The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) General Directorate of Syriac Culture and Art launched an initiative this month to use the Syriac language as the main language of correspondence, in addition to the Kurdish language, at their directorates in Ankawa, a district of Erbil.

“I sent an official letter to the General Directorate of Syriac Culture and Art thanking them for their historic initiative,” KRG Minister of Transportation and Communications Ano Jawhar Abdoka, the KRG’s only Christian minister, said in a post on X on June 14.

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President of the International Religious Freedom Secretariat Nadine Maenza told Kurdistan Chronicle that it is wonderful “to see the Syriac language, the language of Jesus Christ, being used by the KRG as the primary language for the majority Syriac-Assyrian-Chaldean Christian area of Ankawa.” 

“We extend our thanks to Prime Minister Barzani for the continued commitment to religious freedom and support of this essential component of Iraq,” she added.

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Ameer Majeed, an artificial intelligence (AI) researcher and student at the University of Kurdistan Hewler, told Kurdistan Chronicle that he was happy to hear about this initiative by the KRG. Majeed previously won an award at Abu Dhabi University’s 11th Undergraduate Research and Innovation Competition for an AI-powered project translating Syriac texts.

“Much more is needed for the true revival of such an ancient and historical language. Syriac needs to be integrated into technology and digital services. There’s an undeniable need for digitizing the language and allowing it to be understood by machines,” he added.

“Besides, as I usually witness in Ankawa, this language is primarily oral, which means that not a lot of people can read and write using Syriac. The KRG should emphasize Syriac-language education, and even integrate it into the Kurdish systems as well so as to familiarize us Kurds with it.”

“Putting all nationalism aside, allowing such historical richness to just slip away and die out at the hands of our own ignorance and lack of initiative is a crime to history and knowledge. Imagine creating tools and resources, both digital and non-digital, to translate ancient manuscripts, especially from the Ottoman and Abbasid era. How much richer would our understanding of Syriac, Assyrian, and Chaldean history, literature, and poetry be?”

Minister Abdoka in another post on X said that the KRG has given funding to more than 50 public schools to offer Syriac language classes to more than 6,000 Chaldean, Assyrian, and Syriac students.

Moreover, 125 KRG employees serving as staff of the General Directorate of Syriac Culture and Art are working daily in various sectors to preserve and empower Syriac, Assyrian, and Chaldean culture.