Grab a sheet of lined paper, review the pronounciation, and
practice each
A-TOO-TAA (letter) 10 times, and educate yourself. Along with
knowledge
comes pride. Along with pride comes confidence. Confidence in
yourself reflects the confidence people have in you. With pride,
confidence, and knowledge, our nation will survive for 100 more
generations.
Remember, as one of the first Christians (a couple years after the life of Christ), you speak one of
the oldest, rarest language in the world. The language of God!!! Be proud of that. It is the root
language of hebrew, arabic, turkish, and the alphabet for farsi (Persian), urdu (Pakistan/Indian), and
greek. Aramaic replaced our ancient brethren's language, Akkadian (the oldest semetic language) around
1000 B.C.. The aramaic script was in turn derived from the Phonecians who probably extracted it from Canaan.
After the Assyrians accepted the language of the Aramaens, Aramaic became the lingua franca of Mesopotamia
and the whole middle-east. The word Aramaic comes from the word Aram, the son of Shem (of which
the word SHE-MAA-YAA (Semetic) is derived).
There are two major dialects, Western (also refered to as Palastinian
dialect (the dialect of EE-SHO (Jesus)) and Eastern (also referred to
as "Syriac dialect" ("Syriac" is a dialect of Aramaic, not a language.
Syriac also has Akkadian influences)). To say Modern Aramaic or Modern
Syriac, you must be consistent and say Modern Hebrew, Modern English,
Modern Greek, etc. for all languages follow the law of evolution.
"Modern" is omitted when referring to any language. However, our
language comparitivly has changed very little in 2000 years, especially
lituraturally and liturgically.
Parts of the bible were written in aramaic, including the books of Erza and Daniel. The
famous writing on the wallŒ, which was seen by Nebuchadnezzar's grandson, Belshazzar, told of the fall of
Babylon. Later that night, Belshazar died and Cyrus the Persian and Darius the Mede conquered
Babylon. The famous painting by Rembrandt incorrectly showed the handwriting as hebrew, because he could
not find people who knew the script (He should have asked any Assyrian). The famous last words of Jesus
were in his native tounge, aramaic,
(E-LEE E-LEE L-MAA-NAA SAA-BAACH-TAA-NEE) = (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me).
Celebrate the native tounge of Jesus, the language He preached in, the
language of the Assyrians. The language is so valued that it is
extensivly studied at the vatican and taught in ivy league schools such
as Harvard University and the University of Chicago (just to name a
couple). Learn to read and write as He did. It is an absorbing feeling.
Challenge yourself to find a more asthetically beautiful script. Alaha
umokhoon (God be with (all of) you).
Download this 41 page, adobe formatted file, ARAMAIC.PDF,
if you intend on printing this web page. Get the
adobe reader.
It has been retyped and has a more professional format, includes the vowels and estrangela letters,
and has more words and more words spelled out. You can also read it offline.
Remember, we write from right to left. (say that 10 times).
If your interested in learning more Syriac-Aramaic,
you may want to check out the
"Songs of Assyria" page. Juliana Jendo's song "Alap Beet" is the best and quickest way to learn the
ATWAT'E (letters).
With these 22 AT-WAA-TEH (letters) and 7 ZO-WEH (vowels), you should
learn 69 words.
You will get used to
the pronounciation of the letters and the HAAJ-YAAT (spelling) of the words
in Aramaic will
come almost naturally and fall in place. 85% of the Assyrian words are written
phonetically, that is they
are spelled as they are pronounced (like the Spanish language).
This makes
spelling very easy.
Just follow these steps, and within two months (if you
speak a little
Assyrian) you shall start to read and write Assyrian
(Believe me). After you learn, you will realize how easy it
really was.
- Learn Juliana's "Alap Beet" song.
- Practice each A-TOO-TAA until you memorize each one of
them.
- Learn the ZOW'E (Vowels)
and how
they are used.
- Practice assembling the AT-WAA-TEH to construct words according
to how each A-TOO-TAA sounds. Begin with your name.
The HAAJ-YAAT (spelling) is not important now.
- Practice reading and writing with your new skills.
HIGHLY RECOMMENED!! Get the "Classical Aramaic" book
(written by Rocco A. Errico
and Michael J. Bazzi). Get the "Learning
Syriac CD". The
benifits will be enormous. Also, download these images and use one as your desktop background. Click here for the Letters image. Click here for the Vowels image.
Don't forget the at
the end of this page. It contains a wealth of information to build your LOO-GHAA-TAA (vocabulary).
Three ATWAT'E have a final form that are placed at the end of the
word.
Kap, Meem, and Noon..
If you see an Alap in this form, 
, it is the Estrangela AT-WAA-TEH.
The Estrangela set is mainly used for scriptures, titles, headings, and book
and album
titles. It usually has no ZO-WEH (vowels). Only 6 AT-WAA-TEH (letters) are different, the rest
are the same. Click here to learn the Estrangela letters
and learn more important words.
The History of Aramaic is at your
disposal.
Learn to read, write, and type the Aramaic language is five minutes. Watch the video. Download the fonts and watch the video on how to type on your PC.
If you intend on printing this web page, download this 41 page, adobe formatted file, ARAMAIC.PDF.
The Assyrian (Syriac-Aramaic) blocks are here.
, 
and 
. By themselves, they mean something and are combined with the the second word of a combination sentence.
(AA-TAA D AA-TOR) should be written 
.
(KHOO-BAA OO KHOO-YAA-DAA) should be written 
.
(KHOOSH L NIN-WAA) should be written 
.