A musician is hoping his songs will help preserve Aramaic, the everyday tongue of biblical times. Otherwise, it could vanish in two or three decades, experts say. One of the few remaining groups of Aramaic speakers is using its music to preserve what in biblical times was the most widely spoken language in the Middle East. In a small basement recording studio in Tel Aviv's central bus terminal, the Nash Didan band lays down instrumental tracks for New Age-style songs written in Aramaic by their leader, Arik Mordechai. Mordechai, a professional musician, said he began his mission to save Aramaic two years ago when his mother asked him to keep the language going.
People can learn a little bit of a language that way.
In biblical times, Aramaic was the lingua franca of the Middle East, while Hebrew was mostly used in sacred texts. But today, the language is fading away. About 500,000 to 800,000 people, mainly in the Middle East, still speak Aramaic, he said. They trace their roots back to northern Iran, around the town of Urmia. After Israel was founded in 1948, the Nash Didan began moving to the Jewish state.