Aramaic people and language
Aramaic people (Assyrian people)
Assyrians trace their ancestry back to the Sumero-Akkadian civilisation that emerged in Mesopotamia circa 4000–3500 BC, and in particular to the northern region of the Akkadian lands, which would become known as Assyria by the 24th century BC. The Assyrian nation existed as an independent state, and often a powerful empire, from the 24th century BC until the end of the 7th century BC. Assyria remained a Geo-political entity after its fall, and was ruled as an occupied province under the rule of various empires from the late 7th century BC until the mid-7th century AD when it was dissolved, and the Assyrian people have gradually become a minority in their homelands since that time.
Today that ancient territory is part of several nations; the north of Iraq, part of southeast Turkey and northeast Syria. They are indigenous to, and have traditionally lived all over what is now Iraq, northeast Syria, northwest Iran, and southeastern Turkey.[26] They are a Christian people, with most following various Eastern Rite Churches, although many are non-religious.
Although culturally similar, Assyrians are distinct linguistically, genetically and for the most part geographically from the Syriac Christians of Syria (except the northeast) and Lebanon.
Many have migrated to the Caucasus, North America, Australia and Europe during the past century or so. Diaspora and refugee communities are based in Europe (particularly Sweden, Germany, Netherlands, and France), North America, New Zealand, Lebanon, Armenia, Georgia,[27] southern Russia, Israel, Azerbaijan and Jordan.
Emigration was triggered by such events as the Assyrian Genocide by the Turkish Ottoman Empire during First World War, the Simele massacre in Iraq (1933), the Islamic revolution in Iran (1979), Arab Nationalist Baathist policies in Iraq and Syria, the Al-Anfal Campaign of Saddam Hussein,[28] and to some degree Kurdish nationalist policies in northern Iraq.
The major sub-ethnic division is religious, between the Eastern group ("Assyrian Church of the East", "Ancient Church of the East" and "Chaldean Catholic") indigenous to northern Iraq, northwest Iran, northeast Syria and southeast Turkey, and a Western one ("Syrian Orthodox", and Syrian Catholic") found mainly in south central Turkey and Syria, this latter group, being culturally and ethnically the same as the other Assyrian groups, often prefer the designation Aramean.
Most recently, the Iraq War has displaced the regional Assyrian community, as its people have faced ethnic and religious persecution at the hands of Islamic extremists and Arab and Kurdish nationalists. Of the one million or more Iraqis reported by the United Nations to have fled Iraq since the American occupation, nearly forty percent (40%) are Assyrian, although Assyrians comprised around 3% of the pre-war Iraqi population.[29][30][31]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic_people
Arameans
The Arameans, or Aramaeans, (Aramaic: ܐܪ̈ܡܝܐ, ארמיא ; ʼaramáyé) were a Northwest Semitic semi-nomadic and pastoralist people who originated in what is now modern Syria (Biblical Aram) during the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Large groups migrated to Mesopotamia where they intermingled with the native Akkadian (Assyrian and Babylonian) population. A large proportion of Syriac Christians in modern Syria still espouse an Aramean identity to this day, though few now speak the Western Aramaic language.
The Arameans never had a unified nation; they were divided into small independent kingdoms across parts of the Near East, particularly in what is now modern Syria. After the Bronze Age collapse, their political influence was confined to a number of Syro-Hittite states, which were entirely absorbed into the Neo-Assyrian Empire by the 8th century BC.
By contrast, the Aramaic language came to be the lingua franca of the entire Fertile Crescent, by Late Antiquity developing into the literary languages such as Syriac and Mandaic. Scholars have used the term "Aramaization" for the process by which the Akkadian/Assyro-Babylonian peoples became Aramaic-speaking during the later Iron Age.[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arameans
Aramaic language
Aramaic is a family of languages (traditionally referred to as "dialects") belonging to the Semitic family, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily, which also includes Canaanite languages such as Hebrew and Phoenician. Aramaic script was widely adopted for other languages and is ancestral to both the Arabic and modern Hebrew alphabets.
During its 3,000-year written history,[3] Aramaic has served variously as a language of administration of empires and as a language of divine worship. It was the day-to-day language of Israel in the Second Temple period (539 BC – 70 AD), the language that Jesus Christ probably used the most,[4][5] the language of large sections of the biblical books of Daniel and Ezra, and is the main language of the Talmud.[6] However, Jewish Aramaic was different from the other forms both in lettering and grammar. Parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls are in Jewish Aramaic showing the unique Jewish lettering, related to the unique Hebrew script.
Aramaic's long history and diverse and widespread use has led to the development of many divergent varieties which are sometimes called dialects, though they are distinct enough that they are sometimes considered languages. Therefore, there is not one singular, static Aramaic language; each time and place rather has had its own variation. Aramaic is retained as a liturgical language by certain Eastern Christian churches, in the form of Syriac, the Aramaic variety by which Eastern Christianity was diffused, whether or not those communities once spoke it or another form of Aramaic as their vernacular, but have since shifted to another language as their primary community language.
Modern Aramaic is spoken today as a first language by many scattered, predominantly small, and largely isolated communities of differing Christian, Jewish, and Mandean ethnic groups of West Asia[7]—most numerously by the Assyrians in the form of Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and Chaldean Neo-Aramaic —that have all retained use of the once dominant lingua franca despite subsequent language shifts experienced throughout the Middle East. The Aramaic languages are considered to be endangered.[8]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic_language
Aramaic Proverb
Advice
¶ If you steal from a thief, you also have a taste of it.
Notes
Aramaic people (Assyrian people)
[25]^ so identified in the United States Census
[26]^ *MacDonald, Kevin (2004-07-29). Socialization for Ingroup Identity among Assyrians in the United States. Paper presented at a symposium on socialization for ingroup identity at the meetings of the International Society for Human Ethology, Ghent, Belgium. "Based on interviews with community informants, this paper explores socialization for ingroup identity and endogamy among Assyrians in the United States. The Assyrians descent from the population of ancient Assyria (founded in the 24th century BC), and have lived as a linguistic, political, religious, and ethnic minority in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey since the fall of the Assyrian Empire in 608 BC. Practices that maintain ethnic and cultural continuity in the Near East, the United States and elsewhere include language and residential patterns, ethnically based Christian churches characterized by unique holidays and rites, and culturally specific practices related to life-cycle events and food preparation. The interviews probe parental attitudes and practices related to ethnic identity and encouragement of endogamy. Results are being analyzed."
[27]^ Assyrians in Georgia, Joshua Project
[28]^ Dr. Eden Naby. "Documenting The Crisis In The Assyrian Iranian Community".
[29]^ "Assyrian Christians 'Most Vulnerable Population' in Iraq". The Christian Post. Archived from the original on 6 December 2006. Retrieved 2006-12-05.
[30]^ "Iraq's Christian community, fights for its survival". Christian World News.
[31]^ "U.S. Gov't Watchdog Urges Protection for Iraq's Assyrian Christians". The Christian Post. Retrieved 2007-12-31.
Arameans
[1]^ See page 9.
Aramaic language
[1]^ The Aramaic Text in Demotic Script: The Liturgy of a New Year's Festival Imported from Bethel to Syene by Exiles from Rash – On JSTOR
[2]^ Manichaean Aramaic in the Chinese Hymnscroll
[3]^ Aramaic appears somewhere between 11th and 9th centuries BC. Beyer (1986: 11) suggests that written Aramaic probably dates from the 11th century BC, as it is established by the 10th century, to which he dates the oldest inscriptions of northern Syria. Heinrichs (1990: x) uses the less controversial date of 9th century, for which there is clear and widespread attestation.
[4]^ Allen C. Myers, ed. (1987). "Aramaic". The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans. p. 72. ISBN 0-8028-2402-1. "It is generally agreed that Aramaic was the common language of Israel in the first century AD. Jesus and his disciples spoke the Galilean dialect, which was distinguished from that of Jerusalem (Matt. 26:73)."
[5]^ http://markdroberts.com/htmfiles/resources/jesuslanguage.htm
[6]^ Beyer 1986: 38–43; Casey 1998: 83–6, 88, 89–93; Eerdmans 1975: 72.
[7]^ Heinrichs 1990: xi–xv; Beyer 1986: 53.
[8]^ Naby, Eden. From Lingua Franca to Endangered Language. Assyrian International News Agency.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic_people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arameans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic_language
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aramaic_proverbs