CheekY

Aramaic, language of Jesus, lives on in Cyprus A Maronite village, isolated by the island's division, struggles to carry on the tongue. By Michael Theodoulou | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor KORMAKITI, CYPRUS – If the people of this remote village were to travel back to Jesus' time and hear him preach, they wouldn't need an interpreter to understand the Sermon on the Mount or the parable of the prodigal son. That's because they speak the same language as the Son of God. Literally. Spoken in the Middle East during Jesus' time, Aramaic is still used in everyday life by most of the 130 elderly Maronite Catholics in Kormakiti, which overlooks the Mediterranean Sea. This could be good news for Mel Gibson. If the megastar has trouble finding an audience for "Passion," his upcoming movie about the final hours of Jesus' life on Earth with dialogue mostly in Aramaic, due to be released next month, the folks here should have no trouble with the original biblical tongue. Still, Kormakiti's unique diluted version of Aramaic, called Cypriot Maronite Arabic, is in danger of extinction. Once the thriving center of the island's Maronite community, Kormakiti now has the eerie atmosphere of a ghost town. Many of the village's stone and mud-brick houses are derelict, their wooden-beam roofs sagging and broken, letting in sunlight. There is bird song but no sound of children, because there are none left in the village. "Sometimes we're like astronauts in the sky - no one's here," says villager Elias Kassapis. The elementary school, run by Mr. Kassapis until 1991, closed down a few years ago when the last pupil left to attend a secondary school across the island's dividing "green line" in the Greek Cypriot region. Under Cyprus's 1960 Constitution, following independence from Britain, the island's Maronite, Armenian, and Latin religious minorities had to choose to belong to either the Greek Cypriot majority or the smaller Turkish Cypriot community. They chose the former. After Turkey's invasion of northern Cyprus in 1974, the island's four Maronite villages found themselves on the wrong side of the cease-fire line. The majority of the 6,000-strong Maronite community was displaced, moving south. A stalwart few stayed behind in Kormakiti and three nearby villages in Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus, and are viewed by those who left as heroes protecting Maronite land. The Rev. Antony Terzi, the village priest, negotiated with the invading Turkish Army on behalf of those who refused to be uprooted. And he said the village was safeguarded by the Pope's personal protection. The community nevertheless suffered. Families were forced out because of lack of opportunities, especially schooling. Those who left to study in the south were allowed to visit Kormakiti but not permanently return. Nor are villagers allowed to bequeath property to outside heirs. Providing a lifeline to those enclaved in Kormakiti are Maronite Catholics in the south of the island who send food, medicine, fuel, and other humanitarian supplies, which are delivered every two weeks by UN peacekeepers. On weekends, Kormakiti is transformed when hundreds of uprooted worshipers cross back north to celebrate mass. The main parts of the liturgy are read in Aramaic, Kassapis says. Kormakiti's long isolation from the main currents of the Arab world helped to keep alive its exotic strain of Aramaic, which incorporates Greek, Turkish, French, and Italian words. Hopes for Kormakiti's renaissance were stirred last April when the Turkish Cypriot authorities unexpectedly allowed limited access across the "green line" for the first time in nearly three decades. Now Maronites can visit for longer periods but are still not allowed to reside there. Sensing more of a future for their ancestral village, some are renovating their old homes for weekend use. Their hopes are pinned on a comprehensive settlement plan for Cyprus, which was submitted last year by Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, but which has been rejected by the Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktash. Under the plan's terms, the Maronite villages in Turkish-held northern Cyprus would come under Greek Cypriot administration. According to some in the Maronite community, the provision was included after intervention by the Vatican. Without a solution to the long-running Cyprus problem, the Maronite community - and its ancient language - in northern Cyprus could vanish, members say. source

at what age do you think a girl/guy should get married? like when are they completely mature? of course men never grow up but...let's imagine that they do

do you mean a hayastantsi guy living abroad who hasn't been americanized/europeanized completely?

25% i didn't even understand some of the questions... lol

omg i didn't see the part where it said she passed away...and they were just married oh and Maral your avatar reminds me of Diana Ross

i have those on the list but the size is different so it's not a virus right? JAVA.DLL MOO.DLL someone gave it to me years ago RESTART.EXE LSASS.EXE oh and if i don't accept anyf iles in mirc i can't get a virus, can i?

i have LSASS application in my windows folder! LSA Executable and Server DLL (Export Version) do i have a virus?? it was last modified in 99? i didn't have this computer in 99!

sad and weird... even in Armenia i've never seen/heard about entering the wedding party on a horse... are people in USA more "traditional"? lol

nope sorry

if you have any friends/relatives in Armenia lol they can buy you Versace, Gucci, Prada bags, clothes, anything you want hehe

i can't stand girls who show off and brag about what expensive clothes they wear! yeah you can afford it...great just don't talk about it in front of someone who can't afford it... they might not care but it's just not nice! and i don't like wearing something that has the "expensive" brand name on it in big letters because it kind of draws attention... and besides you don't have to wear a 200 dollar top to look fashionable... 20 will do just as good...even better!

oh that's juat plain nasty lol maybe if they did it in a night club or at the beach or something it wouldn't look SO bad but it's like an invitation...

oh yeah top ten of rabiz is funny... baba yagan ela hye!

http://www.dribbleglass.com/subpages/strange/paris.jpg hahaha

well i'm not really talking about me because i've already learned my lesson lol and i don't care much about friendship anymore anyway. this whole world is fake lol

Students Boycott Classes To Protest Impending Army Draft By Ruzanna Stepanian Hundreds of students in Yerevan were boycotting Friday university classes for the second consecutive day in protest against government plans to scrap military service deferments and exemptions enjoyed by those of them who continue their studies on the post-graduate level. Under a new draft law on compulsory military duty approved by the government earlier this month, students will be able to pursue a master’s or doctoral degree only after serving in the Armenian Armed Forces for two years like other young Armenian men. They would only be allowed to complete their four-year undergraduate program before being drafted. The Defense Ministry and other government agencies argue that the existing law is creates fertile ground for bribery among university officials in charge of graduate admissions. Many male students are believed to enroll in the state-funded programs to delay their draft or avoid it altogether. The current legislation provides a full service exemption to individuals with a doctorate. Senior academics running Armenia’s leading state-run universities warn, however, that the planned change would lower educational standards in Armenia and discourage young men from pursuing an academic or scientific career. This view was ardently articulated by nearly a thousand students that gathered outside Yerevan State University, chanting “Science! Science!” Many of them were undergraduate students. “We say yes to science and education, yes to defense of the homeland, but say no to the new draft law on military service,” said one of the organizers of the protest, Armen Avetisian. “If they are going to draft us, why do we need to attend lectures and get high marks?” “You can’t strengthen the army with a thousand people,” said another protester. Female students could also be seen in the male-dominated crowd. “Don’t deprive us of our boys!” read one of the placards carried by them. Leaders of the disgruntled students were scheduled to meet with Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisian on Friday. Avetisian said they refused to turn up for the meeting because Sarkisian agreed to talk only to seven persons most of whom are affiliated with the pro-establishment National Youth Council. Avetisian claimed that he had earlier promised to receive as many as 50 protesters. But several. According to one of the Council members who met with Sarkisian, Aram Sukiasian, the powerful minister argued that the number of graduate students has nearly doubled since Soviet times despite a steep decline in government-funded scientific work and that virtually all of them are men. “As the minister put it, that means our girls have stopped thinking,” Sukiasian told RFE/RL. According to the Armenian Ministry of Science and Education, some 630 students are admitted each year into the state-funded graduate and post-programs covered by the existing military service privileges. About 200 of them study for a doctorate.

if you had a friend/s who was nice to you but when she found someone new she kind of ignored you... and when she was "alone" she was "nice" to you again would you dump her or stay "friends"? that's fake friendship but... i thought it was immature to "use" someone like that and when these girls grew up they might stop doing it... and i hate girls who think they're fun and all that who other girls worship... i mean come on! a smile "hides" the real you for only a short period of time! don't know if this happens to guys but it does happen to girls a lot!

the whole world is hye

what do u mean 011374? +374 9 cell # +374 1 regular phone #

http://www.norhayerrecords.8m.com/whats_new.html you can also download the songs from here.

hairless (white)men are not sexy unless it's http://www.coolbuddy.com/wallpapers/maleceleb/imgs/th_vin_diesel18.jpg he's white right? lol

ok first of all didn't her parents ever tell her not to talk to strangers? lol and 2nd of all how stupid does one have to be not to question about something they have no idea about before agreeing to do it? doesn't make any sense! just because she was the bride she had to listen? didn't she get suspicious? i mean if her husband told her to jump off the 7th floor she'd do it because she was "the bride"? <_< so yeah girls in armenia should start reading something (instead of watching brazilian soap operas) to at least have some idea about life, medicine, etc!

even if it's a "civilized" country it doesn't necessarily mean all men are "angels" there heh

does it leave scars? if it's not too deep?

i meant in real life not online