12-27-2014, 05:33 PM
That is not according to reality (if I understood you right).
Biblical Aramaic is read all over the world at least each Sunday, in the Syriac churches, Church of the East, St Thomas churches, etc. In Syriac churches even the kids gather together with the adults to read from the Peshitto scroll during the service. Assyrians (of which you find whole communities in and around Chicago) can pick up Peshitta and read it anytime, because their native modern Assyrian has almost the same alphabet as Peshitta. In fact in titles, captions, etc. they use Estrangela to give distinction to the text. Saying they won't be able to read Peshitta is pretty much an insult.
Try to look around where you live and see if you can find some CoE churches or Syriac Ortodox. They usually keep a pretty low profile, probably a trait developed being an oppressed minority in a cruel and genocidal Middle East environment. But they are in the area of hundreds of thousands in US. They hold Bible study meetings directly off Peshitta and have no trouble whatsoever reading it. But language did change so they'd need to study Classical Syriac in order to fully understand it.
The same like Latin for me. While I can understand quite a lot of Latin without any formal study, to be able to fully understand and compose in Latin I would have to study it. But I have no problem reading it without much study at all.
Biblical Aramaic is read all over the world at least each Sunday, in the Syriac churches, Church of the East, St Thomas churches, etc. In Syriac churches even the kids gather together with the adults to read from the Peshitto scroll during the service. Assyrians (of which you find whole communities in and around Chicago) can pick up Peshitta and read it anytime, because their native modern Assyrian has almost the same alphabet as Peshitta. In fact in titles, captions, etc. they use Estrangela to give distinction to the text. Saying they won't be able to read Peshitta is pretty much an insult.
Try to look around where you live and see if you can find some CoE churches or Syriac Ortodox. They usually keep a pretty low profile, probably a trait developed being an oppressed minority in a cruel and genocidal Middle East environment. But they are in the area of hundreds of thousands in US. They hold Bible study meetings directly off Peshitta and have no trouble whatsoever reading it. But language did change so they'd need to study Classical Syriac in order to fully understand it.
The same like Latin for me. While I can understand quite a lot of Latin without any formal study, to be able to fully understand and compose in Latin I would have to study it. But I have no problem reading it without much study at all.