Watch Your Languages

The linguist-author of this piece failed to find my love-bride. If only this man was a girl... sigh.

NYC: Watch Your Languages. They’re Ancient.

"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."

I'm still not gonna go see that fucking film tho.