"Ask Me Everything Before I Die, She Said" // With Professor Geoffrey Khan, University of Cambridge

She stretched out her frail hand, grabbed my wrist, and said: "Ask me everything you want. I want you to save this." In this episode of KEDEM, we are honored to host Professor Geoffrey Khan, University of Cambridge, one of the world's leading experts on the Aramaic language. While many know Aramaic as the language of the Talmud, or the Persian Empire, few realize that it is still a living—but rapidly dying—language. Professor Khan takes us on a journey through his decades of fieldwork, from the mountains of Kurdistan to Soviet apartment blocks in Tbilisi. We discuss how Aramaic evolved from the "Lingua Franca" of antiquity to the endangered dialects of today, and why the loss of a language is a "silent trauma" that hurts a community even more than the loss of their material homes. He also shares incredible archival photos of the Jewish communities in Zaho and Amadia, and tells heartwarming stories of the deep bonds between Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the Near East. Support KEDEM on Patreon:   / kedem   Chapters: 0:26 - Will English disappear like Aramaic did? 01:40 - Aramaic: The Lingua Franca of the Ancient World 02:40 - Why the Persian Empire adopted the Aramaic Alphabet 05:30 - The Rapid Extinction of Modern Aramaic (Neo-Aramaic) 06:40 - Meeting the Last Jewish Speaker from Erbil in Jerusalem 09:25 - The Displacement of Aramaic Christians & Jews 13:40 - Evolution: From the Tel Dan Stele to Modern Dialects 21:00 - Documenting History: Adventures in Fieldwork 26:20 - The "Wrist Story": A Moving Encounter in Tbilisi 31:40 - The "Silent Trauma" of Losing a Mother Tongue 35:20 - Rare Photos: The Jewish Villages of Zaho & Amadia 39:20 - Linguistic Detective Work: The Mystery of Sanandaj 43:00 - Shared Folklore: How Jews, Christians & Muslims shared stories 46:00 - Finding "Extinct" Dialects in Kazakhstan & Istanbul 53:00 - The "Milk Brother": A Story of Jewish-Muslim Brotherhood About our Guest: Professor Geoffrey Khan is the Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of the British Academy. He is a globally renowned philologist and linguist, celebrated for his monumental work on the Tiberian Pronunciation Tradition of Biblical Hebrew. He has spent decades conducting extensive fieldwork to document the endangered Neo-Aramaic dialects spoken by Jewish and Christian communities from Iraq, Iran, and Turkey, publishing numerous grammars and preserving these "last voices" for future generations. #Aramaic #AncientHistory #Linguistics #GeoffreyKhan ##KurdistanJews #History #KEDEM #NeoAramaic --------------------------------------------