For centuries, some Iraqi Christians have spoken Syriac in its various dialects in their homes and schools. Under the weight of decades of war and turmoil in Mesopotamia, the language is in danger, but a new Syriac-language public channel is seeking to preserve this ancient legacy.

Syriac is an ancient Semitic language, close to the ancient Arabic dialects, and was prevalent in northern Mesopotamia and around the Euphrates River basin, which separated its eastern and western dialects, and Syriac declined to a local ecclesiastical language after the sovereignty of Arabic - which shares the same linguistic family - in its areas, and historians and linguists say that the transformation of the inhabitants of northern Mesopotamia from Syriac to Arabic at the time of the Umayyads is similar to the change of dialect no more.

Syriac channel and bulletin

When 35-year-old journalist Mariam Albert presents the news bulletin on the Syriac state channel, which is part of the Iraqi Media Network, she speaks in Syriac "academic", the mother tongue from which the various dialects of the Chaldean, Syriac and Assyrian sects branched, which may vary from village to village.

The mother of a 9-year-old girl told AFP that having "programmes to deliver this language is very important".

The channel shows programs on cinema, culture and history, some in local dialects, and news bulletins are read in Syriac, but "there are probably a lot of Christian listeners... They don't understand these words we are saying," Mariam said.

"I regret that our language is gradually disappearing, it is true that we use it in our homes, but having a channel that delivers this sound is better."

Today, accurate statistics on the number of Christians in the country are absent. But it is estimated that they number only 400,20, from about one and a half million two decades ago, who were displaced by <> years of war and conflict in Iraq.

The Syriac channel, which was launched three years ago and officially in early April, includes about 3 employees, including 40 presenters, 10 women and 5 men.

Jacques Anouya, director of the Syriac channel, said that "the channel is very important in preserving the Syriac language" by "providing entertainment programs in our language."

Ancient language

"Syriac was once the language of the Middle East and the government must preserve it from extinction," the 30-year-old adds, saying that "Iraq is beautiful with these cultures and diversity in it... from multiple sects and religions."

For Kawthar Najib Askar, head of the Syriac language department at Salahaddin State University in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, the "Syriac language," which has been used for thousands of years in the churches of Iraq, Syria, southern Turkey and Lebanon, is today a "somewhat rested language."

"We are not saying a dead language, as dialect speakers still rely on it, and some writers and clerics are still interested in it, but the danger is there," he said.

The Syriac department, run by Askar, has about 40 students, along with another department at the public university in Baghdad. The language is also taught in about 265 public schools between Iraq and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, according to Imad Salem Jajo, director general of Syriac studies at the Iraqi Ministry of Education.

In a previous interview with Al Jazeera Net, the director of the Syriac Museum in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, Kaldo Ramzi, said that Syriac is the depth of history that can not be a person or category - small or large - stripped of them, they are proportions of another kind, the music of the alphabet of letters is playing civilization preceded a lot since the inception of humanity, and the uniqueness of its people as a language addressed and the only one in the Fertile Crescent.

The head of the Syriac Museum in Erbil, Mr. Kaldo Ramzi, believes that Syriac is one of the Semitic languages, and has an ancient religious importance (Al-Jazeera)

He added that Syriac is one of the Semitic languages, and has religious importance, as rituals are still held in churches despite the existence of a new Syriac, pointing out that the age of the (oral) language extends for 7,<> years, and that it continues and will not die.

The first Syriac written writings date back to the first and second centuries BC, according to Askar, but the Syriac language "peaked between the fifth and seventh centuries" AD.

Language of Management and Etiquette

It was not limited to religious books, but was the language of government dealings, philosophy, science and literature. As the Arabic language advanced in the region, the use of Syriac declined since the 11th century, but it has not completely disappeared.

Askar sees "migration as a powerful reason" that threatens the continuation of the language. "When people from this region or speakers of (Syriac) dialects travel abroad, whether Europe or America," the language may remain for the first two generations, but "the third generation probably won't know this language," he said.

In the summer of 2014, 10 days before the arrival of Islamic States, the Archbishop of Mosul and Akre of the Chaldeans, Archbishop Michael Najib, exhumed a priceless treasure trove from the city, hundreds of years old Syriac manuscripts.

Today, 1700,1400 manuscripts and about <>,<> books are preserved at the Digital Oriental Manuscripts Center in Erbil. Bishop Najib explained to AFP that the centre collects this "heritage, whether it is manuscript, printed or written. It is cleaned and prepared for digital photography", as well as the restoration and preservation of ancient manuscripts.

There are "more than 8500,<> digital manuscripts, photocopied and returned to their owners," the majority Syriac.

Some of these books and manuscripts date back to the 11th and 12th centuries, Najib said. The center is supported by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Dominican Order.

The centre aims to "preserve and perpetuate heritage" and put it "in the hands of researchers to benefit from it in their research and theses", Najib said.

In Qaraqosh, the oldest Christian town in the Nineveh Plain in northern Iraq, students of St. Ephrem Syriac High School sit opposite their teacher Salah Sarkis Bakous and gaze at a white board with Syriac letters written on it.

The 59-year-old has been teaching the language since it was introduced into the curriculum 18 years ago, and believes that teaching it is "very necessary not only for children but for the rest of society as well", because "this language represents our history, our mother tongue in Mesopotamia".

But Bacchus, whose library of about a thousand books, half of them Syriac, was burned by Islamic State, said he was concerned that "today's generation is indifferent to learning its language".