Talk:Assyrian continuity

Orphaned references in Assyrian continuity

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Assyrian continuity's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Frye":

• From Neo-Assyrian Empire: Frye, Richard N. (1992). "Assyria and Syria: Synonyms". PhD., Harvard University. Journal of Near Eastern Studies. And the ancient Assyrian empire, was the first real, empire in history. What do I mean, it had many different peoples included in the empire, all speaking Aramaic, and becoming what may be called, "Assyrian citizens." That was the first time in history, that we have this. For example, Elamite musicians, were brought to Nineveh, and they were 'made Assyrians' which means, that Assyria, was more than a small country, it was the empire, the whole Fertile Crescent. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• From Name of Syria: Frye, R. N. (October 1992). "Assyria and Syria: Synonyms" (PDF). Journal of Near Eastern Studies 51 (4): 281–285. doi:10.1086/373570.
• From Seleucid Empire: Richard N. Frye, The History of Ancient Iran, (Ballantyne Ltd, 1984), 164.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 18:22, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Assyrian Continuity Timeline

To clean the appearance of this article up, maybe a timeline extending from the earliest evidence of Assyrian people up until the present day could be drafted. Organizing the page into periods of history is easier to digest as we're dealing with a people who's history extends to millennia. In creating sections for different periods of history and populating all the information chronologically would increase the usefulness of this article. Ramsin93 (talk) 22:57, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Removing POV claims either in support or opposition of Assyrian continuity

This article is already way too long and should be shortened. Post-hoc publications lacking academic rigor like The Modern Assyrians of The Middle East, archived from the original on 2022-02-09, retrieved 2022-02-09 by John Joseph and promoted by the religio-political organization Aramean Democratic Organization is WP:POV and shouldn't be in the article.

Many of the opposing views in this article are from activists who cite each other, and collaborate together. Beth Mardutho, founded by Syriacist George Kiraz, which seeks to "promote the study and preservation of the Syriac heritage" has previously hosted Adam Becker as a visiting lecturer in Beth Mardutho Language Courses, archived from the original on 2022-02-09, retrieved 2022-02-09 {{citation}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; 2021-12-24 suggested (help). David Wilmshurst has used George Kiraz's academic publishing company, Gorgias Press as a publisher. In the first link I mentioned, John Joseph himself thanks Kiraz. The list goes on. Any meaningful connective tissue between them should at least be considered for inclusion in this article. 2600:1010:B06C:8E03:B534:6D5A:2A5F:D756 (talk) 01:21, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

The article length is not inherently an issue and neither are POV claims (as long as they are marked as claims and ideas by particular authors and inherent biases are made clear). The article does need to be overhauled though, and is something I hope to get to eventually. Some of the sources are not up to par, as you say, and right now it reads more like an essay (mostly mentioning examples, individual views and long quotes) than an encyclopedic article. In particular the long section on continuity through classical antiquity is a bit strange since it is not really possible for a serious scholar to oppose that; mainstream Assyriology considers the last stage of ancient Assyria to be the post-imperial period (extending to AD 240). Ichthyovenator (talk) 19:12, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the followup. I appreciate your work to improve the quality of the article. I agree, there's a lot to be overhauled and things can be restructured to make it read more intelligibly. 2600:1010:B06C:116E:C21:2B98:8682:AC67 (talk) 01:55, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Updating the number of Akkadian words used by Assyrians

The article says there's 14 loanwords from Akkadian not attested to in other languages and cites a book from 1974. A more current study by Dr. Geoffrey Khan in 2007 claims there's over 300 loanwords from Akkadian with a majority not attested to in other languages: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Suret_language#Vocabulary.

Dr. Khan is one of the world's preeminent scholars of semitic languages. A bit of his work was cited before the article was pared down, but I think it's worthy to mention this tidbit regarding linguistic continuity. 2600:1010:B00C:92EF:C86A:DC15:9A78:3B30 (talk) 06:55, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

@2600:1010:B00C:92EF:C86A:DC15:9A78:3B30: The page cited from Khan's book in the Suret language article (p. 110) has the following passage relating to loanwords:

The lexicon of the modern dialects, moreover, has preserved some words from antiquity that are not found in the earlier literary languages. These include several words from Akkadian. They are usually connected with agriculture. Several such cases can be found in the dialect of Qaraqosh. In that dialect, for example, the word baxšimə denotes a storeroom (for grain) in the roof of a house. It is reasonably certain that this is a descendant of the Akkkadian term bēt ḫašīmi 'barn, storehouse'. Another possible example in the dialect is raxiṣa 'pile of straw (usually barley)', which could well be related to Akkadian raḫīṣu 'pile of harvest produce (especially straw).

It confirms again that there are loanwords in modern Aramaic dialects and also offers some examples but I cannot verify where the claim that there are more than 300 comes from, unless I am missing something. Page 92 states that some researchers found a Neo-Babylonian tablet with over 300 examples of Akkadian names recorded in their Aramaic versions so perhaps whoever cited this for the Suret article got confused here? That said I've added that Kaufman's study was made in 1974 which leaves open the possibility of more recent works finding more. Ichthyovenator (talk) 10:01, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

You're right - the citation never actually claims there's 300 loanwords thanks for correcting it. Maybe the editor did in fact get confused with the "300 examples" bit. The table here https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Suret_language#Vocabulary definitely has a decent amount of examples. Not exactly sure how they were able to map it all out but if I'm able to find a more exhaustive list, I'll be sure to update the article. 2600:1010:B00C:92EF:962:6281:C31:F483 (talk) 22:20, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, the table suggests that there are more than the ones Kaufman found nearly 50 years ago. If you track down a more recent source for the number of words it can definitely be added both here and there. Ichthyovenator (talk) 09:55, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

This was one of the more comprehensive edits which began to map the Akkadian words to their Assyrian equivalents https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Suret_language&type=revision&diff=909953204&oldid=909807402 by 334a. They know both classical syriac and sureth, so I will reach out to them on their talk page to see if they can explain the process they followed in case anyone reading this wants to continue to hash out the table. The citation above this table is to this book https://archive.org/details/assyriangrammarw00mercuoft. If you look at page 84-114 you can see over 300 signs mapped to their ideograms which is potentially where the "300" claim is coming from. However, I don't believe the source actually backs the claim (not that the claim cannot potentially be true.) 2600:1010:B00C:92EF:69C2:30C:FDA0:2D07 (talk) 02:05, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that source does not appear to back this particular claim either. This 2011 paper says that one of the results of Aramean migrations into Assyria was the borrowing of a large number of Akkadian words into Aramaic (p. 22) and that there is a much larger number of Akkadian loanwords in Aramaic than vice versa (p 59). It does however not give a number - it cites for this "AIOA" and M. Sokoloff's New Akkadian Words in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, neither of which I can track down (but perhaps one of them includes a number?).

The paper itself is a study of 282 words previously believed to be Aramaic loanwords into Akkadian; I've added its findings that 15 of those were actually Akkadian loanwords into Aramaic and that the direction of the loan could not be determined in 22 cases. Ichthyovenator (talk) 09:49, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Just perused the edit, that's an interesting find. Thanks for fishing it out and including it in the article. 2600:1010:B00C:92EF:C5F0:321E:B24E:7679 (talk) 10:45, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Rewrite

Thanks for the rewrite, Ichthyovenator. I do have a few concerns after skimming through.

Suryāyā ... is not technically a different identity than "Assyrian".

What does this mean? I don't see how the relationship between the words has any bearing on identities, or else we would have to say that "Frankish" is not a different identity from "French".

Though some opponents to Assyrian continuity, such as David Wilmshurst, have claimed that Assyrian names ceased being used in the Christian period and that this in turn was evidence of a lack of continuity, ancient names were not wholly abandoned. ... Modern Assyrian authors ... contend that a decrease in ancient pagan names invoking gods ... is hardly surprising given the Christianization of the Assyrians; similar cases of native names being increasingly replaced by Biblically-derived names are also known from numerous other Christianized peoples.

This paragraph is set up as a refutation of Wilmshurst, but is unconvincing. It cites two examples of biblical names and then admits that the absence of ancient Assyrian names doesn't really mean anything. Baldassare and Baltasar were in use in western Europe by the 15th century.

Wilmshurst (Djwilms) used to edit here. His last comments on this article, from 2015, are in the archive. Srnec (talk) 16:04, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

@Srnec: Hi, I didn't check any of the archives, just the article as it stood (determining which sources held up and which did not) and the relevant literature I could find. In any case it seems to me that Wilmshurst's views are in the minority – can't deem them to be fringe since the subject is a bit obscure itself but most do support continuity.

What does this mean? I don't see how the relationship between the words has any bearing on identities, or else we would have to say that "Frankish" is not a different identity from "French".

This is perhaps badly phrased; I believe that modern Assyrians do translate Suryāyā as "Assyrian" (at the very least it's the term used in Assyrian people), though people who identify as Syriac (and equivalents) translate it as their respective identities. I've removed "is not technically a different..." from both instances and simply kept that the term likely derives from the ancient assūrāyu, which (however the implications are regarded) is not really in dispute.

This paragraph is set up as a refutation of Wilmshurst, but is unconvincing. It cites two examples of biblical names and then admits that the absence of ancient Assyrian names doesn't really mean anything. Baldassare and Baltasar were in use in western Europe by the 15th century.

Yes, this paragraph is not perfect. I've moved it down to the next section, where both authors are mentioned by name, and reworked it a bit (for instance adding that both names, although having clear Mesopotamian connections, do appear in the Bible - also tried to make it less of a refutation and more presenting what both say). Let me know what you think.

On a sidenote Nebuchadnezzar is surely a more uncommon and noteworthy name than Balthazar, especially in a Christian context? Balthazar is related to the name of Belshazzar but it's also the name of one of the three wise men; Nebuchadnezzar was responsible for destroying Jerusalem and initiating the Babylonian captivity. Ichthyovenator (talk) 17:04, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Let's show the truth shall we?

Now when you don’t know what a word means, what do you do? You look it up in a dictionary! Luckily for you I have done that job for you. I have looked up the word Oromoyo (Aramean) in two authoritative Syriac-French (Syriaque-Francais) and English-Syriac dictionary.

In the French dictionary under the name Oromoyo it gives the explanation of two names: Araméen and Syrie, syriaque. (Dictionnaire Syriaque-Francais, Louis Costaz)

Another authoritative dictionary is the English one, under the name Oromoyo it gives a similar explaining, that is; Aramean and Syrian. (Syriac-English Dictionary)

In the Hebrew dictionary the word Aram gives us the impression of two names; Aram and Syriac (suryoye)

758 'Aram arawm' from the same as 759; the highland; Aram or Syria, and its inhabitants; also the name of the son of Shem, a grandson of Nahor, and of an Israelite:--Aram, Mesopotamia, Syria, Syrians.

761 Arammiy ar-am-mee' patrial from 758; an Aramite or Aramaean:--Syrian, Aramitess.

762 'Aramiyth ar-aw-meeth' feminine of 761; (only adverbial)in Aramean:--in the Syrian language (tongue), in Syriac.

1130 Ben-Hadad ben-had-ad' from 1121 and 1908; son of Hadad; Ben-Hadad, the name of several Syrian kings:--Ben-hadad.

By all Biblical translations the word Syria gives the meaning of Aram. I am yet to find a biblical translation that doesn't translate Syria into Aram and Aram-naharaim.

By the Catholic Encyclopedia the term ’’Syria’’ gives the meaning of Aram and Arameans.

In German litterateur; regarding their ”Semetic studies” the word ”Syria” and ”Syrian” is translated to ”Aram” and ”Arameans”. (Prof. Dietrich Hermann Hegewisch & Prof. Theodor Mommsen & Prof. Theodor Nöldeke & Prof. Karl Eduard Sachau)

Now moving on to a Syriac dictionary by Mor Touma Audo, a Aramean-Chaldean scholar and archbishop of Urmia, Iran. This is important because it is a Syriac dictionary. Mor Audo published ”The treasury of the Syriac language” in the year 1897 and it is still used today by Syriac monks, teachers and bishops. If we look under the word Oromoyo what we find is the term Oromoye renowned in Suryoye: Aramaya, Aramaye hanaw den Suryaye, Lishono suryaya aramaya, suryaya. In English: Aramaic, Arameans i.e Syriacs, Aramaic language, Syriac. And if we read in his preface he writes quotes like ’’The Aramean name is our genuine and original name’’.

I can talk for hours about the interrelation between the word Suryoye (Syrian) and Oromoye (Aramean) but I hope by now that some confusion has been clear. 185.176.246.64 (talk) 17:29, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Very one sided

This article is very one sided and acts as if this is settled science. It should also include arguments that go against the continuity which are plenty. 2001:DF4:3200:1500:71B1:AEE1:A449:95C1 (talk) 06:01, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Religious continuity: Mesopotamian paganism continued into the 1700s?!

"Although the ancient Mesopotamian pantheon ceased to be worshipped at Assur with the city's destruction in the 3rd century AD, it persisted at other localities, despite the overwhelming conversion of the region to Christianity, for much longer; the old faith persisted at Harran until at least the 10th century and at Mardin until as late as the 18th century."

This is very hard for me to accept, and I'm curious if there's any supporting source for this claim other than a passing reference in the Simo Parpola article. Also, that article itself doesn't appear to be claiming the persistence of the whole Mesopotamian patheon, but a much more modest survival: "the 'sun-worshippers' [Shemshiyeh] described by Carsten Niebuhr and Southgate."

I'd favor either cutting the quoted sentence entirely. This just seems like a very bold claim based on very little documentation. Mosi Nuru (talk) 04:33, 6 January 2025 (UTC)