In the 7th century AD, Islam emerged in the Syriac region. The Christian Syriacs were subjugated and became subordinate to the Arabs/Muslims as third-class citizens. They were forced to pay double taxes to the state, while Muslims were exempt. They faced discrimination economically, socially, ethnically, linguistically, and culturally. Many were compelled to convert to the new religion in order to live as free citizens.
Over time, religious oppression and persecution of the Syriacs increased, leading to a sharp rise in conversions to Islam. Islam elevated Arabic to the status of a “holy language,” making it necessary for citizens to learn Arabic. Many Syriacs who learned Arabic eventually forgot their native Syriac-Aramaic language. To better integrate into the Muslim-dominated society, Syriacs abandoned their own language. Today, a large portion of Arameans are Arabic-speaking, while only a minority still speaks their Aramaic mother tongue.
Until the end of the 14th century, the Arameans were the majority in the Middle East. However, towards the end of this century, the region was conquered by the Mongol warlord Timur Lenk. Large parts of the Syriac population were exterminated, and the survivors became a minority. Timur Lenk destroyed many churches and monasteries. Large ruins of these destroyed churches still remain scattered across Tur Abdin (southeastern Turkey), especially in the village of Hah.
Over the past 700 years, the Syriacs have continuously fallen victim to various religious massacres, mostly carried out by fundamentalist Muslims. The last major massacre occurred in 1915, during which approximately 200,000 Christian Arameans were brutally killed in southeastern Turkey.
The Aramaic Language
Aramaic is one of the world’s oldest languages still in use. It has been spoken and written continuously for at least 3,000 years. The oldest known Aramaic inscriptions date back to the 9th century BC. During the first millennium BC, various Aramaic dialects were spoken in the region known as the “Fertile Crescent,” or “Aramea.”
Aramaic was originally the mother tongue of the Aramean people before it became an international language in the late 8th century BC, especially in the Middle East. For example, in the Old Testament, we read that during negotiations between the Assyrian chief of staff and the Jews, the Jewish leaders asked him to speak in Aramaic—not Akkadian (the Assyrian language) or Hebrew (the Jewish language), but Aramaic, as it was the established international language in the Middle East. We read: ܡܠܠ ܥܡ ܥܒܕܝ̈ܟ ܐܪܡܐܝܬ — “Speak to your servants in Aramaic, my lord, for we understand it” (2 Kings 18:26). Thus, Aramaic was an international language used in diplomacy and trade, and in its Syriac form, it continued to serve as a cultural medium in the Middle East until the 7th century AD.
When the Persian Achaemenids, led by Cyrus, conquered Babylon in 539 BC and ended the Aramaic-Babylonian empire, they established a large empire stretching from the Indus Valley in India to the Nile in Egypt. The Persians continued using Aramaic as their administrative written language. Since Aramaic was already the official language of the Babylonian empire, the Persians adopted it as the language of administration and correspondence throughout their empire. Aramaic was the national language in “Aramea” (the Aramaic region) and the dominant spoken language in the Middle East.
When Alexander the Great conquered the region in the 4th century BC, he replaced Aramaic with Greek as the official language. However, the Persian Parthians, who established a vast empire around the time of Christ, reinstated Aramaic as the administrative language of their empire. At the beginning of the Common Era, Aramaic in its various forms was the dominant spoken language in Syria, Iraq, and neighboring regions.
Aramaic developed several literary dialects. The most well-known include:
- Palestinian-Jewish Aramaic
- Samaritan Aramaic
- Syro-Palestinian Christian Aramaic
All spoken along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. Other dialects include Babylonian-Talmudic Aramaic, Mandaean Aramaic, and Syriac in Iraq, Syria, and Mesopotamia.
The Syriac language was originally the Aramaic dialect spoken in the Aramean state of Edessa. Due to political, social, cultural, and ecclesiastical factors, the Aramaic of Edessa spread and supplanted other dialects and branches. To distinguish this language from other modern Aramaic dialects, we call it “Classical Syriac” (kthobonoyo = the written language). Thousands of books from various periods are written in Syriac.
Since the Arab-Muslim conquest of the Middle East, the Syriac language has been pushed aside. Today, it is used as a language of instruction and writing, but no one speaks it at home anymore. Instead, people speak modern Aramaic in various forms (Tur Abdin Aramaic, Sureth, Maalulic, and Mandaic).
The Syriac language is both rich and poor. It is rich in the sense that it contains terms for all concepts and sciences known in antiquity and the Middle Ages, and it is a morphologically rich language with great potential for development. But it is poor in the sense that it lacks words and terms for modern technological inventions.
For the first time in modern history, Syriac is being taught freely and officially, but only in Sweden and only as a mother tongue subject. However, the Aramaic language is classified as an “endangered language” and is at risk of extinction. Significant efforts are needed to save it.
The Syriacs Today
Today, there are a couple of million Arameans in the world. Fewer than half live in the Middle East. Most are in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq, with smaller numbers in Turkey, Iran, Jordan, Israel-Palestine, and even Russia. The majority are Christians, though there are followers of other religions as well, such as the Mandaeans. The Christians are divided into various church affiliations. The situation of the Syriacs varies from country to country.
In the 1930s, the East Syriacs (known as Nestorians and later as Assyrians) fought against the Iraqi government in an attempt to establish an independent state. As a result, they became easy targets for brutal massacres. Today, they are recognized as an ethnic group only by the Iraqi state, which in the 1970s granted its Syriac citizens certain cultural rights.
In southeastern Turkey, Syriacs were more heavily oppressed than in other countries. There, they have long been caught in the conflict between Kurdish rebels and Turkish soldiers, and they were terrorized by both sides. In recent decades, dozens of high-ranking Syriac figures have been murdered in Tur Abdin, likely by nationalists and fundamentalists. Several Syriac leaders have also been assassinated in northern Iraq.
Since the 1960s, many Syriacs have emigrated to the Americas and Europe. They flee oppression, persecution, Arabization, and the denial of their right to learn their language and cultural history. They are forced to give up their identity and must claim to be Arabs or Turks in order to survive in the region.
Today, about 350,000 Syriacs live in Europe. Most have adapted and successfully established themselves in European societies. They view their new Western countries as their new homelands. In Sweden, for example, there are around 150,000 Syriacs, most of whom have integrated successfully.
By Dr Assad Sauma, Syrologist