DECEMBER 2023

WINNING ESSAY
CATEGORY: AGE 14-18
The Death and Revival of Sureth
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
YARA
BASHOORY
AGE 18
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.
36 CHALDEAN NEWS DECEMBER 2023