So what do you guys think makes us Assyrian?

mrzurnaci

mrzurnaci

Active member
I haven't given this too much though but what do you think makes us Assyrian?

How do we define who is Assyrian or not?

My conclusion was language and connection to Mesopotamia but what do you guys think?
 
Your ethnicity, no?

If you have Assyrian parents you're Assyrian. If you have one Assyrian parent, you're half Assyrian.
 
Cascade said:
Your ethnicity, no?

If you have Assyrian parents you're Assyrian. If you have one Assyrian parent, you're half Assyrian.
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yea but how would you define it? How would u consider who's Assyrian or not?
 
Definitely the language! ......That's what makes someone an Assyrian in my opinion! Our language is our identity. That's why I walk around the house correcting my family whenever they use foreign words.


Literally if one of my non-Assyrian friends learns the Assyrian language and starts fluently speaking to me in Assyrian, I would feel some kind of bond or connection to them. I just get SOOOOOOOO happy whenever someone asks me about Assyrian words/meanings and stuff like that.
It would be okay for me if my non-Assyrian (aka foreigner) friend doesn't know how to dance khigga or has no knowledge about our traditions whatsoever.. as long as he/she starts learning the language and know how to speak it....everything else is then "sanay qa lyapa"
 
shekwanta said:
Definitely the language! ......That's what makes someone an Assyrian in my opinion! Our language is our identity. That's why I walk around the house correcting my family whenever they use foreign words.


Literally if one of my non-Assyrian friends learns the Assyrian language and starts fluently speaking to me in Assyrian, I would feel some kind of bond or connection to them. I just get SOOOOOOOO happy whenever someone asks me about Assyrian words/meanings and stuff like that.
It would be okay for me if my non-Assyrian (aka foreigner) friend doesn't know how to dance khigga or has no knowledge about our traditions whatsoever.. as long as he/she starts learning the language and know how to speak it....everything else is then "sanay qa lyapa"
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So your friends easily learned Assyrian but then we have Assyrians whining that the language is too hard lol
 
mrzurnaci said:
So your friends easily learned Assyrian but then we have Assyrians whining that the language is too hard lol
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he bala! ...makes me sad every time. Once I was baby-sitting our relatives' kid (3 or 5 years old) and he could only speak Danish to me and I had no idea what he was saying so I kept answering him in Assyrian "I don't get you honey! Len parmoyeh! but it's not your fault.. it's your parents' fault -_- " ..There was like zero communication between us, because we kept repeating our words and then just got tired and sat there silent.
 
shekwanta said:
he bala! ...makes me sad every time. Once I was baby-sitting our relatives' kid (3 or 5 years old) and he could only speak Danish to me and I had no idea what he was saying so I kept answering him in Assyrian "I don't get you honey! Len parmoyeh! but it's not your fault.. it's your parents' fault -_- " ..There was like zero communication between us, because we kept repeating our words and then just got tired and sat there silent.
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well he's just a little kid, all I could say is just keeping on talking sureth to him.
 
mrzurnaci said:
well he's just a little kid, all I could say is just keeping on talking sureth to him.
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Yeah I did. Kept talking to him even though he was looking at me like I was from another planet lol. I wasn't angry at him, I was more like sad actually. Frustrated.
I was mad at the parents, though!!! Cause I see NO REASON for why they hadn't taught him how to speak, especially since they were both fluent Assyrian speakers -.-
 
shekwanta said:
Yeah I did. Kept talking to him even though he was looking at me like I was from another planet lol. I wasn't angry at him, I was more like sad actually. Frustrated.
I was mad at the parents, though!!! Cause I see NO REASON for why they hadn't taught him how to speak, especially since they were both fluent Assyrian speakers -.-
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cuz alot of Assyrian parents are too laid back when it comes to kids.
It really isn't hard to teach little kids sureth either. Just talk to them in Sureth and they'll start understanding aka language acquisition ("shqalota d'leshana")
 
mrzurnaci said:
cuz alot of Assyrian parents are too laid back when it comes to kids.
It really isn't hard to teach little kids sureth either. Just talk to them in Sureth and they'll start understanding aka language acquisition ("shqalota d'leshana")
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EXACTLY!! Bala I wanted to say this before, but I don't know why I just didn't type it. I was gonna say do you know how fast kids learn a language?? If there is any age in which people learn fluently, it's childhood.

My mom used to literally force us EVERY summer holiday to sit down and learn sureth with her! And we used to cry and get angry and be like "why are you doing this to us?? this is our only holiday! We don't want school all year long!"  And we used to literally HATE summer, cause we faced this "problem" always. And then when we grew up (approx 13 years old), she started sending us to church every summer, so we learned Assyrian through shamasheh and qasheh as well.. so you can tell how strict she was when it came to the language. Ironically, she only cared about the language! History and traditions (Assyrianism) weren't as important.

But Now that I think about it.. I mean it's the best thing she did! In fact, I will do the same to my kids someday. Now, wherever I go I can proudly say that I can speak + write + read Assyrian and people get astonished and I love the reaction hahaha. I will forever be thankful to my mom for doing this! FOREVER.
 
mrzurnaci said:
yea but how would you define it? How would u consider who's Assyrian or not?
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If you have Assyrian parents.

If you want to go further, speaking the actual language.
 
Cascade said:
If you have Assyrian parents.

If you want to go further, speaking the actual language.
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can be easy, Assyrian and all other Syriac dialects are easy to learn compared to Arabic.

Hebrew, as jumbled as it is, is also easier to learn than Arabic.
 
mrzurnaci said:
can be easy, Assyrian and all other Syriac dialects are easy to learn compared to Arabic.

Hebrew, as jumbled as it is, is also easier to learn than Arabic.
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Hebrew sounds like Assyrian reserved. Lol
 
Cascade said:
Lol Yeah. Stupid autocorrect.
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well from what I learned off the Hebrew Alphabet.

The differences is that Hebrew actually kept soft B as V like we originally did but, from the influence of German, Waw became Vav so they have two Vs like how we have two Ws.
Both Hebrew and Sureth Heth became Kheth.
Both Hebrew 'Ayin and Sureth 'Eh is not pronounced at all.

So basically In another twist of similarity, both Assyrians and Jews effed up Beth + Waw, Kheth, and 'Eh lmao.

The other differences in Hebrew is that...
...T'eth is just used as a normal T, like Taw.
...Feh (modded Peh) is actually used.
...S'ade is pronounced 'tsadi' which is not the same.
...Qoph is used as a normal K, like Kaph.
...Shin can be modified into 'Sin' so Hebrew has two S's since Somakh is a normal S.
 
mrzurnaci said:
well from what I learned off the Hebrew Alphabet.

The differences is that Hebrew actually kept soft B as V like we originally did but, from the influence of German, Waw became Vav so they have two Vs like how we have two Ws.
Both Hebrew and Sureth Heth became Kheth.
Both Hebrew 'Ayin and Sureth 'Eh is not pronounced at all.

So basically In another twist of similarity, both Assyrians and Jews effed up Beth + Waw, Kheth, and 'Eh lmao.

The other differences in Hebrew is that...
...T'eth is just used as a normal T, like Taw.
...Feh (modded Peh) is actually used.
...S'ade is pronounced 'tsadi' which is not the same.
...Qoph is used as a normal K, like Kaph.
...Shin can be modified into 'Sin' so Hebrew has two S's since Somakh is a normal S.
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I actually really don't mind heth becoming kheth. We do need a Kh sound, no? Also, the guttural H is very harsh and coarse to utter. So that was for the better.

What I hate is the Iranian loanwords. I think they should all be replaced with the Syriac (or even Akkadian) equivalents.
 
I think all the loan words should be replaced with Akkadian or even Aramaic words... I hope one day we get a country and we can recreate our language without loan words and have all Assyrians be speaking the same.
 
Cascade said:
I actually really don't mind heth becoming kheth. We do need a Kh sound, no? Also, the guttural H is very harsh and coarse to utter. So that was for the better.

What I hate is the Iranian loanwords. I think they should all be replaced with the Syriac (or even Akkadian) equivalents.
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We already have kheth, we get it from modifying Kaph. The problem isn't one sound, the problem is having the same sound from two or more letters.

Each letter represents its own sound. Because Soft Beth is W and Waw is W, I couldn't properly spell "Awdisho' " until Carlo explicitly showed me how it's really spelled out.
 
This is what I think makes one an Assyrian:
- Blood: Links us directly to our Mesopotamian ancestors.
- Language: Links us directly to our Mesopotamian ancestors
- Culture: Links us directly to our Mesopotamian ancestors
- Religion: Part of the culture, Links us directly to our Mesopotamian ancestors to an extent and affirms & preserves our blood, language and culture.
 
SonOfAssyria said:
This is what I think makes one an Assyrian:
- Blood: Links us directly to our Mesopotamian ancestors.
- Language: Links us directly to our Mesopotamian ancestors
- Culture: Links us directly to our Mesopotamian ancestors
- Religion: Part of the culture, Links us directly to our Mesopotamian ancestors to an extent and affirms & preserves our blood, language and culture.
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so our 4 connections
ܕܡܐ, ܠܫܢܐ, ܝܘܒܠܐ, ܘܗܝܡܢܘܬܐ
 
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