Aramaic still spoken in Syria

According to this article in the Edmonton Journal, a Canadian newspaper, there is a village of 5,000 inhabitants in Syria, called Ma'aloula, where Aramaic is spoken. Ignoring the somewhat sentimental title and initial tone of the article, there are some interesting snippets of information buried therein.

For example, there are just 18,000 Aramaic speakers remaining in the world, whereas once it was the main language of the Persian Empire, which occupied most of what we now term the Middle East. The article also touches on the evolution and history of Aramaic, so that in its current state it would probably be incomprehensible to that spoken 2,000 years ago, although this is by no means universally agreed.

Written Aramaic died out in the 3rd Century AD, when the Romans kidnapped Queen Zenobia, and the spoken language gradually faded thereafter, although its legacy remains in modern Hebrew and Arabic. In an attempt to preserve the language, Syrian President Al-Assad established an Aramaic language school.