Syriac Language Preservation

Syriac Language Preservation

Teaching and Learning

Background

Syriac language learning is an important part of the continuity of the Syriac Orthodox Church and the survival of the Syriac communities in its homeland in the Middle East and in the diaspora. The Syriac language which is an Aramaic Edessan dialect resisted the spread of the Greek, Roman, Arabic, and Turkish languages for more than 20 centuries and is still used in the Syriac Orthodox Church liturgy and spoken by a decreasingly small number of people that originally lived in Southeastern Turkey but most of them and their descendants live in many different countries across the globe.

Throughout the history of the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Syriac language was the only language that was used in the Holy liturgy. The church helped the language stay alive and the language helped the church continue and establish an identity for the Syriac faithful. Now, the Church in the diaspora, due to many factors, is replacing the Syriac language with their local languages. This will lead to the same results when Syriac was replaced with Arabic in the Middle East in the last 150-200 years. When the language replacement happened, a significant number of the faithful lost the connection with the church and the Syriac language in the Holy Qurbono and stopped participating in the mass fully or partially.

State of Learning

Currently, attempts to learn the Syriac language and its history are very limited and some are listed below:

• Academic: Few universities offer Syriac language undergraduate and graduate courses in some Arab universities like Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt. Many European and American universities offer the same courses.

• Schools: Grades K-12 in some countries offer Syriac language learning opportunities when there are majority Syriac speaking students.

• Locally: Limited Syriac language teaching through Church’s Sunday school programs in some countries.

• Virtual: 

  • Syriac e-School offers online classes for free.

  • Syriac Language Academy in Egypt offers online classes for free.

  • Syriac School in Sweden offers online classes for a certain fee.

• Others: Beth Mardutho; The Syriac Institute offers limited virtual or in person classes for a fee.

Challenges:

Syriac language teaching faces many challenges:

• Limited number of Students with the desire and dedication to learn their mother language. 

• Limited number of Teachers.

• Lack of widespread support from Syriac Orthodox Church hierarchy.

• The books currently available for teaching in non-academic environment follow old teaching methods and principles

• College level books, while they are good, they assume their student have a good understanding of Syriac at a beginner level

• Lack of resources, new books, etc.

Opportunities:

There are many people who have the desire to learn the Syriac language and its history. Their main reasons for learning Syriac are:

• The desire to speak the same language that Jesus spoke in his time on earth.

• The desire to be able to understand and participate in the church mass.

• The desire to learn the history of the Syriac people and explore all the treasures and manuscripts of the Church Fathers and others.

• The desire to explore the treasures of the Syriac language academically and be able to teach at a university level and be able to publish academic work.

• There have been tremendous advancements in the Syriac/Aramaic language research and teaching in the last 30 years especially in certain European countries.

Suggestions and Recommendations

While all the attempts are going in the right direction, the number of learners is still small to form any critical mass learning. The suggestions here are aimed to increase the number of students and teachers to help revive and spread the Syriac language even more.

• Teachers (in a non academic setting) include a mix of Syriac native speakers and students who went through learning in person or at virtual school and are currently enrolled in higher level classes.

• Student tudents are a mix of adults, church deacons and lay people, and youth/students at different levels of Elementary, Middle, and High School and University education. All students are learning Syriac for to personal interest and they are located in different countries in the Middle East, Europe and North America across many time zones

Short Term Suggestions (6 - 12 months):

• Consider the adults learning as an illiteracy program style for Adults.

• Consider the youth learning as learning a foreign language for youth 10-18 years old, 4th - 12th Grade

• Publish teaching instruction books for teachers and practice books.

• Adapt the classes to non-Arabic speakers’ youth/students in their native language on a wider scale. Many of the classes are offered only toward Arabic speakers with some adaptation by the teachers.

• Make the teaching classes 2 hours or more each week.

• Train as many teachers that can teach more beginners level classes.

Long Term Suggestions (0 - 36 months):

• Recruit new students and teachers. One method to do that is by establishing a non-profit organization and running ads in different geographical areas, North America, Europe, The Middle East, etc. to recruit new students and new teachers.

• Modernize the books used to teach Syriac language for all levels.