Aramaic as a Living Language
Hosted By: My Jewish Learning
Dive into the history of one the Jewish people’s oldest languages — and its modern legacy.
Aramaic is a Semitic language, related to Hebrew and Arabic, that has been used to record significant Jewish texts and prayers for thousands of years. It has also been the first language of some Jewish communities from Kurdistan (parts of today’s Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq) for that same amount of time.
Join Jewish Language Project contributor and My Jewish Learning teacher Alan Niku in this four-part online course and explore the ancient origins and modern life of Aramaic. You’ll trace its development, use and survival throughout centuries in a region surrounded by Persian, Arabic, Kurdish and Turkish influence.
With access to never-before-seen texts and primary sources, Alan will show us how Aramaic, as ancient as it seems, is an eternally living language.
