Don’t Let Your Tongue Die

By: Henok Elias

Ferenj: What was that language you were speaking with your mom? It wasn’t English.

Me: Amharic.

Ferenj: Oh! You speak what Jesus spoke. That’s so interesting!

Me: *smh* No. I speak Amharic, not Aramaic.

I doubt I’m alone in having this archetypal and terse conversation. Especially, for a year or so after Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ boldly premiered in Aramaic on the monoglot shores of the United States. Tomes can be written, and I am sure at least one has been, about the many relationships betwixt the Aramaic tongue and Habesha culture. This is not the space for that. Instead, this is a warning to any Habesha who loves the 80 plus languages of their region and has harbored thoughts of preserving them. But, I will treat you with a few connections between Habesha culture and Aramaic before you press the button that sends you to The Atlantic article about the preservation or lack thereof Aramaic.

1. 9 Aramaic speaking saints fleeing persecution from Byzantium are credited with the translation of oodles of literature into Ge’ez
2. Aramaic is the liturgical language of the Syriac Orthodox Church, which is in full communion with the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox communities
3. Words you might have thought were native to Amharic, like arb (Friday) and qurban (sacrifice/communion), come from Aramaic
4. Aramaic, like Ge’ez, Tigre, Tigrinya, Guragigna, Arabic, and Hebrew, is part of the Semitic family

Decline of a Lingua Franca: The Story of Aramaic.