Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

This would probably be of interest. Yigal


>From <http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/24/nyregion/24NYC.html>:
============================================

February 24, 2004
NYC
Watch Your Languages. They're Ancient.
By CLYDE HABERMAN

TOMORROW is the big day for Mel Gibson, the actor-director who apparently
considers himself in some respects to be more Catholic than the pope. His
much-debated film, "The Passion of the Christ," will open in theaters.

George A. Kiraz can hardly wait.

His interest, though, is not in the theological and social disputes the
movie has generated. He is curious about the dialogue, which Mr. Gibson
chose to render entirely in Aramaic and Latin, not exactly the hottest
languages on the planet.

"I want mainly to see if I understand any of the Aramaic, and what form of
Aramaic it is," said Dr. Kiraz, director of the Syriac Institute in
Piscataway, N.J. His organization promotes the study of Syriac, an Aramaic
dialect that is the liturgical language of the Syrian Orthodox Church and
some other churches with Middle Eastern roots.

"I call it BBC Aramaic - the standard form that continues to be used
today," said Dr. Kiraz, 39. He began speaking it as a boy in Bethlehem (as
in Little Town of Bethlehem, not the place in Pennsylvania). He uses it
today with his daughter, Tabetha.

"Since she was born three years ago, I've only spoken the classical
Syriac, which is Aramaic, to her," he said. "Now when she speaks to me,
it's always in Aramaic. It's mostly a language used among bishops and
priests. It would be like someone speaking Latin to his kid."

Aramaic, a Semitic language that in one of its forms is a cousin to
Hebrew, has been around for 2,500 years or more. In Jesus' time, it was
the lingua franca of the Middle East.

"Jews were probably not speaking Hebrew in the first century," said Rabbi
Ismar Schorsch, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary. "They were
speaking Aramaic."

With the rise of Islam, the language was shoved aside by Arabic. It
endures in some Syrian villages and a few other places in that region. A
couple of Christian schools in New Jersey teach it, Dr. Kiraz said, and it
is heard in church services.

Aramaic is familiar to Jews as well. Portions of the books of Daniel and
Ezra were written in Aramaic, as were some of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the
Talmud. Observant Jews hear Aramaic every day in the Kaddish, an
exaltation of God that also serves as a mourner's prayer.

"You have to know Aramaic to be a serious student of the Bible," said
Rabbi Stephen A. Geller, chairman of the Department of Bible and Semitic
Languages at the theological seminary, in Morningside Heights.

While it might be a mistake to pronounce the language dead, it would be
silly to call it thriving. By contrast, this film's other language, Latin,
is faring rather well for an ancient tongue once given up for lost.

(Mr. Gibson's use of Latin, by the way, is deemed a blunder by experts.
He'd have done better with Greek, which was widely spoken in Jesus' day.
"No one in the Mideast spoke Latin," Rabbi Geller said. In other words,
don't expect every scholar to walk away from "Passion" saying, "Si fractum
non sit, noli id reficere" - "if it ain't broke, don't fix it.")

THESE days, Latin is enjoying a resurgence. "The nadir came in 1970, right
after the Roman Catholic Church gave up Latin," said Thomas J. Sienkewicz,
vice chairman of the National Committee for Latin and Greek, a group that
promotes studies in those classical languages.

But all indicators point to a turnaround in the last two decades, said
Professor Sienkewicz, who teaches classics at Monmouth College in
Illinois. Indeed, one problem now is a looming shortage of qualified
teachers for the growing numbers of students. A nationwide campaign to
recruit instructors is planned for the first week of March.

Some young people like studying Latin for its own sake, Professor
Sienkewicz said. Others are persuaded by evidence that high school
students who take Latin do far better than average on the verbal SAT.

There is, too, the "Gladiator" factor, said Nancy McKee, chairwoman of the
Latin and Greek group and a former Latin teacher in Lawrenceville, N.J.
The Russell Crowe movie "prompted an interest in the Roman culture," she
said.

Might "Passion" similarly breathe new life in Aramaic? No one is betting
on it. The language, Dr. Kiraz acknowledges, has obvious limitations in
today's world.

"Sometimes we have to coin a new word to describe things," he said.
"Pancake, for example, is kind of difficult. In Syriac, there is a word
for cake, kuko. Basically, for pancake we say 'pankuko.' "

For moviegoers, unfortunately, there is no Syriac word yet for popcorn.