The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> Saving the Language

Saving the Language
Posted by pancho (Moderator) - Sunday, February 8 2009, 22:29:12 (CET)
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Hundreds of languages have died out without the world coming to an end. It’s sad and tragic, on some level, but perfectly normal....hardly anything out of the ordinary. For that matter the original Assyrian language, that is; Akkadian, is long dead and gone...and what’s the harm? If Aramaic should go the same way it’s hardly a matter for tears and threats. On a sentimental level we may wish to keep the language alive...fine. But in this electronic age there are numerous sources maintaining files and records of Aramaic...even the spoken language can be preserved on recordings so that anyone wanting to learn it will be able to do so...at any time in the future. The language is safe and well stored away...so if the fear is that it will completely disappear....not to worry.

But is that really the concern among our nationalists...or is it yet another pretext to bash Islam and Arabs, Kurds, Turks etc.? After all, aren’t we told from birth that Muslims want to “deny” us our language...that they forbid us to speak it or teach it? And yet how to explain that every child and adult in BetNahrain speaks the language, reads and writes it...even though the Muslims have been supposedly trying to wipe it, and us, out? As fiendish and murderous and oppressive as we present the Muslims it’s hard to explain their singular failure to wipe us, or the language, out in all these centuries. Obviously the language has been preserved and is being taught, right now, in BetNahrain. It isn’t among those dastardly Muslims that the language is in danger but rather among the loving Christians of the West. No one, not in Iraq and not in the United States, is keeping us from learning, teaching and preserving our language. But in only one place do our children learn it and use it all their lives and pass it on...and that place isn’t Chicago or London but rather Baghdad and Mosul...in a Muslim country.

It isn’t in Muslim Iraq where the language is in danger of being forgotten but in the Christian West...just as the modern Assyrian identity isn’t threatened in Iraq but in the West...we know from the history of the Jews that where force is applied against a minority, that minority will cherish its traditions all the more. In Iraq where, it could be argued that Assyrians, though left to their own devices, feel outnumbered and therefore at a disadvantage. And yet their traditions and language are fiercely defended and preserved while in the West, where no threat exists, our people abandon their language and eventually their traditions simply because they can assimilate here totally...something they never feel comfortable doing in Iraq. It seems where our people are left to their own devices and seduced by the thrill of completely blending in, passing for “white”, they jump at the chance...or at the least the traditions are gradually abandoned because they add nothing to ones ability to succeed and get ahead in the New World.

A few years back an Assyrian language school was added onto a Church in Australia...and I find out today that a small class is being offered in Los Angeles, also through a church. The Los Angeles school is having difficulty keeping itself alive. With only 25 students, in all of Los Angeles, obviously there isn’t a crying hunger for Assyrian language classes. The school has supposedly raised and spent a half-million dollars so far...and is now asking 1000 people to pledge $25 a month....that’s $25,000 a MONTH...to “save” the Assyrian language. Seems like a lot of money per month for 25 students. Maybe the argument is that with more money they can get more students...but I doubt it.

The truth is that knowing Assyrian in the West gives no advantage to living, working and thriving there. To put it bluntly; what’s the point? I’m not saying close the schools down, they are harmful. They’re decidedly not harmful...but clearly there’s no real interest in the community...and that shouldn’t come as a shock, neither should it be grounds for abusing people for their lack of interest. What concerns me is that, once again, a bogus issue is being created for the real reason of bashing Islam. Supposedly it is because of Muslim hostility that the Assyrian language is under threat....but the reality is that, under Islam, the Assyrian language is being taught and preserved, in Muslim countries....in Iraq and Iran and Syria and Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. It is in Christian countries that the language is dying out...and of their own free will western Assyrians are perfectly satisfied that it should be so, although they cry that in Iraq the language is “disappearing”...when it’s really in their western Christian countries that this is the case,

What I resent is the attempt to blame Islam, yet again, for our own failures. In fact the truth is exactly the opposite...Islam isn’t the threat, Islam is the savior of our language. Just as centuries ago the coming of the Arabs saved our Christian minorities from the heretic-hunting Roman Christians. At least Islam places no obstacles in our path....the only problems we’ve ever had with Muslim authorities comes when we align ourselves with the Christian West against our native countries and when we use our language as a medium for teaching and spreading sedition...or treason.

But that’s nothing new either...Africans were forbidden their languages and culture for fear they would join together and fight the white slaver. Native American languages and culture was forbidden children who were removed form their homes and villages to be re-grooved by the white man ...as also happened in Australia and anywhere else the white man was afraid natives would talk about him behind his back. So it isn’t so strange that Iraq would be wary of “language” schools set up in churches, or in political clubs...because they suspected that sedition was being taught...and the language was merely the excuse and the means of keeping secrets.

The Assyrian (Aramaic) language is safe...anyone who really wants to learn it can do so...either at schools or on computers...there are even recordings of the spoken language. What is really being pushed is not concern about the language AS a language...but rather as a means of keeping as many Assyrians intellectually barefoot and pregnant as possible.....of keeping them strictly religious with a strong bias against Islam, which is all being “Assyrian” really means in the modern era.



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