Maaloula has three claims to fame: its setting, its early Christian associations and the resistance of the villagers (until recently) to the final replacement of Aramaic by Arabic as the language of communication. There may be some doubt about the extent to which Aramaic, the language spoken by Christ and the popular lingua franca of the area until the Arab conquest in the 7th century, has remained in active use to the present day. However, even the vestigial survival of West Aramaic (Syriac) as a spoken tongue indicates the tenacity with which the inhabitants of Maalula have clung to their identity.