Sureth in Schools

Sponsors and members of the Assyrian Club at Niles North High School in Skokie, Illinois.
Photo courtesy assyrianpolicy.org

Keeping the language alive

By Cal Abbo

The people sitting in the audience of the Niles Township High School board meeting focused all of their energy on the event that would take place in just a few minutes. They were adorned with joleh d’khomala, a traditional Assyrian outfit that shows off bright colors, embroidered patterns, and feathers coming out of the headdress.

After a roll call vote by the school board confirmed the historic proposal, the room erupted in claps and celebrations. For the first time in the history of the United States, after this board meeting in late 2022, Sureth will be offered to students as a full-curriculum language option in a public high school starting in this academic year. This is one small step in a worldwide effort to maintain our native language that is often lost on first-generation immigrants and beyond.

D219 Suraye is the name for a group of parents of Assyrian students in Niles, a suburb of Chicago, and the surrounding towns. Last year, the group estimated that 25-30% of students enrolled in the district are Assyrian.

In metro Detroit, similar efforts have not yet been engaged, but some residents are hopeful that a proposal matching the one in Niles can find its way into our education system. In some specific schools, Chaldeans represent more than half of all students.

While there is no language class on the table, Oakland County Schools is currently working to add an examination for Sureth that would allow students to test out of the language requirement in school and receive the Michigan Seal of Biliteracy upon graduation.

For some Chaldean students, English is a second language, and they are required to learn it during their school tenure. Requiring a third language, especially when it is taught based on the very English that the student is still mastering, can hamper their development in more important areas. Instead, this exemption will afford students the opportunity to take more relevant classes that will help them learn the topics of their choosing.

Tina Kozlowski, an English Learner Consultant, and Jennifer Howe, a Heritage and World Languages Consultant, both work in Oakland Schools. They have been leading efforts to establish a Sureth test that would allow Chaldean teenagers to pursue opportunities outside of learning another language if they so desire.

While working in the school system, they noticed the immense number of Chaldean students, many of whom had a difficult time achieving the requirement to learn yet another language. It was this realization that led to the idea of an exemption exam.

Kozlowski and Howe presented the case for a speaking-only Chaldean language assessment to the Michigan Seal of Biliteracy and World Language Council. The council was excited to hear about an opportunity to reach the Chaldean community.

The two Oakland Schools consultants also connected Avant, a private company that develops standardized language exams, with the Chaldean Community Foundation, which will pay the up-front cost for Avant’s services. In addition, the CCF will identify five target language experts that are fluent in English and Chaldean who will help develop, rate, and score the assessments. The development of this exam could pave the way for similar efforts in other communities.

The Sounds of History

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, otherwise known as UNESCO, lists the language as “definitely endangered.” Sureth, which has many dialects and is referred to colloquially by many names, including Chaldean, Assyrian, and Syriac, has evolved from a long history that traces back to ancient Mesopotamia and the Semitic language family.

Modern Sureth is often referred to as Neo-Aramaic because of its ancestry in the Aramaic language family; however, it is heavily influenced by other languages like Akkadian, which has roots in ancient Mesopotamia. Akkadian shared an ancient form of writing called cuneiform with a few other ancient languages, like Sumerian. Cuneiform is commonly regarded as the earliest-known writing system.

Around 3,000 years ago, Aramaic speakers became more prevalent in the region belonging to the Assyrian Empire. The language began to take over from Akkadian because of its easy writing system, which had 22 letters, compared to Akkadian’s cuneiform which had more than 600 distinct symbols. Although the writing was replaced, the spoken languages almost certainly blended with one another.

During the Mongol invasions, the language experienced its most rapid decline as Arabic replaced it officially almost everywhere besides Northern Mesopotamia and a large pocket of speakers in Kerala, India. Even many liturgies during this time were translated to Arabic.

Since globalization and the dawn of modernity, most minority languages have declined sharply. Government attempts to standardize schooling and language further contribute to this effect. Some action, however, has been taken to preserve the rich history and function of Sureth.

In 1972, the Ba’athist government in Iraq granted cultural rights to Sureth speakers and other Christians and more autonomy in their own communities. This allowed us to use our own language in schools and pass it down officially.

When Saddam Hussein came to power, however, these rights were revoked. Many community schools ditched teaching the native language in favor of Arabic, leading to a substantial decline in fluency. This reality was furthered by the ongoing wars and terroristic campaigns that have destroyed our communities in Iraq.

In 2004 and 2005, respectively, the Constitution of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region stated that Sureth will be the language of education and culture for those who speak it, and the Constitution of Iraq gave it the status of an official language, “in the administrative units in which they constitute density of population.”

An Ancient Language in Modern Times

Many Chaldeans in diaspora communities have launched programs locally to teach Sureth to Chaldeans who don’t speak it fluently, like the newest program at St. Thomas Church, or the Aramaic classes offered through the Chaldean Cultural Center. Others make it a point to teach their children. Yet more start programs online, like the comprehensive course created by the Chaldean Community Foundation and hosted by Mango Languages. In Detroit, the University of Detroit Mercy offers an official Aramaic course, and these credits transfer to several other universities in the area.

Some organizations try to impart the language’s treasures into the public school system. In the world of school board elections and grassroots organizing, these campaigns can take years to bear fruit. But that only makes the accomplishment all the sweeter once it passes.

Chaldean communities around the world can use the example from Niles for inspiration. Many people were involved in this historic realization, including the parents that comprise D219 Suraye. In 2019, Atour Sargon, who is vice chair of the Assyrian Policy Institute (API), was elected to the Lincolnwood Board of Trustees as the first ethnic Assyrian in the city’s government. Lincolnwood is part of the Niles school district that implemented the language changes.

“The D219 team hit a roadblock last year when it was made clear that in order for the proposed course to proceed at the local level, it required state-level approval,” Sargon said. That’s when API stepped in. At the same time as this issue came up, API was forming the Illinois Assyrian Caucus in the state legislature. Her political relationships helped get a meeting with the Illinois State Board of Education, which eventually accepted the curriculum and added it to the state catalog.

In addition to its behind-the-scenes work, API also organized a grassroots letter-writing campaign that saw more than 800 local residents write to the D219 school board to show their support for the course, according to Sargon.

“This effort serves a growing interest and need among Assyrian-American students,” Sargon said. “Schools are major venues for language-learning. Assyrian language courses at the high school level can provide a natural context for language-learning and help establish Assyrian locally as a language spoken on a daily basis.”

Sargon thinks this new course will help address the language problem in the longer term. Assyrian children who learn their language, she said, are able to maintain critical ties to their culture, affirm their identity, and preserve important connections with their elders and their homeland. “If Assyrian children can be exposed to their language early enough, thoroughly enough, and long enough, it can be hoped that the community’s shift away from the language can be reversed.”

Ramina Samuel is an Assyrian school counselor in the Niles High School District 219 as well as the Vice President of an organization called BET KANU, which produces digital content in Sureth that is geared toward language-learning.

“My biggest concern is our approach as a community regarding our beloved language,” she said. “We need to get past discussions, disagreements, and focus on taking action. We have to see our language for its value and the richness that it brings to the world while shifting our mindset away from the idea that it is a dying language.”

Samuel and other educators in the district are designing the curriculum for the course. “The curriculum is being built following U.S. World Language Standards with the guidance and collaboration of experts in the field,” she said, adding that the course will be taught in a non-traditional way. “There is a great focus on attaining language skills needed for everyday function.”

Another interesting factor has sprung up since the school district announced the addition of the course. Many regular Americans have shown a serious interest in learning the language. “We already have non-Assyrians who have elected to take the course next year,” Samuel said. “We need to remind ourselves that we do and can have a positive impact in the larger American community. Those students grew up in the area with Assyrian friends and would love to learn the language.”

Naema Abraham was the President of the School Board when the course was approved. She originally immigrated to the U.S. in 1974 and settled in Niles in 1979. Abraham said when she first arrived in the town, there were very few Assyrians who lived there. In her own words, she became Americanized.

While she doesn’t see this as a bad thing, she also thinks it’s important to maintain a strong connection with her ancestral language and culture. Once more Assyrians moved to the Niles area, Abraham began to use her native language again and reengaged with the culture she grew up with.

Despite this great progress, she is still concerned for the next generations. Her daughter, for example, speaks broken Sureth. Many parents in the diaspora try to avoid speaking Sureth in their own household so that their children will become fluent in English. On the other hand, this way of thinking contributes to the decline of the language overall.

Abraham said she is beyond excited that the course was approved and will be initiated this school year. She also wants the accomplishments of Assyrian community in Niles to provide a model for others around the world.