It’s Mother Language Day. Here are some Assyrian projects and initiatives focused on the mother tongue.
Yasmeen Altaji | Feb. 21, 2024 | Cover photo: An Assyrian pupil poses for a photo in the school yard of the Akitu and Nisibin School complex in Duhok, Iraq. (Photo/Yasmeen Altaji)
On International Mother Language Day, Assyrians across the globe are celebrating achievements — and marking challenges —in keeping the Assyrian language alive.
UNESCO, and later the UN General Assembly, designated Feb. 21 International Mother language day to “underscore the role of languages in promoting inclusion,” including the “preservation of indigenous languages.”
In 2010, UNESCO had classified Assyrian as an endangered language in its Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger. Today, efforts to revitalize the community, including by formal education, have grown.
Here are a few of the efforts completed or currently ongoing across the global Assyrian community.
Illinois school districts welcome a new “world language”
Chicago-area school districts with sizeable Assyrian populations are at the forefront of Assyrian language integration in American public school curricula.
Since the district-level approval of Assyrian as an accredited world language in the Niles Township High School District 219 (D219) in 2022, neighboring schools and districts have been following suit.
Ramina Samuel, a school counselor at Niles North High School who helped spearhead the D219 effort, told The Word the move by D219 has helped realize what she says International Mother Language Day highlights: “Learning our mother tongue helps in many areas of life, including supporting our cognitive development, self-esteem, and sustaining our culture.”
“We continue to collaborate nationwide to support efforts of establishing and recognizing Assyrian as a World Language in the US,” she told The Word. “Sustaining our language is a survival tool. We have an Assyrian saying that goes like, “if you lose your language, with it you lose your name.”
In November last year, D219 approved two additional Assyrian language courses — the next levels in the course sequence. In October, Maine East High School in Illinois’ District 207 announced it would offer Assyrian as a World Language course beginning in the 2024-2025 academic year.
William Sargool, an Assyrian language teacher at Niles West High School in D219, told The Word in November students were “definitely excited” by the program’s growth.
Assyrian schools in Duhok mark Mother Language Day
Students take an exam at the Akitu School, an Assyrian primary school in Dohuk, also called Nohadra, Iraq. (Photo/Yasmeen Altaji)
The Akitu and Nisibin schools in the city of Duhok, Assyrian-run in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, serve elementary, middle, and high school students with a full curriculum and Assyrian language instruction.
Mikhael Benjamin, an Assyrian language teacher at the Nisibin school, told The Word the schools are planning a presentation on International Mother Language Day for students on Feb. 22 — a day late to align with students’ schedules.
“It’s important that we tell the students how proud they should be because they are learning in this very ancient language,” he said.
Nonprofit launches language awareness campaign
The Assyrian Aid Society’s Canada and Iraq chapters announced a new effort to raise awareness for the preservation of the Assyrian language with a series of “videos and testimonies of students and educators,” according to a statement on social media.
“Language is the foundation and fundamental aspect of the indigenous Assyrian culture and ethnic identity,” the statement said. “If no action is taken to protect and learn the language, our mother tongue could become classified as an extremely endangered language.”
Following the Gulf War, the Assyrian Aid Society of America and its Iraqi counterpart partnered to create an Assyrian school system. Today, the nonprofit estimates 2,000 Assyrian students are enrolled in 26 Assyrian schools from primary through high school.
Diklat Georgees, President of the Assyrian Aid Society of Canada, told The Word via email that in addition to utilizing social media to highlight current Assyrian language efforts, the campaign also aims to raise funds to support projects focused on the organization’s schools.
“We, as Assyrians in the diaspora must organize ourselves to prioritize and support language preservation efforts in order to maintain our indigenous identity,” Georgees said. “We must also provide ongoing support for the Assyrian schools, among other projects in our homeland to sustain a future there.”
Through media, building early language education
Established in 2017 by a group of friends who “noticed the loss of the spoken Syriac language in diaspora,” Bet Kanu, an Akkadian term meaning House of Creation, focuses on adapting Assyrian language learning tools to “the digital age”.
The organization produces child-oriented resources and instructional material like software, books, toys and music videos that center Assyrian vocabulary and linguistics.
A musician promotes language through lyrics
Chicago-based singer-songwriter Rachel Sarah Thomas has been on a mission to reshape and rethink Assyrian song. Her songs take classics by the likes of Juliana Jendo and Sargon Gabriel to new artistic palette that merges them with American and other global musical styles.
She said in a post to social media that her upcoming album, Sheekar, is a “celebration of the flavor and sweetness my culture adds to the world.”
Thomas did not respond to The Word’s request for comment.
Editor’s note: This article was updated on Feb. 21 to include comment from AAS-Canada president Diklat Georgees.