| Statue of Virgin above Malula | Music | 00:00 |
| Malula | BROWN: Malula is a tiny Syrian town tucked away in the Qalamoun mountains about an hour’s drive north of Damascus. | 00:13 |
| Statue of Virgin above Malula | Commanding pride of place here is a statue of the Virgin Mary – the mother of Jesus. | 00:22 |
| Malula people around town | Malula today is one of the few remaining places on the planet where Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus Christ, still survives, and this is how it sounds. Ibrahim Kamar: Outside this village, | 00:31 |
| Ibrahim Kamar | no one teaches or speaks this beautiful language. It’s only the people who live here who get to learn it. | 00:44 |
| St Takla’s church service | Singing & Chanting in church | 01:01 |
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| BROWN: Here at the St Takla’s Convent and Orphanage there’s daily devotion to Jesus. Together the priest, nuns and orphans pray and sing, but the service is not conducted in Aramaic. | 01:08 |
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| Over the centuries the written form of Aramaic has fallen away. The priest Elias Bakheel can’t read his beloved scriptures in Aramaic -- they’re written in Arabic. | 01:24 |
| Elias Bakheel | Elias Bakheel: I do like to pray in Aramaic and in other languages. | 01:38 |
| Mother Superior singing | Mother Superior singing | 01:48 |
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| BROWN: For St Takla’s Mother Superior Pelagia Sayaf, teaching Aramaic to Malula’s Christian orphans is a gift from God. | 01:50 |
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| Mother Superior: They feel they are learning a distinctive language -- | 02:00 |
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| one that is different from other languages. | 02:04 |
| Nuns at church service
| BROWN: For the nuns and orphans, a source of great pride and inspiration is the woman their convent is named after. | 02:11 |
| Malula mountain passage | As the story goes, St Takla was inspired by the preaching of St Paul and had to flee dreadful persecution by the authorities of the day. She only survived because God split the mountains and opened this passage to safety. | 02:20 |
| Malula town & people | And that’s how she founded Malula. The language she spoke also survived, even though at one time foreign invaders cut out the tongues of those who dared to speak Aramaic. Today the people of Malula are not afraid to speak up. And it’s not only Christians who speak the language of Jesus. | 02:34 |
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| Elias Bakheel: The Aramaic that Muslims speak is better than the Aramaic of the Christians. | 02:56 |
| Elias Bakheel | In fact Aramaic is better preserved by Muslims than it is by Christians. | 03:03 |
| Ibrahim Kamar with family | BROWN: Around half the local population of five thousand is Muslim. Born and bred in Malula, Ibrahim Kamar is the proud father of four children and nine grandchildren, and they all speak Aramaic. | 03:20 |
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| Ibrahim Kamar: Christians and Muslims are like brothers in this town. We are one family and of course we speak with each other in Aramaic. | 03:36 |
| Malula | Music | 03:45 |
| Mikhail Fadhel tending his flock | BROWN: Aramaic has a special resonance for local shepherd Mikhail Fadhel. | 03:56 |
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| Mikhail Fadhel: Aramaic is a difficult language to learn | 04:01 |
| Mikhail Fadhel | but we have been taught to speak it from the time we were born. | 04:08 |
| Mikhail Fadhel tending his flock | Music | 04:15 |
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| BROWN: It seems even Mikhail’s sheep are bilingual. Mikhail Fadhel: I speak to them once in Aramaic and once in Arabic | 04:17 |
| Mikhail Fadhel | and they understand both. | 04:27 |
| Mikhail Fadhel tending his flock | BROWN: Today the shepherd is regaling his flock in his native tongue. Mikhail Fadhel: Come to the meadow – come to drink and dance. BROWN: The Islamic conquest in the seventh century saw the decline of | 04:35 |
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| Aramaic and the rise of Arabic. But in remote little Malula Aramaic was preserved. | 04:08 |
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| Mikhail Fadhel: Come here you blonde. You are prettier than a bird. | 04:56 |
| Excerpt from DVD Mel Gibson movie | BROWN: Interest in the language has been revived by a Hollywood blockbuster – Mel Gibson’s controversial movie – The Passion of the Christ. | 04:59 |
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| BROWN: It is Mikhail Fadhel’s favourite movie. He’s watched it dozens of times. For a devoted Christian it presents a rare opportunity -- the dialogue is Aramaic. | 05:20 |
| Mikhail Fadhel | Mikhail Fadhel: I liked the movie a lot. We saw how Jesus suffered and was tortured for us and how they put thorns on his head. | 05:30 |
| Mikhail’s flock | BROWN: Even in the sparse fields of Malula everyone’s a film critic. | 05:40 |
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| Mikhail Fadhel: In the movie the Aramaic is broken, but ours is faster and stronger. | 05:46 |
| Orphans reciting the lord’s prayer | Lord’s prayer | 05:58 |
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| BROWN: Over time many feared the ancient language was in danger of dying out. At St Takla’s the orphans are learning to recite the lord’s prayer in Aramaic. | 06:01 |
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| Lord’s prayer | 06:11 |
| Ibrahim Kamar praying at mosque | BROWN: Malula’s Christians and Muslims alike are determined to see the ancient Aramaic language preserved and protected. | 06:21 |
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| Manal Kamar: We can’t imagine our village without this language. | 06:29 |
| Manal Kamar | Even if we get old and forget it all our children are learning it. | 06:34 |
| Orphans reciting the lord’s prayer | Lord’s prayer | 06:47 |
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| Reporter: Matt Brown Camera: Brant Cummings Editor: Garth Thomas Producer: Ian Altschwager | 07:03 |