Surayt
You know more
than you think.
A free 21-day course in Surayt (Turoyo) for heritage speakers. Ten minutes a day, from the alphabet to real conversations.
Words you have already heard.
ܫܠܳܡܐ
šlomo
hello, peace
ܬܰܘܕܝ
tawdi
thank you
ܩܰܫܬܐ
qašto
grandmother
ܒܰܝܬܐ
bayto
house
Please read this before downloading. The app's interface and all of its teaching are in Swedish. It was built for the Swedish-speaking Assyrian and Syriac community. If you do not read Swedish, the app will not be usable for you yet. This page exists so that the project can be found and understood in English.
What Surayt is
Surayt is a free iPhone app that teaches Surayt, also called Turoyo, a living Aramaic language from Tur Abdin in south-eastern Turkey. Unesco classifies it as severely endangered. Most of its speakers now live in the diaspora, and Sweden, particularly Södertälje, holds one of the largest communities.
The app is built for heritage learners: people who grew up hearing the language at home, in church or at family gatherings, but were never taught it at school. It assumes recognition rather than fluency, and it starts at the alphabet.
What the course covers
Twenty-one days, in three phases of seven, about ten minutes each.
- Days 1 to 7, Foundation. The alphabet and greetings, family, the home, the body, numbers and time, calendar and seasons, review.
- Days 8 to 14, Building. Food and meals, clothes and colours, weather, school, health and the doctor, sport, review.
- Days 15 to 21, Mastery. Tur Abdin, church and spiritual life, feasts and celebration, diaspora life, travel, engagement and weddings, and a closing lesson on heritage.
Alongside the daily lessons the app includes 180 words, 103 phrases, a searchable reference for all 31 Syriac letterforms, 21 conversation scenarios, and spaced repetition that brings a word back just as you start to forget it.
Script and transliteration
All Surayt is shown in the Syriac script in the Serto style, right to left, with a Latin transliteration underneath so you can read aloud from day one. Spelling, diacritics and transliteration are grounded in textbook.surayt.com, the coursebook produced by the Surayt-Aramaic Online Project at Freie Universität Berlin. That project is independent of this app and has not reviewed or endorsed it.
On naming
The people who speak this language call themselves Assyrians, Syriacs and Arameans, and in Sweden that difference is a live and genuinely held one. The language itself is called Surayt, Turoyo, and in Swedish also assyriska, syrianska or arameiska. This project does not take a side. Everyone is welcome regardless of which word feels right at home.
Cost and data
Surayt is free, with no subscription, no in-app purchase and no advertising. It is run as a community project, not a business. An account is required so that progress can be saved and synced, and you can delete that account and all its data from inside the app at any time. See the privacy policy and account deletion page.