As Easter rolls around,
we will see an abundant array of documentaries, special features and films related
to Jesus Christ’s life and resurrection. I just happened to stumble my thumb
across the remote to find the movie “The Passion of the Christ” airing on
screen. For the ones who haven’t watched the Mel Gibson directed film covering
the final 12 hours of Jesus, it is
completely subtitled in English as the protagonists dialogues are held in Aramaic
and Latin. I remembered the hype about the movie when it first came out but never
watched it due to lack of interest of a 16 year old. As I watched the movie, I
had to read the subtitle but I mostly paid attention to the spoken language and
frantically waited to hear familiar words. The more closely I listed the more familiar
words I heard. Just to clarify, I never took Latin in school or had any Aramaic
lessons in my life. Nevertheless, I spotted words from both spectrums of my language
knowledge. I grew up speaking Urdu and Punjabi in Pakistan; and speaking German
with my family and friends in Germany. In school I took French and Spanish. All
of these languages fall into the Indo-European language family. German is
derived from the Germanic stem of the Indo-European language family and most of
its vocabulary is derived from Latin and Greek. Similarly, Urdu is derived from
the Aryan stem of the Indo-European stem and the vocabulary is mostly derived from
Arabic and Sanskrit.
Anyhow, I put a list together
of words from the movie with their identical meaning in contemporary languages:
Latin/Greek
|
Tumultus
|
Kaisar
|
German
|
Tumult i.e. Trouble/Uprising
|
Kaiser i.e. King/Emperor
|
Aramaic
|
AeMuOT
|
Khatar
|
Malik/Malka
|
Abba
|
Karza
|
Urdu (meaning)
|
Mot i.e. Death
|
Danger
|
Malik i.e. Lord/Master
|
Abbu i.e. Father
|
Depth/fault (i.e. ‘penalty’ in movie)
|
Latin
|
Idiota
|
Quen
|
Mundous
|
Veritas
|
Quando
|
Diceme
|
Spanish
|
Idiota i.e. Idiot
|
Quien i.e. Who
|
Mundo i.e. World
|
Verdad i.e. Truth
|
Cuando i.e. When
|
Digame i.e. Tell me
|
As of now, I can confidently say that it was worth doing
the drudgery work of reciting Spanish vocabulary and rehearse the tough grammar
and spelling rules of German because now I am abound in linguistic knowledge
which I can apply to even understand an ancient language! So do not pass on a
chance to lean a foreign language. It’s worth it!
