How the Western Assyrians(Suryoyo) and Eastern Assyrians(Suraya) split into two

[Danny12344]

well, i know for sure many people are wondering this question. well actually, the way we split up is because, about maybe 1500 years ago, im not exact on the time, but back then, we were all one(as we are right now)but under 1 name. then mesepotamia was split into 2 because 2 empires took control, the west side was roman terratory, east side was Persian territory, so we believed in Christ at the time, and we had a patriach, but the patraich couldnt just cross the border of persia and roman side. so each side got a patraich, so now there are 2 patriachs. well everyone knows, not everyone does stuff the same. they did stuff differently, and after time went by, we have been split up for a long time, we had our differences, like our language. the way we got 2 different names, is the way you say, 'Aramaic' in persian was Ashuree, the way you say it in Roman or what they spoke was Suryanee. then we took those labels. and when we got back together, we saw our differences. we are all the same people. now this is what i heard from a Assyrologist, an assyrian one. so please ask questions. and if u think i am wrong, tell me what u think or know please. but i believe and almost sure this is the way we split. Thanks. Questions?

 

[davidb]

well, i know for sure many people are wondering this question. well actually, the way we split up is because, about maybe 1500 years ago, im not exact on the time, but back then, we were all one(as we are right now)but under 1 name. then mesepotamia was split into 2 because 2 empires took control, the west side was roman terratory, east side was Persian territory, so we believed in Christ at the time, and we had a patriach, but the patraich couldnt just cross the border of persia and roman side. so each side got a patraich, so now there are 2 patriachs. well everyone knows, not everyone does stuff the same. they did stuff differently, and after time went by, we have been split up for a long time, we had our differences, like our language. the way we got 2 different names, is the way you say, 'Aramaic' in persian was Ashuree, the way you say it in Roman or what they spoke was Suryanee. then we took those labels. and when we got back together, we saw our differences. we are all the same people. now this is what i heard from a Assyrologist, an assyrian one. so please ask questions. and if u think i am wrong, tell me what u think or know please. but i believe and almost sure this is the way we split. Thanks. Questions?

We don't have two different names?

We say Suraye as much as westerns say Suryoye.

 

[Zawoyo]

We don't have two different names?

We say Suraye as much as westerns say Suryoye.

Suroyo, Asuroyo, Suryoyo means the same. All this Words mean assyrian.
Prof. Robert Rollinger?s new discovery attest it.

here is a text about Prof. Robert Rollinger?s new discovery:
http://huyodo.com/index.php?area=1&p=news&newsid=105&high=rollinger

here you can translate it from german to english:
http://www.online-translator.com/text.asp#tr_form

 

[Danny12344]

not really same names, if we did, how come in arabic aturaya=ashuri and suryoyo=seryani, or english aturaya=assyrian suryoyo=syriac, im not saying we are 2, we are the same people, but we do have different names.

 

[davidb]

Thats the difference in Arabic & English, in our language we don't have two different names..

We're identified by our Churches, yes, that doesn't mean we have different names.

 

[Tambur]

not really same names, if we did, how come in arabic aturaya=ashuri and suryoyo=seryani, or english aturaya=assyrian suryoyo=syriac, im not saying we are 2, we are the same people, but we do have different names.

Danny, this topic goes back to the origins of the name Syria, if you believe that the origins of Syria is Assyria then they are the same name, perhaps you are correct that today people look at these two names as different entities, but in origin, chances are they're most likely from the same root, which is Assyria.

 

[Danny12344]

tumbur correct, i know that our roots are assyria, and david, i see what you are saying. and i am happy you look at it that way, but not everyone does

 

[davidb]

Danny just to tell you, Eastern Assyrians call themselves 'Suraye' much more then 'Aturaye'.

 

[Nina]

You are correct regarding the bit about splitting Mesopotamia (Beth Nahrain) between two Empires the Persian and Roman, and this caused our Assyrian people to be divided between two empires, but let's take the difference between the names and Church history separately since the rift between the two caused our Assyrian people to be where they are today.

Our name wasn't changed by history but rather by the ignorance of people.The name is Ashurayeh but when the Hellenists (Greeks) invaded and conquered Ashurland (Assyria), they were not able to spell the name Ashur simply because the Greeks until today don't have in their alphabetical letters the letter Sheen and today in order to spell the letter sheen they have to put two letters together just like in english or frence sh or ch in order to spell the letter sheen.However, then they didn't use this method and instead they spelled the name Ashur as Assur and Ashurayeh as Assuris.When the bedouin Arabs invaded Assyria they went by the Greek spelling Assyrian and in arabic it became what we know today.When we say today Suryaya or Suryoyo the word is missing an Allap (Olaph) because it should be Assuryayeh which Eastern Assyrians call allp tliqta (the lost allap) it is written but not spelled (we add a little slanted dash to it on top of the letter if I'm not mistaken and for a certain time not too long ago even Western Assyrians used to write it that way until the time when Jacob Baradaeus decided to drop out the grammatical zaw'eh (movements) which still the Eastern Assyrians use till today and he replace them with the Greek ones.Today, Western Assyrians erroneously think that the zaw'eh used by them are Assyrian while in fact they are Greek with Western Assyrian spelling.

Another evidence,all books before Jacob Baradaeus are written in the Estrangela letters which a closer version of them is still used by Eastern Assyrians in addition to the Estrangela letters because when written they look very nice as calligraphy, while Baradaeus even tried to change the letters by transforming them into what the Western Assyrians use today but the only thing he couldn't touch or change was writing the words and here is an example if you look at the word Alaha (Aloho) you will see that its spelling has at the end an allap (olaph) but in western Assyrian it is spelled with an O but the olaph is written there.

In Estrangela, where all the old books were written you will not see that and you will notice that you can read the same text in both Eastern and Western Assyrian without any problems.Hence, our name was never changed it was just some people who wanted to break the tie between the Assyrians.

To further give you an example when schisms took place and the Church split,what is known today as the Syrian Orthodox Church was then known as Jacobite and they became under the Byzantine influence this you can see till today in the Church liturgy using Greek Words such as Kiryalayson (God have mercy which in Assyrian in Maran etrakhem a'lain), the other Greek influence is that if you look at the history of the Syrian Orthodox Church Patriarchs you will not see Greek names for the bishops and patriarchs except later on and today they still use Greek names covering their Christian or Assyrian names and as an example on that Patriarch Mar Zakai Iwas uses the name Aghnatius (Ignatius) which is a Greek name when his real name is Sanhareeb or the name would be George for example before being a bishop and would be changed to a greek name after that, a fact which happened to Mar Theofilus George Saliba who wanted to go by the name Giwargius as his bishop name but he wasn't allowed to do that and he was called Theofilus which is a Greek name meaning God's Love or friendship. The same goes for the rest of the bishops.This is a foreign influence which the Syrian Orthodox Church couldn't and didn't get rid of.

Regarding the Church history, if you look at the Liturgical Calendar, you will see that Eastern and Western Assyrians share many of the same saints and religious festivals because they are one Church and one people,specially the fast of the Rogation of the Ninevites (Baaoutha d'Ninwayeh) and Nusardil (known in the Syrian Church as al-Rashash) when we flush each other with water and this is another evidence that we are all Assyrians.

I will not go into the word Aramaic because I don't believe that we speak Aramaic but we all speak Assyrian with the alphabet we are using today since it was easier than cuneiform and was brought by the nomadic bedouin people who were called Aramaeans but there is no evidence that they were the ones who invented this alphabet today called Aramaic.For that matter even when we say that Jesus spoke our language we have erroneously agreed to call it Aramaic while we should call it Assyrian because even the Jews used our language to talk and their letters till today are called Kitav Ashuri (Assyrian writing) so why would we want to ignore our own language and use a foreign name for it. The Jews used to call any one who wasn't a Jew as Aramaean and here our of ignorance all history was changed and we followed without even thinking the simplest thought. The Assyrians had their own language before even the bedouin nomadic people called Aramaeans appeared in history and when the Assyrian Kings took the alphabet to use it, they didn't replace the Assyrian language but they simply used easier letters in order not to use cuneiform which was more difficult and lengthier to use.

A little note about the Chaldean Catholic Church,its followers are also Assyrians who in 1551 officially joined the Roman Catholic Church and they were called Chaldean by Pope Eugene IV only to separate them from their Assyrian roots and again the history of the Chaldean Catholic Church doesn't show any Patriarchs different than the Church of The East except after the split.


Today and this is very un fortunate that even some of our intellectuals who are supposed to support the truth are not doing so in the interest of false ideas which are promoting that we are three people rather than three Churches and more with one ethnic national name which is Assyrian. Those who are doing that are not only deceiving themselves but they are trying to destort history without any consideration to the consequences under pretences which are false.

Lastly, I would say that a person who has principles should never bargain or sell those principles otherwise what would be the difference between the truth and a lie ????

 

[Tambur]

I will not go into the word Aramaic because I don't believe that we speak Aramaic but we all speak Assyrian with the alphabet we are using today since it was easier than cuneiform and was brought by the nomadic bedouin people who were called Aramaeans but there is no evidence that they were the ones who invented this alphabet today called Aramaic.For that matter even when we say that Jesus spoke our language we have erroneously agreed to call it Aramaic while we should call it Assyrian because even the Jews used our language to talk and their letters till today are called Kitav Ashuri (Assyrian writing) so why would we want to ignore our own language and use a foreign name for it. The Jews used to call any one who wasn't a Jew as Aramaean and here our of ignorance all history was changed and we followed without even thinking the simplest thought. The Assyrians had their own language before even the bedouin nomadic people called Aramaeans appeared in history and when the Assyrian Kings took the alphabet to use it, they didn't replace the Assyrian language but they simply used easier letters in order not to use cuneiform which was more difficult and lengthier to use.

You can call the language you speak whatever you want, but the fact is the language is Aramaic, love it or not but this is the way it is, I've spent enough time learning our language and comparing it to other Semitic languages, in the end of the day when we look back our language remains what it is, Aramaic.

You look at our classical Syriac tongue and you compare it to other Aramaic dialects such as the Mandic or the Jewish Talmudic dialect, heck even with the Malulan dialect which is Western Aramaic, regardless, the difference is not as great as you see today, our modern dialects have evolved from Syriac Aramaic along with their local dialects that they spoke in their region, so if your modern dialect does not sound too Aramaic to you it's not because it's not, it's because it has evolved (Like any other language), take Arabic for example, if you hear an Arab speak in an Iraqi dialect and another one speaking in the classical Arabic of the Quran you would probably say the same thing about that, but the reality is simple, our language is on the same boat and it is Aramaic, don't let pride and ignorance get in the way of facts.

Ohh and as for the ketav ashuri argument, the Jews did not call our language ashuri, they called the alphabets ashuri, and the reason for that is because the Assyrians invented those alphabets that the Jews use today, originally the alphabets were created by the Phonecians, the Arameans just took those alphabets and made a style of their own out of them, which they brought to Mesopotamia where the Assyrians also adopted them and made a version of their own, the Jews eventually borrowed the Assyrian version of the alphabets when they were captive in Babylon, and they still use this version to this day, this has nothing to do with the language we speak.

 

[Danny12344]

nina u are 100% correct about the name, but we do speak aramaic. and jesus didnt speak assyrian, we spoke aramaic, if and assyrian spoke assyrian dialect, and aramaic spoke the older dialect, its different, so jesus didnt speak assyrian, we dont even speak assyrian, we speak aramaic. but thank you guys for correcting eachother.

 

[Tambur]

There's no such language called Assyrian, when people talk about an Assyrian language of ancient times, it was Akkadian, not Assyrian.

 

[Nina]

Ohh and as for the ketav ashuri argument, the Jews did not call our language ashuri, they called the alphabets ashuri, and the reason for that is because the Assyrians invented those alphabets that the Jews use today, originally the alphabets were created by the Phonecians, the Arameans just took those alphabets and made a style of their own out of them, which they brought to Mesopotamia where the Assyrians also adopted them and made a version of their own, the Jews eventually borrowed the Assyrian version of the alphabets when they were captive in Babylon, and they still use this version to this day, this has nothing to do with the language we speak.

I will not use your wording about pride and ignorance but I will say that you have contradicted yourself in the statement you made above.You wrote that "the Arameans just took those alphabets and made a style of their own out of them, which they brought to Mesopotamia where the Assyrians also adopted them and made a version of their own", by your own wording it means that the Assyrians adopted the letters which were brought by the nomadic bedouin Aramaeans and made a version of their own and that in itself means that the Assyrians adopted the alphabet but not a whole language because using the letters of an alpahbet doesn't mean changing the whole language.Turks use the Latin alphabet but they still speak Turkish and the Persians use the Arabic alphabet but they speak Persian.

So by what you're saying the Assyrians didn't have a language and when those nomads brought the letters which they didn't even invent,the Assyrians adopted that alphabet to write with it and called their language Aramaic!!! That is nonesense.The Aramaeans brought the alphabet which became known as Aramaic but that doesn't mean that they invented a language.

By what you're saying, the Assyrians didn't have a language of their own or they ignored totally their language in order to adopt the so-called Aramaic language how could that be???

 

[Tambur]

I will not use your wording about pride and ignorance but I will say that you have contradicted yourself in the statement you made above.You wrote that "the Arameans just took those alphabets and made a style of their own out of them, which they brought to Mesopotamia where the Assyrians also adopted them and made a version of their own", by your own wording it means that the Assyrians adopted the letters which were brought by the nomadic bedouin Aramaeans and made a version of their own and that in itself means that the Assyrians adopted the alphabet but not a whole language because using the letters of an alpahbet doesn't mean changing the whole language.Turks use the Latin alphabet but they still speak Turkish and the Persians use the Arabic alphabet but they speak Persian.

So by what you're saying the Assyrians didn't have a language and when those nomads brought the letters which they didn't even invent,the Assyrians adopted that alphabet to write with it and called their language Aramaic!!! That is nonesense.The Aramaeans brought the alphabet which became known as Aramaic but that doesn't mean that they invented a language.

By what you're saying, the Assyrians didn't have a language of their own or they ignored totally their language in order to adopt the so-called Aramaic language how could that be???

I did not contradict myself, I was simply commenting on the Ketav Ashuri argument, just because the Jews call their text Ketav Ashuri it does not means there's a connection to the language, well there is not, Ketav Ashuri is the name of the font they use, that's it, it has nothing to do with their language because they speak Hebrew.

Aramaic was also adopted by the Assyrians during the Neo-Assyrian times, this is a known fact among every scholar, and the reason was simple, it was a better language to learn because it was used across a bigger range, this helped the Assyrians because they were conquerers and they needed such skill, eventually the streets of Assyria were all replaced by Aramaic speakers (This includes the Assyrians themselves), and the older language (Akkadian) was only used in courts, by the time Christianity came, the language of ancient Assyria no longer existed, this is a fact.

When you say our language is not Aramaic you have to have strong evidence to back such thing up, and all the evidence go against what you say because Classical Syriac is an Aramaic dialect, not a separate Assyrian language, all the odds go against what you claim, it's as simple as that.

If you feel like you wanna argue your case in a better manner, go to the languages forum on this site and start a thread to prove that our language is not Aramaic, although I doubt you would be able to do that because chances are you don't know what the real Assyrian language sounded like (Akkadian).

 

[Danny12344]

our language is aramaic, the language of jesus, different accent, that is the biggest fact,

 

[Free_Assyria]

i don't know about you guys but the language i speak is not akkadian or Aramaic its Assyrian  :mrgreen:

Nina great post by the way i think i finally got this whole notion of how the word suraya and suryoyo came from Atouraya and othoroyo.  :yourock:

 

[davidb]

i don't know about you guys but the language i speak is not akkadian or Aramaic its Assyrian  :mrgreen:

Nina great post by the way i think i finally got this whole notion of how the word suraya and suryoyo came from Atouraya and othoroyo.  :yourock:

Suraya/Suroyo comes from Ashuraya/Ashuroyo..not Aturaya/Othuroyo.

I think Aturaya/Othuroyo comes from the word Athura which is what the Persians called the Assyrians during the Achaemenid Empire.

This may be the reason why Iranian Assyrians prefer Aturaya over Suraya..

Could be wrong about all of this though..

 

[GGBW]

Aren't Hebrew and Arabic also based on Aramaic?

 

[Tambur]

Suraya/Suroyo comes from Ashuraya/Ashuroyo..not Aturaya/Othuroyo.

I think Aturaya/Othuroyo comes from the word Athura which is what the Persians called the Assyrians during the Achaemenid Empire.

This may be the reason why Iranian Assyrians prefer Aturaya over Suraya..

Could be wrong about all of this though..

This is very wrong, Athuraya/Othuroyo is the same word as Ashuraya/Ashuroyo, the difference is the word Ashur is from Hebrew and Akkadian, while Athur is from Aramaic.

Sometimes words in Aramaic that use the letter Taw tend to sound different in Hebrew because they use Sheen for it, so Ashur and Athur are in that situation, another example is the word three, in Aramaic it's Tlatha, in Hebrew it's Shalosh or Shlosha.

This has nothing to do with Persians what so ever.

 

[Danny12344]

assyrianism, the language is maybe called assyrian, but it is aramaic, but it is our language for the assyrians so i would call it assyrian

 

[Nina]

I did not contradict myself, I was simply commenting on the Ketav Ashuri argument, just because the Jews call their text Ketav Ashuri it does not means there's a connection to the language, well there is not, Ketav Ashuri is the name of the font they use, that's it, it has nothing to do with their language because they speak Hebrew.

Aramaic was also adopted by the Assyrians during the Neo-Assyrian times, this is a known fact among every scholar, and the reason was simple, it was a better language to learn because it was used across a bigger range, this helped the Assyrians because they were conquerers and they needed such skill, eventually the streets of Assyria were all replaced by Aramaic speakers (This includes the Assyrians themselves), and the older language (Akkadian) was only used in courts, by the time Christianity came, the language of ancient Assyria no longer existed, this is a fact.

You were the one who wrote that the Aramaeans brought the alphabet which was "invented" by the Phoenicians to Assyria and the Assyrians adopted those letters.By your own words it means that the Aramaeans were only transporters to an alphabet which they didn't invent so how would you call then that alphabet by the name Aramaic and make it a language when it was invented as you say by the Phoenicians, another matter which was never proved.So then the alphabet should have been called Phoenician and the language Phoenitic.


Explain to me how would the Assyrian nation lose its spoken language in favour of the so-called Aramaic??? As I mentioned before the Turks adopted the Latin alphabet but they still speak Turkish and before Ataturk they used what is known as the Arabic alphabet but they still spoke Turkish and they didn't speak Arabic or Latin or French or English etc .... Same with the Persians.

The Assyrians did the same thing, they adopted a simple alphabet instead of the complicated cuneiform in order to make it easier but they didn't lost their language.

Regarding a thread for the language issue I will look into it.

 

[Danny12344]

they adopted the alphabet, and we adopted aramaic alphabet, but we didnt adopt only that, we also adopted the language, as in, the vocabulary, the whole language and the accent changed, maybe we changed it very little, but it is aramaic 100%, turks adopted alphabet, but they still do speak turkish, but we adopted much more then the alphabet, we adopted the whole language.

 

[Tambur]

You were the one who wrote that the Aramaeans brought the alphabet which was "invented" by the Phoenicians to Assyria and the Assyrians adopted those letters.By your own words it means that the Aramaeans were only transporters to an alphabet which they didn't invent so how would you call then that alphabet by the name Aramaic and make it a language when it was invented as you say by the Phoenicians, another matter which was never proved.So then the alphabet should have been called Phoenician and the language Phoenitic.

Ok, alphabets and language are two different things, but our language is called Aramaic.

The alphabets were Phonecian in origin, but the language we adopted was Aramaic, not Phonecian.

Explain to me how would the Assyrian nation lose its spoken language in favour of the so-called Aramaic??? As I mentioned before the Turks adopted the Latin alphabet but they still speak Turkish and before Ataturk they used what is known as the Arabic alphabet but they still spoke Turkish and they didn't speak Arabic or Latin or French or English etc .... Same with the Persians.

Simple, Aramaic was a more common language than Akkadian at the time, it was an easy transition, Assyrians were conquerers as I said and knowing Aramaic was better for them because the lands they were conquering had Aramaic speakers, not Akkadian.

Also keep in mind that within the heart of Assyria there was many slaves who spoke Aramaic, eventually the streets of Assyria replaced Akkadian with Aramaic, this is not very hard to believe, it happens all the time, and it was an easy transition since both languages are similar, if you don't believe it, just look at how Arabic almost erased Aramaic as a spoken language in the region, look at the areas where Aramaic was spoken and it was easy for them to adopt Arabic instead, in fact if it wasn't for some who stayed isolated in their villages we would not be speaking Aramaic today.

A topic like this needs proof, not speculation, my proof is simple, our proper classical language that you hear in church in grammar is not Akkadian, not Hebrew, and not Arabic, but Aramaic.

 

[Marodeen]

I'm from Urmia, so would I be speaking the East Assyrian dialect or West?

 

[Free_Assyria]

I'm from Urmia, so would I be speaking the East Assyrian dialect or West?

east.

West is spoken by Assyrians from Turkey and some from Syria basically its spoken by Assyrians from the Syriac orthodox church and Syrian catholic church.