(24 May 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Nicosia, Cyprus – 28 April 2025
1. Teacher Ilias Zonias by whiteboard in classroom where Sanna, the Cypriot Maronite Arabic language, is taught to young children
2. Close of textbook reading "Sanna" on cover
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kormakitis, Cyprus – 23 April 2025
3. Various of people sitting around table in coffee house reminiscing about how Sanna evolved
4. Old soccer team banners emblazoned with Lebanese cedar, indicating the origins of the Cypriot Maronite community
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Nicosia, Cyprus – 9 May 2025
5. SOUNDBITE (Greek) Antonis P. Skoullos, 64, Maronite community spokesman:
++PART OVERLAID BY SHOTS 3, 4++
"This language, because it was neither written nor taught in schools, saw a decline in speakers. Today, the speakers of this language, now known as Sanna, number around 900, with an average age of about 60. However, significant efforts are currently underway in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, the University of Cyprus, and with substantial support from the European Union, to revive this language."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Nicosia, Cyprus – 28 April 2025
6. Zonias flipping through textbook
7. Various of book
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kormakitis, Cyprus – 23 April 2025
8. SOUNDBITE (Greek) Ilias Zonias, Sanna teacher:
++PART OVERLAID BY SHOTS 7, 9++
"Today, we have an alphabet. We have proceeded with the publication of some books. This effort continues by the research team so that various books can be published in order to preserve and teach this language."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Nicosia, Cyprus – 28 April 2025
9. Zonias in the classroom
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Nicosia, Cyprus – 28 April 2025
10. Wide of courtyard of St. Maronas school in Nicosia
11. Artwork on school wall with schoolbags in foreground
12. Plaque on school wall commemorating visit of Pope Benedict XVI in 2010
13. School entrance
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kormakitis, Cyprus – 23 April 2025
14. SOUNDBITE (Greek) Yiannakis Moussas, Maronite community representative:
++PART OVERLAID BY SHOTS 10, 11, 12, 13, 15++
"Our effort, with support from the government, is for young families to return (to Kormakitis) because young families, with the opening of the school a year ago, which was a milestone for our village, you can understand, will help change things. But so far, we’re not pleased with the flow of young families resettling. It’s something that’s troubling us, and we’re taking a look at it with the government, in what ways we can offer more incentives to keep our kids and young people here in our village."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Nicosia, Cyprus – 28 April 2025
15. Close of statue with the flags of Cyprus, the Vatican, and the European Union waving in background
STORYLINE:
A group of villagers gathered at a coffee house are reminiscing in a language on the edge of extinction, one that partly traces its roots to the language Jesus Christ once spoke.
Among them is 64-year-old Antonis P. Skoullos, one of only 900 people in the world who speak Cypriot Maronite Arabic, or Sanna.
Today, his village of Kormakitis is the last bastion of a language once spoken by tens of thousands of people across dozens of villages in Cyprus.
The tongue, an offshoot of Syrian Arabic that has absorbed some Greek, has been passed from generation to generation in this windswept community.
Until less than two decades ago, there was no written script, or even an alphabet, since parents passed it on to their children in conversation.
And only a handful of people are trained to teach it.
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