Youth Organization of Bethnahrain Patriotic Union organizes Syriac language celebration evening in Baritle, Nineveh Plain

BARITLE/NINEVEH PLAIN, Iraq – The youth wing of the Beth Nahrain Patriotic Union (Huyodo Bethnahrain Athroyo, HBA) held a celebration on International Mother Language Day on Friday evening in the Syriac town of Baritle in honor of the Syriac language. The evening was hosted by HBA Youth committee member Noor Kajo and began with a minute of silence for the Martyrs.

HBA board member in Baritle Ilyas Matti held an introductory speech an noted that HBA is celebrating the silver jubilee of its annual Mother Language Day celebration in Iraq. He underlined the importance of taking initiative and continuing to celebrate these days so that the younger generations do not forget their origins and can resist the status and influence of larger culture-languages ​​and remain connected to their heritage and homeland.

On behalf of HBA Youth, Mark Majid called on the Suraye youth to maintain their attachment to their own language as a source of identity and heritage and to keep it alive in Iraq. It was a call to the youth to be proud of their ancient Semitic language and to keep it alive in daily speaking and writing. He urged a concerted effort to elevate Sureth further as an official language in all government educational institutions in Iraq on the same level as for example Kurdish and Arabic, the official languages ​​of the country.

Priest of the Virgin Mary Church Fr. Quryaqos Hanna stressed the need for the people of Baritle in particular and Suraye in general to continue speaking and writing their Sureth (Syriac) language wherever they are, at home or abroad, so that they do not forget their roots. He recited a poem of his own on how people in the diaspora can resist assimilation, and thus not lose their roots, language and identity. It was a call for connectedness with the town of Baritle and the Nineveh Plain, and the protection of language and culture.

Importance of having an own Syriac curriculum and schools

HBA board member in Baritle and former school principal Ablahad Saka spoke about the importance of official education in the Syriac language. In Iraq, the Suraye communities spread across the country are allowed by law to teach in Sureth (Syriac) in their own schools. For Saka, this is something that must be followed up on urgently if the crowding-out effect of Arabic on Syriac is to be reduced.

He gave the example of the some 100 Syriac schools in central Iraq that have the right to full education in their own language, but where this often does not go beyond 2-3 hours a week. This in contrast to the some 30 Syriac schools in the autonomous Kurdistan Region in Iraq, where many of the Syriac schools have a full Syriac curriculum. That is, mathematics, physics, geography, etc. in their own language.

Saka emphasized the importance of fully organizing their own education, because for many young Suraye, Sureth does not have the status and economic and cultural importance that it deserves. Sureth is often the second language for Suraye youngsters. For Ablahad Saka, own education is a matter of doing because only by really working on the issue can the ancestral origins and indigenous population of Iraq be protected.

Poet Amir Polous Ibrahim recited a poem in the local Sureth dialect.

Suroyo TV presenter Salah Sarkis closed the evening with a quiz where the participants had to guess a given word in the East Syriac dialect in the West Syriac dialect. The people who knew the right answer received a new Bible edition as a gift.