse.

Here is also why Jesus and other Jews lived in Aramaic, and why goodly portions of the Hebrew Bible are actually in Aramaic. So dominant was Aramaic that the authors of the Bible could assume it was known to any audience they were aware of. Hebrew, for them, was local. Aramaic truly got around—even to places where no one had ever actually spoken it, in the form of its alphabet, on which both Hebrew and Arabic writing were based.

By the time the Persians won the next round of Mesopotamian musical chairs in the s B. On a bit of a sidenote, Syriac was and still is an extremely important dialect of Aramaic. Since it was the lingua franca of the Fertile Crescent at one time in history, many writers and scholars at the time translated Greek texts into Syriac so that anyone in the area could read them. Suffice it to say that anything anyone was interested in learning about in that time period was written about in Syriac.

Orthodox Christian nuns were held captive that time, but were eventually freed. This is what is happening in other villages too, where Aramaic is not even an everyday language but one spoken by priests. Just like many other languages, Aramaic is something that the people who make up the Syrian Christian community see as part of their identity and keeps them linked to their community no matter where they are. As long as they feel free to speak the language that they spoke with their family and friends growing up, Syrian Christians and other speakers of Aramaic can keep it from dying out.

Every time a native speaker of Aramaic, or even one who only hears it in church, is threatened, Aramaic is threatened in turn. The two main reasons for this are genocide and emigration, and many times the emigration is spurred by fear of religious intolerance.

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It may not display this or other websites correctly. You should upgrade or use an alternative browser. Aramaic: Does anyone still speak it? I know that Aramaic is still used as a religious language in Judaism and by some Middle-Eastern Christians.

But is it still spoken anywhere? Thanks, -Jonathan. Outsider Senior Member Portuguese Portugal.