Time Magazine: At Christmas, a Maronite Christian Village in Israel Revives the Language Spoken by Jesus Christ

Their song sheets are in Aramaic script, which predates both Hebrew and Arabic and looks a little like both:
“When he sings the language, for me, it’s very emotional,” says Khalloul. “I feel like, ‘Why are we losing this language?’ A nation without its heritage will not exist. Let’s hope a few years from now we’ll be able to revive it, and revive our identity.”

The hope is real — almost all Maronite students in Jish opt to study the language — yet the odds of full revival might best be described as mixed. On the positive side, Maronites have the example of Israel’s revival of another ancient tongue. “Look what the Jews did with Hebrew 100 years ago,” Khalloul says. When the first Zionist Jews arrived in what was then a section of the Ottoman Empire, they decided to update their ancient language, which was barely spoke aloud outside of worship. Within 15 years, a generation was speaking it as their native tongue; polls today record Hebrew as perhaps the one aspect of Israeli life its Jewish citizens value most.

Read more: http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/12/23/at-christmas-a-maronite-christian-village-in-israel-revives-the-language-spoken-by-jesus-christ/