Home to some of the last speakers of Aramaic, Maaloula was attacked in Syria’s civil war. Its residents are determined to rebuild–and preserve their mother tongue from extinction.

What do these three locales have in common: a remote village in Syria; Sydney, Australia; and the Old City of Jerusalem? The answer is: Aramaic, a dominant language in the ancient world. Now, Jews, ...

The Aramaic language, one of the oldest continuously spoken languages in the world, holds a special place in the hearts of those who cherish linguistic heritage and cultural identity. As a native of ...

MAALOULA, Syria — Church bells echoed across the rocky slopes of this ancient Syrian town on a cold Sunday morning. But few families remained. Maaloula is one of the world's few places where residents ...

Aramaic is easily recognizable in the lowest line, below the Greek inscription. It is dated to 129 AD. In the following article I will address three issues: How have Assyrians retained Aramaic into ...

MAALOULA Ilyana Barqil wears skinny jeans, boots and a fur-lined jacket, handy for keeping out the cold in the Qalamoun mountains north of Damascus. She likes TV quiz shows and American films and ...

The survival of Aramaic, once the Middle East's lingua franca, is in jeopardy amid regional turmoil. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has listed it as an endangered ...

The name “Jesus” is a late arrival; the man from Nazareth did not hear it in his own village. In first-century Galilee, identity was more a function of sound than writing. The economy of sound ...

Some of you may have been following the stories from Israel about a small group of Christian Arabs from the Galilee successfully petitioning the Israeli Ministry of Interior to register them as ...

MAALOULA, Syria (AP) — Church bells echoed across the rocky slopes of this ancient Syrian town on a cold Sunday morning. But few families remained. Maaloula is one of the world’s few places where ...