The Death and Revival of Sureth
WINNING ESSAY: Age 14-18
By Yara Bashoory
My great-grandfather read, wrote, spoke, and understood.
My grandmother speaks and understands.
My mother understands.
I can neither speak nor understand.
Those who forget their past have no future, we are rightfully told. Surely then, those who forget their mother tongue are befallen by an even more tragic fate. Language is the shared collective basis for the long-standing culture and traditions of a people, that which weaves it together.
As a stateless and fragmented nation, our language is especially integral to our identity, as one of the last remaining links we share. Or rather, that which we are supposed to share. Sureth is presently on the path of endangerment, which if left unchecked, will lead to its eventual extinction. The exponential growth of the diaspora and the ever-present threat of cultural assimilation, both forced and otherwise, have slowly but surely eroded its usage. Although this is not an entirely modern phenomenon, as Arabization campaigns and urbanization sped up the process, it has accelerated to potentially irreversible levels.
It begins slowly, with children stumbling over broken sentences at home, if they are fortunate enough to learn the language at all. As these children age and go through life’s milestones, their own children are no longer primarily taught Sureth at home, and their only exposure comes from older generations and religious use. Only grandparents still retain quotidian use of the language, and as these adults reach their elderly years, all that remains is minimal communication ability.
As the slow passage of time marches on, those who were once children with a command of the language (albeit limited) pass away, and the language has been lost forever to that family tree. This process is a familiar story for many members of the Chaldean/Assyrian/Syriac people, whether our mother tongue was replaced with Arabic or English, in the diaspora or our homeland, externally or internally. Neglecting to pass down Sureth to one’s children leads to more than just an end to it in their own family, but the beginning of the breakdown of our broader community bonds.
Matters are further complicated by a few key issues: a literacy crisis, a lack of media, and a variance of dialects. Written transmission of Sureth is exceedingly rare outside of religious contexts. The vast majority of the community who do, at a minimum, speak Sureth are not able to read or write it, barring clergy.
Simply knowing how to speak and understand a language is not enough to preserve it for generations. Beyond the basic ‘alap-bet,’ functional illiteracy in Sureth is the norm. Part of the reason for this is a lack of media, whether it be novels, TV shows, social content, and so on. Consequently, immersion in the language becomes extremely difficult. The media we consume daily is in a second language and we grow accustomed to absorbing information through that lens. There is no entertainment or literature (and if so, far and few between and highly inaccessible) that one can use to retain and improve their fluency.
In addition, the variety of dialects spoken (whether under the broad groupings of Eastern vs. Western Aramaic or specific villages) makes it difficult to agree on a so-called standardized version of the language. Our broad array of dialects showcases our diversity as a nation, but can also lead to our demise. Certain particularly rare ones are already entirely extinct, exacerbated by the impact of Seyfo. The Chaldean/Assyrian/Syriac community is undergoing a steady decline in linguistic fluency in its mother tongue, but through the perseverance that has carried us throughout the millennia, it can be reversed.
As a stateless people, and therefore one without a conventional country and leaders, our churches assume this duty. While the Church is first and foremost an institution established by God for the salvation of souls, the church (small-c) also plays an integral role in our community.
Our faith has sustained us through hundreds of years of unfathomable persecution since our initial conversion in the 1st century. From baptisms to funerals, liturgies to chants, monasteries to cathedrals, it is our lifeblood. We, as a people, would not exist without the Church, and neither would our language. The Church’s role in the preservation of our religious texts and the prevalence of our liturgical language cannot be overstated.
Flowing from this, our local churches, as community hubs, also have a role in preserving Sureth as a day-to-day language. Our parishes are effectively our cultural centers, and the implementation of language classes of varying levels and for all ages is a necessity. Starting young is optimal, but everyone from elementary school to the nursing home should have the opportunity to gain fluency and literacy in their mother tongue. Running such programs in local parishes ensures accessibility to those who wish to learn Sureth. It is not a language one can start learning on an app or pick up a guidebook on from the library.
Therefore, the creation of widespread, high-quality, and accessible resources for learning would be a tremendous help. Textbooks, apps, podcasts, and the like would make the daunting task of learning an endangered language more approachable, thereby encouraging it. In truth, top-down change only means so much if it is not taken to heart by those whom it is supposed to affect. Even the best resources amount to nothing if they are not used.
All members of the community should be encouraged to create in our language. Create music, create poetry, create videos, create anything. In this way, content in Sureth grows and becomes more relevant and commonplace.
On a micro-level, adults and the elderly should attempt to only communicate in Sureth with children. Families should endeavor to keep their second language outside of the home. The family is the most basic unit of civilization, and if our society wishes to survive, then dedication on the individual level is what it will take. One Sureth-speaking person who successfully passes it on to their children can create a ripple effect that leads to the proliferation of our mother tongue for generations to come.
The Chaldean/Assyrian/Syriac people, both those who can speak Sureth and those who do not, can sadly become ignorant of just how precious the language is. Blessed with the grace of an early national conversion, we have been practicing Christianity for nearly two thousand years in the language used by Our Lord on Earth.
The Words of Consecration in the liturgy are not only echoes of the Last Supper, but presumably the exact words spoken by Our Lord Jesus Christ. A lingua franca for centuries is a predecessor to the rich melodies that our priests chant at Mass and the hushed tones with which our mothers soothe their babies. The prayers uttered around the dinner table and the jokes whispered between siblings have origins in the language of kings and warriors. Once written on stone tablets in the Near East, now its use has almost entirely ceased.
I pray for a revival; to hear small children speak to each other in the language of their ancestors on the playground. Dreaming bigger, a vast array of novels fragile from use, masterfully bound. Shooting for the moon and the stars, the dialogue of a film the same speech as grandmothers on the phone. For a renaissance of language and rebirth of culture, entirely homegrown. That Sureth, a hallmark of our rich heritage, millennia of faith, and hard-fought struggles, will not find itself beneath a tombstone.
I hope to one day speak and understand.
I hope my children will read, write, speak, and understand.
I hope future generations will faithfully preserve our mother tongue in the hopes of one day seeing our homeland.
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