The principal aim of this project is to develop an online course and new language learning materials in Turoyo-Aramaic (also known as Surayt), which is today spoken by approximately 250,000 people in Europe. Turoyo is missing in the language courses offered by the Erasmus+ Program countries. The courses provided by community organizations and the Syriac Orthodox Church teach Classical Syriac (liturgy language) instead of people’s everyday spoken language, Turoyo. Due to the lack of courses and language learning materials in Turoyo, both native and non-native speakers have difficulty in learning Turoyo or improving their knowledge of this language. Turoyo has predominantly been a vernacular language and therefore it suffers from the problem that it lacks standardization when writing it, both when using the Syriac and Latin alphabets. In order to address the aforementioned problems and fill in the gap of Turoyo language courses, the Consortium (University of Bergen, Free University of Berlin, Leipzig University, University of Cambridge and the St Ephrem Syriac Orthodox Monastery in the Netherlands) has formulated the following aims and objectives in line with Erasmus+ Program’s (Key Action 2) specific objectives and priorities that promote the teaching and learning of foreign languages: • Develop an online course for Turoyo at A1, A2 and B1 levels. A strong element of intercultural awareness will be integrated in the course syllabus and methodology. Besides, Europe’s linguistic diversity will be respected by making the course available in English, German, Swedish and Dutch to address both the needs of native and non-native learners of this language; • Promote the strategic use of ICT and OER in teaching and learning Turoyo and develop new language-learning materials for Turoyo; • Standardise the writing of Turoyo by developing a new orthography; • Develop new curricula for teaching Turoyo at tertiary institutions; • Increase the professionalisation of the Turoyo language teachers by providing them with a training workshop; • Organise the first international conference on Turoyo to address the challenges which Turoyo encounters in the European diaspora context and to establish an international network among scholars and experts working on Turoyo. • Organise a summer school on Turoyo for the youth to promote and disseminate the online course; • Improve the teaching capacities of organizations (including the consortium partners) active in the field of Turoyo. • Increase the employability of Turoyo language speakers in areas where a high concentration of Syriacs live. The project results, especially the online course will be a new opportunity for all interested native and non-native learners of this language to improve their Turoyo language skills and increase learners’ intercultural awareness. It will fill in a gap in the spectrum of European languages by offering a new and unique language course. Overall, the project results are expected to have a remarkable impact on the future viability and vitality of this endangered language.
Within the framework of the Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership Programme, Aramaic-Online Project (2014-2017) has developed the first online course in Surayt-Aramaic (also known as Turoyo), which is the mother tongue of more than 250,000 people in European countries. Surayt is a Neo-Aramaic language, traditionally spoken by Syriac Christians in the Middle East and in the worldwide diaspora. Surayt is a continuation of the ancient Aramaic language – famous as the language of Jesus – with a distinguished cultural and linguistic history over a period of more than 3,000 years. Surayt has predominantly been a spoken language, and classified as 'severely endangered' by UNESCO, because of the emigration and expulsion of its speakers from their native areas in the last 50 years. The project from the very beginning addressed the main challenges of this language and focused on the standardization of writing Surayt (both in Syriac and Latin characters) and developed an orthography which has impacted the effective and standardized use of the language both in the production of literature and in day-to-day written communications. The project has implemented all the intellectual outputs planned and conducted various dissemination activities within three years. Accordingly; • The project has developed an online course at A1 and A2 levels, consisting of 16 learning units. Each unit has been provided with texts, dialogues, exercises, grammar boxes, cultural notes, list of verb conjugations, and an extended glossary with ca. 2000 entries. Accessible on two sites: www.surayt.com and www.beta.surayt.com (the new site, still not fully released). • The course is planned to be offered in 4 languages of instruction: English, German, Swedish and Dutch, reflecting the large numbers of second generation speakers in these countries and worldwide spread of the speaker-community. Due to suggestions by the users, the project team has included 3 other languages (French, Arabic and Turkish) and provided the course to learners in 7 different languages. • Besides the online course, the project has developed language learning materials: 1) a Textbook version of the online course and 2) a Reader in Surayt which has been developed through a sub-project “10 authors, 100 essays in Surayt”. Both the textbook and the reader are provided online as an e-book and in printed copies to be distributed to teachers, experts and scholars of this language. • The project has developed a new orthography document with the aim of standardizing the writing of this language. • A curriculum document for teaching Surayt at universities has also been developed with the aim of developing an independent joint online course degree. • Two additional learner tools have been developed: 1) A converter software from/to Syriac characters to Latin characters (still in beta-version), and 2) A digital keyboard both in Syriac and Latin characters (still in beta version). These two outputs are still in beta version and tested by the production team. • The project organized the first international conference on Surayt in Cambridge (August 2015); two training workshops for mother tongue teachers, one in Germany (August 2016) and one in Sweden (October 2016); two summer schools, one in Germany (September 2015) and one in the Netherlands (August 2017); a 12-week virtual classroom (April-July 2017) and various dissemination activities (e.g. seminars, meetings) in more than 20 cities in 7 countries, and disseminated the project to more than 2500 people, mainly among the speaker communities. The Consortium behind the project has been formed by four renowned universities (University of Bergen, Freie Universität Berlin, University of Cambridge and Leipzig University) and the St Ephrem Syriac-Orthodox monastery in the Netherlands (Syrisch-Orthodoxe Kerk van Antiochië, Glane-NL) who has strong relations and a well-established network within the user community. Through dissemination activities, the project has also established long-term relations with many community organizations across Europe, local authorities, and strengthened its relations with the scientific community. The project has had a remarkable impact on the revitalisation of this endangered language. It has positively changed the discourse about the use of this endangered language among the community members, and become a role-model for other endangered languages who are facing with similar existential challenges. This is actually what the Aramaic-Online project was intended to achieve. The AOP has established the foundations of standardization of the Surayt orthography and grammar, and developed an innovative language course completely built-in browsers as an open source. The successful outcomes of this project resulted in a new follow-up project application (Surayt-Aramaic Online Project – SAOP) which aims to take the flagship one step further and build the institutional structure according to the Common European Framewo