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| File:Assyrians.jpg | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| Iraq 800,000 (CIA est) Syria 1,200 (2001 census) | |
| Languages | |
| Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, Chaldean Neo-Aramaic, Turoyo | |
| Religion | |
| Christianity (various Eastern denominations) | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| other Semites, Armenians |
Untitled edit
- See also: Aramaic history and Syriac Christianity.
Assyrian people (also known as Aramaeans, Chaldeans and/or Syriacs) are an ethnic group inhabiting today, parts of Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon (see Beth Nahrain). In the past century, due to countless persecutions including the Assyrian Genocide, about half of its population has emigrated into the Caucasus, North America, and Western Europe (see Assyrian diaspora).
Identity edit
Assyrian people believe to be the inheritors of the ancient Assyro-Babylonian cultures. They have a culture, religion, and language different from that of the modern-day Arabs, Kurds, Persians, and Turks, who now inhabit their indigenous land. The authors of the book "The History and Geography of Human Genes"1, published in 1994, and the abridged version in 1996, took on the monumental task of analyzing the vast number of research articles written about genetic properties of different human populations...Analysis of the Assyrians shows that they have a distinct genetic profile that distinguishes their population from any other population. It is important to understand that this applies to the population as a whole, not to any one individual. Each individual can have a variety of genetic features, but it is when all the data for the individuals are assembled together that the population can become distinctive. The authors state that "The Assyrians are a fairly homogeneous group of people, believed to originate from the land of old Assyria in northern Iraq," and "they are Christians and are possibly bona fide descendants of their namesakes." The main research paper on Assyrians is that of Akbari et al. (3), who state "that the Assyrians are a group of Christians with a long history in the Middle East. From historical and archeological evidence, it is thought that their ancestors formed part of the Mesopotamian civilization." Akbari et al. examined some 500 members of Christian communities in Iran (Armenians and Assyrians from six localities) from whom specimens were obtained and examined for a number of blood group, red cell enzyme and serum protein systems. In the case of Assyrians, the researchers studied 18 different gene sites with a total of 47 different forms of those genes (alleles) in Assyrians in two regions of Iran - Urmia and Tehran. The particular gene frequencies of those 47 genes in the population formed the basis, along with the other two studies (4, 5), for establishing the distinctive genetic character of the Assyrians. A major finding of the study is that Assyrians, especially those in Urmia (their home area in Iran), are genetically homogeneous to a high degree. That is, an individual Assyrian's genetic makeup is relatively close to that of the Assyrian population as a whole. "The results indicate the relatively closed nature of the [Assyrian] community as a whole," and "due to their religious and cultural traditions, there has been little intermixture with other populations." The small size of the population is also a factor. The genetic data are compatible with historical data that religion played a major role in maintaining the Assyrian population's separate identity during the Christian era.
Ethnonyms edit
- Aramaean (ܐܖ̈ܡܝܐ Ārāmāyē)
- Throughout the history of the Syriac Christianity, there have been references to Aramaean heritage in Syriac literature in both Western and Eastern Syriac traditions.[2]. Since Christianization, Oromoyo/Ārāmāyā began to bear the connotation "pagan", whereas Suryoyo/Suryāyā (literally "Syrian") was used to refer only to the Christianized Aramaeans. More recently, in reaction to Syriac Christians calling themselves "Assyrians", there has been an awakening of the self-appellation "Aramaean," especially among Syriacs in the diaspora, but to a growing extent also in Turkey, and among some Maronites in Lebanon and in the Lebanese diaspora. In Germany, for instance, the name Aramäer has come into use quite extensively to refer to Syriacs primarily from the West Syriac tradition.
- Assyrian (ܐܬܘܖ̈ܝܐ Āṯurāyē)
- Assyrian is what is used today by members of the Church of the East, which has been officially called the Assyrian Church of the East since 1886 (formerly the Church of Assyria, Babylon, Persia etc.). The ethnonym Assyrian, is also used by many Chaldean Catholics as well.
- According to Greek and Roman historians such as Herodotus, Strabo, Justinus, and others state: the term Syrian means nothing more than Assyrian. In the 1st century BC Strabo wrote: "When those who have written histories about the Syrian empire say that the Medes were overthrown by the Persians and the Syrians by the Medes, they mean by the Syrian people, none other than those whom built the royal palaces in Babylon and Ninus; and of these Syrians, Ninus was the man who founded Nineveh, in Assyria. (H.L. Jones Translation of "Geography of Strabo", New York 1916, Vol. VIII p.195)
- Christian Assyrian writers have attested to this fact. The term Syrian was later applied by the Greeks to the Assryians of Mesopotamia and to those west of Euphrates, because that region did not have a specific national identity but was once a territory of the Assyrians empire. It did not specifically mean Arameaan, because the inhabitants of the what became Syria during the first century AD were Greeks, Romans, Arameans, Hitites, Assyrians, and people of other nationalities as well. Therefore the term Suryaya and Syrian not only mean Christian and/or Aramean, because it had also been in use since the 6th century BC to mean Assyrian, whom were considered pagan by writers of the Old Testament. In fact, the Arameans are praised in the Old Testament because Abraham the father of the Jewish religion, and later Christianity, was said to have been Aramaean. The Aramaic language was promoted by the Ancient Assyrians as an international language of communication, It was also spoken by many nations whom were not of Aramaean descent. Since the Aramaic speakers took pride in the fact that Christ spoke their language, is an indication that Aramaean and Aramaic was not always as considered pagan by the early Christians. Many Christian inhabitants of Mesopotamia considered themselves Assyrians prior to and after the foundation of Christianity as they had always done before. For referrences to the Assyrians before and afer Christianity see Facts about Assyrians
- Assyro-Chaldean or Chaldo-Assyrian (ܟܠܕܘܐܫܘܖ̈ܝܐ Kaldu-Āšurāyē)
- The term Assyro-Chaldean, coined by the late Assyrian general Agha Petros was used after The Great War to unite members of the Chaldean Church with their brethern of the Assyrian Church when both groups were weak because they had been subjected to massacres by the Ottomans during the war. As the present-day Iraqi Christians belong mostly to the Chaldean Church of Babylon, the term Chaldo-Assyrians is also used there, whereas in Iran where the Church of the East members are more numerous than their Catholic cousins, the term Assyrians is generally favoured. After Saddam’s downfall the Assyrian Democratic Party of Iraq has used the ChaldoAssyrians name to bring the two communities together.
- Because Assyrians have not had a sovereign state after the fall of their empire to unite and give them international recognition they have been primarily recognized by the names of their religious denominations. Members of the Syrian Orthodox Church have considered themselves as Assyrians according to the Syriac and other sources. The Syrian Orthodox Patriarch Michael the Great (1126-99) wrote: In the first half of the 9th century "the Greeks were offending the Jacobites by saying: 'Your Syrian sect has no importance neither honor, and you did never have a kingdom, neither an honorable king'. the Jacobites answered them by Saying that even if their name is "Syrian", but they are originally "Assyrians" and they have had many honorable kings... from Assyria, Babylon and Urhay." History of Mikhael The Great" Chabot Edition (French) P: 750) as quoted by Addai Scher, Hestorie De La Chaldee Et De "Assyrie" However the Syrian Orthodox Church patriarch Aphrem Barsoum who in 1920 represented his people as Assyrians in the 'League of Nations’ peace conference', for religious and political reasons, in 1952, ordered his people to be known as Arameans. While a segment of his followers abided by such decree the rest continued to identify themselves as Assyrians. See; Aphrem barsoum
- Chaldean (ܟܠܕ̈ܝܐ Kaldāyē)
- Catholic missionaries succeeded during the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries in converting Assyrians to Catholicism (from the Church of the East). In 1445, the then-Nestorian Church in Cyprus requested to unite with Rome. Pope Eugene IV accepted and Rome extended the term of the Chaldean Church of Cyprus to cover all those new Catholic converts in northern Mesopotamia proper.
- Up until the 20th century, all Chaldeans referred to themselves as Assyrian. Today, the Archbishop of the Chaldeans goes by the official name of "The Patriarch of Babylon over the Chaldeans" and the name of the church is Chaldean Church of Babylon. The Chaldean name is what is primarily used by diaspora Catholic Assyrians (specifically the 50,000-strong community in the Detroit area) The original Aramaic for Chaldeans is Kasdāyē (ܟܣܕܝ̈ܐ), but this was replaced at an early period with the Aramaic derivative of the Akkadian term Kaldu.
- The Chaldean church came into existence because of a conflict in the Church of the East centered in the Plain of Nineveh [Assyria] over whether the Patriarch should be elected by the Bishops as it was the case before the 15th century or to be hereditary in the Abouna family a practice introduced by Patriarch Shimoun IV (1437-1497) in 1450, because many of the Church Bishoprics in Mesopotamia had ceased to exist after Tamurlane's massacres . The faction in favor of election chose Yohanan (John) Sulagga, the superior of the Rabban Hormoz convent, twenty miles north of Nineveh, as their leader and with the help of the Latin Missionaries he was sent to the Vatican to be consecrated as the Patriarch of a new religious denomination in Union with Rome. Eleven centuries after the separation of the Church of the East from the Roman Catholic Church a faction of it had returned to rejoin it.
- Sulagga was proclaimed patriarch of "Mosul and Athur", (Assyria) on Feb. 20, 1553, by Pope Julius III. Roman documents also refer to Sulagga as the elected patriarch of "the Assyrian Nation". (The Chronicle of the Carmelites states that Sulagga was proclaimed "Patriarch of the Eastern Assyrians" but on April 19, 1553 he was redefined as the "Patriarch of the Chaldeans". Perhaps the change of mind was intended to distinguish between the clergies and members of the new church compared to those who still belonged to the old church. The name Chaldean was of course in reference to the Prophet Abraham whom the Old Testament claimed to have been a native of the Ur of Chaldee in southern Mesopotamia.
- During most of the 16th century Vatican documents referred to the Patriarchs of the Chaldean Church and the Church of the East as Assyrians but this policy was changed by the end of the 16th century when it began a new campaign to ferment hatred of the church of the East accusing it of being Nestorian, Schismatic, and cursed. promoting the Chaldean Chaldean Church. It was not until mid 18th century that the Latin Missionaries were able to convert substantial number of Assyrians in the Plain of Nineveh to Catholicism who were redefined as Chaldean. John Hormoizd from the Abuna family succession, the last Patriarch of the Church of East in the Plain of Nineveh, formally declared his Church Catholic in 1830 and was installed as the Patriarch of the Chaldean Church by the Vatican. See; (New Catholic Encyclopedia, Second Edition, Vol. 3, Thomson/Gale 2003 p. 368)
- Syriac (ܣܘܪ̈ܝܝܐ Suryoye/Suryāyē)
- Syriac was primarily used for the name of the language spoken by the Christians of Mesopotamia. During the US census of 2000 it was chosen by the Clergies of the 'Syrian Orthodox Church' as the identity of their people so that they will not be counted as the citizens of Syria if they identified themselves as 'Syrian' which some did in reference to the name of their denomination. Since then the term is used by a faction of that church members. There is also the Syriac Orthodox Church. The term is not that often used in Lebanon, but is used by some diaspora Maronites, who do not wish to be called Arabs (see example.)
Languages edit
| Assyrian people |
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| Culture |
| Music |
| Language |
| Cuisine |
| Folk Dance |
| Religion |
| Clothing |
| Settlements |
| Tribes |
There are various Neo-Aramaic languages, including Assyrian Neo-Aramaic (Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey) and Chaldean Neo-Aramaic (Iraq), which belong to the Eastern Aramaic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family. These dialects are the contemporary remnants of the classical Aramaic language, a Semitic language related to Hebrew and the Arabic; which have vocabularies that include many words borrowed from Syriac, an extinct Semitic language from the same Aramaic group used in the liturgies of the Assyrian, Chaldean, Syriac, and Maronite churches. The language which contemporary Assyrians speak also includes slightly modified Akkadian (ancient Assyrian) words. see: Akkadian words Many Assyrian schools in northern Iraq presently teach the Assyrian Neo-Aramaic language to the primary and the scoundary students. Nowadays, most Assyrians are at least bilingual, many speak also Arabic, Turkish, Persian and/or Kurdish, or the language(s) used in the countries where they live.
Beside local Neo-Aramaic vernacular forms, there is a literary language, based primarily on the dialect used in the Urmia district of northwestern Iran. It uses the Syriac alphabet in its Eastern variety, revived by Europeean missionaries in the first half of the 19th century. It is in this alphabet and language, Eastern Neo-Aramaic, that the first newspaper in all of Iran was printed (1849–1918). When American missionaries first arrived in Urmia, among 125,000 Aramaic-speaking inhabitants, only 40 men and one woman (sister of the Patriarch) could read and write. By the 1890s, the Assyrians had made such progress in education that most of the dozens of villages in the Urmia area had primary schools, and some had secondary schools as well. Although attempts to create a literary form for Eastern Aramaic probably date back to the 17th century (with the priests of the school of Alqosh), the Americans and their local advisors in Urmia can fairly be credited for laying the foundations of what is now called Neo-Aramaic Koine or Dachsprache.
Neo-Assyrian revival edit
With the dire prospect of survival for Aramaic-speaking, Christian communities in the Middle East being recognized, there is a slow process to bring together the various church groups. A political awakening is taking place, both in the large diaspora and in the Middle East. Enhanced communication, especially through the Internet and by e-mail is breaking down the barriers that 20th century nationalism in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey in particular, had fostered. While there still are many quarrels, the multilingualism of Assyrians and the rise in communications in English, is breaking down some of the antagonisms. To some extent, the quarrels are fed inadvertently by Western scholarship combined with a lack of cultural and historical knowledge among Assyrians themselves. Many continue to link language use with ethnic name: since all Assyrians speak one of two living forms of Aramaic (Eastern and Western), the assumption is often made that this must also become the ethnic name of the group. Others who want to revive classical Syriac, the revered liturgical language of the community, insist on some term having to do with the word "Syriac" and call themselves Syriacs. Because the indigenous word in both dialects for the people themselves and for the language is "Suryoyo" or "Suryaye", some take the facile route of equating these terms with Syriac or Syrian without realizing that the terms Assyrian and Syrian are believed to be the same in origin, it has been attested to by writers of various nationalities during centuries before and after Christianity.
Similar disagreements over language and unity exist among many minorities in the Middle East that have had no state structure. Assyrians have managed to preserve Aramaic for more than two thousand years without any state backing. The cultural heritage and the language may help to preserve the community.
Assyrian music edit
- main article: Assyrian music
Assyrian music is divided into three main periods: the ancient period that is of (Ur, Babylon and Nineveh), the middle period (or tribal and folkloric period) and the modern period.
Religious denominations edit
- Antiochian Orthodox Church
- Assyrian Church of the East
- Assyrian Church of the East's Holy Synod
- Chaldean Church of Babylon
- Syriac Catholic Church
- Syriac Orthodox Church
- Assyrian Evangelical Church
- Assyrian Pentecostal Church
People who consider themselves as Assyrians are usually followers of one of the aforementioned churches, but not all members of them consider themselves as Assyrians, ethnic and national identities being intertwined with religious ones, a heritage of the millet system.
There are no (known) Assyrian Muslims, but Arabic-speaking Muslims locally named Mhalmoye in Tur Abdin seem to be converts to Islam from the Syriac Orthodox Church in the 16th century (compare with Hamshenis, Greek-speaking Muslims, Pomaks, Torbesh, Gorani, etc.). They would have kept many customs from the period in which they were Christian, without being aware of their origins: the Cross frequently finds itself in their work, but is thought of as a decoration based on a flower.[3] [4] A Swedish Assyrian website names four other ethnic groups whom it considers as "Assyrian Muslims": Barzanoye (the Barzani Kurdish clan), Tagritoye, Taye (the Tay tribal confederation), and Shammor (the Shammar tribal confederation).[5] [6]
See also edit
- Assyria
- Assyrian flag
- Assyrian Independence
- List of Assyrian tribes
- Assyriska
- KBSV (Assyrian TV station)
- Assyriology
- List of Assyrians
- Mesopotamian religion (ancient)
- Akkadian language (ancient)
- Akitu (ancient Assyrian New Year)
References edit
- ^ Out of 12,000 declaring themselves as "Iraqis", 9,000 were Christian + 19,000 declaring Assyrian
- ^ [1]
- ^ Voice of Tur Abdin No. 16, quoted in Stephen Griffith, A Fourth Visit to Tur Abdin and SE Turkey - A Short Report of a Visit between 24th and 28th October 1999, Syriac Orthodox Resources
- ^ Stephen Griffith, Tur Abdin - A Report of a Visit to S.E. Turkey in May 2001, Syriac Orthodox Resources
- ^ http://ornina.org/assa/verk97/verk97.htm Assyriska sällskapet förstudenter och akademiker (ASSA), VERKSAMHETSBERÄTTELSE 1997
- ^ Denho Özmen, Shaikh fathullah. The Assyrian "modern" identity, Hujådå, autumn 1997
External links edit
Publication links edit
- Assyrians: The Continuous Saga by Frederick A. Aprim
- Dr. Eden Naby's publications
- Rosie Malek-Yonan's The Crimson Field
- The forgotten Christians of Mesopotamia
News and reference sites edit
Assyrian music edit
Activist sites edit
- Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization: Assyria
- Syriac House (Assyrian)
- Assyrian Aid Society
- Assyrian Voice
- Christians of Iraq
- Assyrian Chat
- Assyrian Democratic Organization
- Assyrian Democratic Movement
- Assyria Liberation Party
- Shuraya Party
| West Syriac, legacy of the Church of Antioch |
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| East Syriac, legacy of the Church of the East (the "Nestorian Church") (410–1552) |
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| Saint Thomas Christians, legacy of the Malankara Church (active 1st century–1601) in Kerala, India |
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