Syriac language

This article is about Classical Syriac or Edessan Aramaic. For the alphabet, see Syriac alphabet. For Neo-Aramaic languages, see Turoyo and Suret language. For Syro-Palestinian or Christian Palestinian Syriac, see Christian Palestinian Aramaic.

Syriac
Classical Syriac
Edessan Aramaic
ܠܫܢܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ, Leššānā Suryāyā
Leššānā Suryāyā in written Syriac (Esṭrangelā script)
Pronunciationlɛʃˈʃɑːnɑː surˈjɑːjɑː
RegionFertile Crescent (northern Iraq, northwestern Iran, Syria, southeastern Turkey, Lebanon), eastern Arabia (Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar[1]), Malabar Coast (Kerala)[2]
Era1st century AD; declined as a vernacular language after the 13th century; still in liturgical use[3]
Early forms
Dialects
  • West-Syriac
  • East-Syriac
Syriac abjad
Language codes
ISO 639-2syc
ISO 639-3syc
Glottologclas1252
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This article contains Syriac text, written from right to left in a cursive style with some letters joined. Without proper rendering support, you may see unjoined Syriac letters or other symbols instead of Syriac script.

The Syriac language (/ˈsɪriæk/ SIH-ree-ak; Classical Syriac: ܠܫܢܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ, romanized: Leššānā Suryāyā),[a] also known natively in its spoken form in early Syriac literature as Edessan (Urhāyā), the Mesopotamian language (Nahrāyā) and Aramaic (Aramāyā), is an Eastern Middle Aramaic dialect.[4][5][6] Classical Syriac is the academic term used to refer to the dialect's literary usage and standardization, distinguishing it from other Aramaic dialects also known as 'Syriac' or 'Syrian'.[7] In its West-Syriac tradition, Classical Syriac is often known as leššōnō kṯoḇonōyō (lit. 'the written language or the book language') or simply kṯoḇonōyō, or kṯowonōyō,[8][9] while in its East-Syriac tradition, it is known as leššānā ʔatīqā (lit. 'the old language') or saprāyā (lit. 'scribal or literary').[10]

It emerged during the first century AD from a local Eastern Aramaic dialect that was spoken in the ancient region of Osroene, centered in the city of Edessa. During the Early Christian period, it became the main literary language of various Aramaic-speaking Christian communities in the historical region of Ancient Syria and throughout the Near East. As a liturgical language of Syriac Christianity, it gained a prominent role among Eastern Christian communities that used both Eastern Syriac and Western Syriac rites. Following the spread of Syriac Christianity, it also became a liturgical language of eastern Christian communities as far as India and China. It flourished from the 4th to the 8th century, and continued to have an important role during the next centuries, but by the end of the Middle Ages it was gradually reduced to liturgical use, since the role of vernacular language among its native speakers was overtaken by several emerging Neo-Aramaic languages.[11][12][2][13][14]

Classical Syriac is written in the Syriac alphabet, a derivation of the Aramaic alphabet. The language is preserved in a large body of Syriac literature, that comprises roughly 90% of the extant Aramaic literature.[15] Along with Greek and Latin, Syriac became one of the three most important languages of Early Christianity.[16] Already from the first and second centuries AD, the inhabitants of the region of Osroene began to embrace Christianity, and by the third and fourth centuries, local Edessan Aramaic language became the vehicle of the specific Christian culture that came to be known as the Syriac Christianity. Because of theological differences, Syriac-speaking Christians diverged during the 5th century into the Church of the East that followed the East Syriac Rite under the Persian rule, and the Syriac Orthodox Church that followed the West Syriac Rite under the Byzantine rule.[17]

As a liturgical language of Syriac Christianity, Classical Syriac spread throughout Asia as far as the South Indian Malabar Coast,[18] and Eastern China,[19] and became the medium of communication and cultural dissemination for the later Arabs, and (to a lesser extent) the other peoples of Parthian and Sasanian empires. Primarily a Christian medium of expression, Syriac had a fundamental cultural and literary influence on the development of Arabic,[20] which largely replaced it during the later medieval period.[21]

Syriac remains the sacred language of Syriac Christianity to this day.[22] It is used as liturgical language of several denominations, like those who follow the East Syriac Rite, including the Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, and the Assyrian Pentecostal Church, and also those who follow the West Syriac Rite, including: Syriac Orthodox Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Maronite Catholic Church, the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church and the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church. Classical Syriac was originally the liturgical language of the Syriac Melkites within the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch in Antioch and parts of ancient Syria. The Syriac Melkites changed their church's West Syriac Rite to that of Constantinople in the 9th-11th centuries, necessitating new translations of all their Syriac liturgical books.[23][24][25][26]

  1. ^ Mario Kozah; Abdulrahim Abu-Husayn; Saif Shaheen Al-Murikhi; Haya Al Thani (9 December 2014). The Syriac Writers of Qatar in the Seventh Century. Gorgias Press. p. 298. ISBN 9781463236649. The Syriac writers of Qatar themselves produced some of the best and most sophisticated writing to be found in all Syriac literature of the seventh century, but they have not received the scholarly attention that they deserve in the last half century. This volume seeks to redress this underdevelopment by setting the standard for further research in the sub-field of Beth Qatraye studies.
  2. ^ a b Healey 2012, p. 637-652.
  3. ^ Healey 2012, p. 637, 649.
  4. ^ Religious Origins of Nations?. BRILL. 2010. p. 106. ISBN 9789004173750. In the grammar of Jacob of Edessa, the Syriac language is in fact called mamllā Urhāyā (2a9) or leššānā Urhāyā (2b, 12-13), mamllā Nahrāyā (2b, 19-20), the Edessan or Mesopotamian tongue or language.
  5. ^ Chatonnet, Francoise Briquel; Debie, Muriel (20 June 2023). The Syriac World. Yale University Press. p. 1. ISBN 9780300271256. The fact that the Syriac language can be known as suryāyā (the adjectival form of "Syrian" in the old sense), aramāyā (formed from "Aramean"), or urhāyā (formed from the Aramaic name Edessa, Urhay) shows the complexity of identity and self-definition within this culture.
  6. ^ Eusebius, Christianity and Judaism. Brill. 4 October 2022. p. 226. ISBN 9789004509139. Syriac is nothing other than a literary dialect of Aramaic which possesses its own distinctive script. Early Syriac writers use a variety of terms to refer to the language, but besides the more general terms "Aramaya" (Aramaic) and "Suryaya" (Syriac), a third term stands out, "Urhaya," the dialect of Urhay/Edessa, or "Edessene (Aramaic)". The existence of this term must indicate that Syriac, which came to be adopted as the literary and cultural language of Aramaic-speaking Christians throughout the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire and over the border in the Sassanid Empire, started out as the local Aramaic dialect of Edessa.
  7. ^ Chatonnet, Francoise Briquel; Debie, Muriel (20 June 2023). The Semitic Languages. Yale University Press. p. 638. ISBN 9780300271256. This chapter summarizes linguistic data on Classical Syriac, one of the best attested of the literary dialects of Aramaic (alongside Jewish Aramaic and Mandaic). Classical Syriac survives in restricted ecclesiastical and literary use.
  8. ^ Kiraz, George A. (4 March 2020). "Kthobonoyo Syriac: Some Observations and Remarks". Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 10 (1): 113–124. doi:10.31826/hug-2011-100113. S2CID 188192926.
  9. ^ Iskandar, Amine (27 February 2022). "About the origin of the Lebanese language (I)". syriacpress.com. Syriacpress.
  10. ^ Shabo Talay (2008). Die neuaramäischen Dialekte der Khabur-Assyrer in Nordostsyrien (in German). Harrassowitz. pp. 8–9. ISBN 9783447057028.
  11. ^ Brock 1998, p. 708-719.
  12. ^ Butts 2011, p. 390-391.
  13. ^ Butts 2018, p. 137-165.
  14. ^ Butts 2019, p. 222-242.
  15. ^ Brock 1989a, p. 11–23.
  16. ^ Brock 2005, p. 5-20.
  17. ^ Beyer 1986, p. 44.
  18. ^ Neill 2004, p. 38.
  19. ^ Briquel-Chatonnet 2012, p. 652–659.
  20. ^ Weninger 2012, p. 747–755.
  21. ^ Healey 2012, p. 643.
  22. ^ Brock 1992b.
  23. ^ CLASSICAL SYRIAC. Gorgias Handbooks. p. 14. In contrast to "Nestorians" and "Jacobites", a small group of Syriacs accepted the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon. Non-Chalcedonian Syriacs called them "Melkites" (from Aramaic malka "king"), thereby connecting them to the Byzantine Emperor's denomination. Melkite Syriacs were mostly concentrated around Antioch and adjacent regions of northern Syria and used Syriac as their literary and liturgical language. The Melkite community also included the Aramaic-speaking Jewish converts to Christianity in Palestine and the Orthodox Christians of Transjordan. During the 5th-6th centuries, they were engaged in literary work (mainly translation) in Palestinian Christian Aramaic, a Western Aramaic dialect, using a script closely resembling the Estrangela cursive of Osrhoene.
  24. ^ "JACOB BARCLAY, Melkite Orthodox Syro-Byzantine Manuscripts in Syriac and Palestinian Aramaic" quote from the German book Internationale Zeitschriftenschau für Bibelwissenschaft und Grenzgebiete, p. 291
  25. ^ "The west Syriac tradition covers the Syriac Orthodox, Maronite, and Melkite churches, though the Melkites changed their Church's rite to that of Constantinople in the 9th-11th centuries, which required new translations of all its liturgical books.", quote from the book The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity, p.917
  26. ^ Arman Akopian (11 December 2017). "Other branches of Syriac Christianity: Melkites and Maronites". Introduction to Aramean and Syriac Studies. Gorgias Press. p. 573. ISBN 9781463238933. The main center of Aramaic-speaking Melkites was Palestine. During the 5th-6th centuries, they were engaged in literary, mainly translation work in the local Western Aramaic dialect, known as "Palestinian Christian Aramaic", using a script closely resembling the cursive Estrangela of Osrhoene. Palestinian Melkites were mostly Jewish converts to Christianity, who had a long tradition of using Palestinian Aramaic dialects as literary languages. Closely associated with the Palestinian Melkites were the Melkites of Transjordan, who also used Palestinian Christian Aramaic. Another community of Aramaic-speaking Melkites existed in the vicinity of Antioch and parts of Syria. These Melkites used Classical Syriac as a written language, the common literary language of the overwhelming majority of Christian Arameans.


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