September 4, 1999
MALULA JOURNAL
In Isolated Pocket of Syria, the Language Spoken by Jesus Survives
Map
Syria from Microsoft Encarta Concise Encyclopedia
By DOUGLAS JEHL
ALULA, Syria -- These days, Damascus lies just 45 minutes away,
on improved roads that mean that the journey between this isolated
village and the capital no longer strikes anyone as forbidding.
But linguistically, Malula is still a place unto itself.
Here in the barren Qalamun Mountains the people do not speak
Arabic, at least among themselves. That language has been the
lingua franca in this part of the world for more than 1,000 years,
but theirs is even older, going back nearly 3,000 years to around
900 B.C.
The language is Aramaic, the one spoken by Jesus Christ.
Everywhere else, it died out centuries ago, but here, somehow, it
has endured, insulated by isolation and nurtured by pride. Only in
Malula, with a population of about 5,000, and in two nearby
villages does Aramaic survive.
"Even in Damascus, people look at us funny, and they ask what
language are you speaking," said Assad Barkeel, 24. Like nearly
everyone else here, Barkeel learned Aramaic from the cradle, and
also like nearly everyone else, he says he is determined to pass on
the gift to another generation.
As home to several Christian holy sites, including the
fourth-century St. Sergius' Church, which was built to honor
soldiers slain by a Roman emperor because of their beliefs, Malula
has long been a haven for Christians. They make up about half the
population, a far larger proportion than the 13 percent in Syria as
a whole.
But even if the link to Jesus Christ makes some Christians more
passionate about preserving the language, there is no divide when
it comes to Aramaic in Malula. Muslims and Christians alike chatter
in a language that is incomprehensible to most other Syrians and to
almost everyone else.
In what are now Syria, Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian
territories, Aramaic was for centuries the language of daily life,
and it was thriving at the time of Jesus. (Hebrew was reserved for
religious worship.) Parts of the Bible were written in Aramaic,
scholars say, as were parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Yet even as a spoken language, it was overtaken in the seventh
century, giving way to others, including Syriac and Arabic. It has
disappeared entirely as a written language, with parts of its
alphabet utterly lost to memory.
But although it no longer survives as a written language,
scholars and clerics sometimes adopt a rough system of
transcription to render the spoken sounds in a recognizable script,
usually Hebrew or Arabic. This allows an Aramaic liturgy to be used
in some Syrian churches.
In Malula, spoken Aramaic has lived on, unmolested by successive
conquerors who never bothered to force conformity on such a remote
place, a redoubt that lies at an altitude of 5,000 feet.
For centuries, its residents have lived simply, and mostly in
isolation, perched in houses dug into the steep hillside and
drawing their livelihoods from the spring-fed land below. To
venture to Damascus was long an arduous journey, across land that
was scorched in the summer and covered by snow in the winter.
The 20th century has brought the capital closer, and with it,
Arabic in the schools.
But not even new jobs in Damascus and the demands of modern life
have quenched the habit of speaking Aramaic at home. People say
they have become ever more determined to keep the language alive.
"When we saw outsiders come and pay so much attention to our
language, we thought it was our responsibility to learn more,"
said Suleiman Wakim, 51, the owner of a tiny sandwich shop that
specializes in neatly browned falafel.
Because of a local legend dating from World War II, when Syria
was still a French protectorate, some people here still look with
suspicion at those who turn up in Malula and claim to marvel at
what has endured. As the story has it, a visiting scholar who
proclaimed his passion for Aramaic turned out instead to be a
German spy.
But recent years have brought not only a fresh batch of
scholars, but also the early taste of tourist dollars, in a tide
that sometimes makes for an eclectic mix.
One recent resident widely described with much affection was
Werner Arnold, a German linguist who asked to be known as Abu
Ibrahim during the several years he spent trying to master the
region's most obscure tongue. Some of his students have taken up
residence in his place, and old men like Mikhal Halal, 75, say they
still cannot believe that the foreigners have learned to speak
better Aramaic than he does.
By contrast, in the hilltop St. Sergius' Church, which attracts
many Christian pilgrims, the Rev. Fayez Frejat, a ruddy-faced
58-year-old Greek Catholic priest, delights visitors by reciting
the Lord's Prayer in Aramaic even though he cannot speak the
language, having been assigned to Malula just a few years ago.
Altogether, experts say, some 18,000 Syrians speak Aramaic,
including those who live in the nearby villages, Bakha and Jubadin.
Of that total, though, perhaps half have left the villages for
better opportunities in the capital. Most return to the mountains
in the summer, and most still speak Aramaic at home to their
children, but it is that exodus that worries some residents.
"If I were the interior minister, I'd pass a law that said no
one from Malula could marry outside these villages," Frejat said.
"Unless they hear the language at home, the children will grow up
without it."
For now, though, extraordinary measures are being taken.
Orphans, in many cases, are brought up by Aramaic-speaking nuns.
With the piaturesque heart of the village and its narrow, steep
alleyways already chockablock with houses, permission from the
government has been sought and won to allow new construction on the
outskirts, to make room for newlyweds and their growing families.
"Everyone is becoming more interested in preserving Aramaic,"
said Ali Muqdah, 31. "It's our language, after all."
