Talk:Assyrian people

Legends/Mythology used as historical evidence to promote notions of Assyrian Continuity

another thread veering off into exchange of personal ideological talking points.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I have listed a number of sources that addressed the issue of a couple of Assyrian names that appear in stories during the Christian period, it should be noted that in each case, that these names refer to individuals or characters not the ethnic population. These names such as Tatian "the Assyrian", Sennacherib and Nimrod, are applied during the Christian period to people from the direct region of Assyria (Mousol and it surrounds) to elevate the individuals status and the agenda of the story teller. I'm not suggesting the Characters in these stories are fictional, because they weren't, the stories around them are. We see this "Assyrianizing affect" in the ledgends such as the Ledgend of Mar Qardagh, Life of Mar Behnam some of which can be considered fictional. This fictional aspect of these stories is not mention on the Assyrian People page, but rather uses these Assyrian names as evidence of Assyrian continuety. It should not be ignored that these Myths/Ledgends were written centuries after the supposed events took place. This Source needs explaining. This was a correspondence between Patricia Crone and John Joseph, and currently sits in the footnote on page 27 of Joseph's book "The Modern Assyrians of the Middle East: A History of Their Encounter with ...". The reason is Crone and Cook's book titled "Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World" is currently being used by modern-Assyrians such as G.V.Yana to as proof of there Assyrian ancestry. So John Joseph being a modern-Assyrian and refutes the claims of the mordern-Assyrians wrote to Crone for an explanation and the following is her response: In a letter to John Joseph, dated June 11, 1997 Patricia Crone wrote that she and Cook: “[We] do not argue that the Nestorians of pre-Islamic Iraq saw themselves as Assyrians or that this is what they called themselves. They called themselves Suryane [Syriac], which had no greater connotation of Assyrian in their usage than it did in anyone else's…. We take it for granted that they got the modern Assyrian label from the West and proceeded to reinvent themselves… Of course the Nestorians were Arameans.” Other Sources Adam H Becker The Ancient Near East in the Late Antique Near East: Syriac Christian Appropriation of the Biblical East p 5-6 "The biblical Assyria shows up in a number of Syriac sources and serves as a paradigm for understanding events as diverse as saints’ lives and the Arab conquest." ..... "A tendency to auto-orientalize appears in some of the earliest of eastern Christian sources: for example, the second century Tatian’s strong self-identification as a barbaros Assyrian vis-à-vis the Greek radition." ..... "(With this it is worth noting Drijvers’ elevation of Tatian to central but forgotten importance in earliest Syriac Christianity.) This process was facilitated by the continuing use of the geographical name Assyria or Asorestan in Middle Persian in the Sasanian era." Joel Thomas Walker Legacy of Mesopotamia in late antiquie iraq page 495 "While some details of the History may be based on actual fourth-century people and events, the bulk of its narrative is pious fiction reflecting the interests and assumptions of the saint's biographer. We do not know precisely when or where this hagiograoher wrote. Infrance drawn from his account imply the he was an East-Syrian monk (or layman) resident in northern Iraq during the reign of Khusro II (590-628)." page 501 "The saint's royal 'Assyrian' genealogy us ab integral part of this image. In an approach typical of Christian exegesis, it elides any distinction between the ancient 'pagan' traditions of Mesopotamia and Persia." ..... "Nimrod and, to a lesser extent, Sennacherib were popular figures in the exegetical traditions of late antiquity. The bried passages describing them in the Bible served as a starting point for wide-ranging analysis and speculation by Jewish and Christian scholars. Their position in the Qardagh legend is suggestive of the way in which memories of ancient Assyria were reinterpreted through the prisms of exegesis and folklore." Joel Thomas Walker The Legend of Mar Qardagh: Narrative and Christian Heroism in Late Antique Iraq page 248 "The veneration of Mar Qardagh offers an intriguing case study in the origin and evolution of an East-Syrian martyr cult. This investigation requires looking deep into the pre Christian history of Melqi, the anceint shrine near Arbela that hosted the annual festival of Mar Qardagh. Qardagh's hagiographer [250 years after the events in question] introduces his hero as coming from "the stock of the kingdom of the Assyrians", the descendant via his father of the "renowned linaged of the house of Nimrod" and via his mother of the "renowned linage of the house of Sennacherib". While the royal "Assyrian" linage has attracted the notice of several previous commentators, this chapter introduces new evidence for its significance by demonstrating that the laste Sasanian buildings at Melqi stood directly over the ruins of a major Neo-Assyrian temple, the akitu-shrine of the goddess Ishtar of Arbela. Cuneiform documents of the nintth-seventh centuries B.C.E." page 249 "The Christian storytellers who created the Qardagh legend knew only that the fortress on top of the tell at Melqi had been built by a powerful hero of royal 'Assyrian' linage." page 253 "The Christian literary sources are thus of particular importance and must be interpreted carefully. On the basis of a single martyr narrative, it has reventlu been argued that the Ishtar temple of Arbela "probably flourished intil the fourth century A.D", But the text in question, the East-Syrian Acts of Aithalaha the (Pagan) Priest and Hafsai the Prient, is fiction molded upon the earlier martyr literature from Edessa. The paucity of reliable literary texts and archaeology on pre-Sasanian Adiabene amplifies the need to weigh carefull the images preserved in the Qardagh legend." page 277 "The anonymous History of Mar Qardagh introduces a hero of royal "Assyria" ancestry, decendended from the "renowned lineages" of Sennacherib and Nimrod. The ledgend also explains how Christians began to worship and to trade beneath the tell at Melqi. The following chronology, while strictly provisional. outlines the process of Christianization: Stage 1. The Neo-Assyrian cult site Milqia was resettled at an indeterminate time during the Sasanian period. A fortress was built on top of the mound created by earlier phases of occupation. A Zoroastrian fire temple was apparently built at the base of the tell, and an annual six-day market was convended at the site. Stage 2. Beginning ca 500 Christian visitors to the annual market at Melqi developed stories a regional Sasanian official (marzban) who built the fortress and later converted to Christianity, It is possible that these stories Stage 3. An anonymous hagiographer, writing ca 600-630, molded the Qardagh legend into a single, coherent, and polished narrative, the History of Mar Qardagh." ..... p 14 "Joel Walker, in his recent book as well as in an article in the journal ARAM, suggests that, however “reinterpreted through the prisms of exegesis and folklore”, there were “memories of ancient Assyria” within the Christian community of the later Sasanian Empire. Walker’s work focuses on the Legend of Mar Qardagh, a perhaps early seventh century martyr text whose cult site at Melqi, an unknown site outside of Arbela, seems to have been the important Neo-Assyrian site of Milqia, where the akitu temple of the goddess, Ishtar of Arbela, stood. Based on the suggestion of Paul Peeters, Walker argues that “the Qardagh legend must have developed as a narrative that explained, for a Christian audience, how the tell at Melqi became a center for trade and religious observance.” "Corresponding to the spatial continuity of the Milqia/Melqi site is the connections the Legend of Mar Qardagh draws between its hero and the ancient Near East. In typical classical biographical style the text describes Qardagh’s lineage." "Now holy Mar Qardagh was from a great people (gens ) from the stock of the kingdom of the Assyrians (’ t r y ). His father was descended from the renowned lineage of the house of Nimrod, and his mother from the renowned lineage of the house of Sennacherib. And he was born of pagan parents lost in the error of Magianism." "Walker astutely goes through the place of Nimrod and Sennacherib in late antique, particularly Syriac, exegesis. Beyond this it is worth noting the popularity within the region as a whole of Nimrod, the primordial king of Genesis transformed in later tradition into a giant who persecuted Abraham. The Acts of Mar Mari, a text that purports to describe the origins of Christianity in the East but in" Page 16 "Another text that engages in the kind of “Assyrianizing” I am addressing is the Life of Mar Behnam, where Sennacherib, the Zoroastrian (!) king of Assyria, as well as his children convert to Christianity after miraculous healings." ..... "I suspect that parallels to the kind of scriptural self-localization that I have been discussing can also be found in Rabbinic sources, however, with one significant difference. In the opposite way, the Rabbis — no matter how many centuries Jews lived in Mesopotamia and however much the relationship between Palestine and Babylonia was renegotiated" Sr 76 (talk) 23:21, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

The false representation of Mar Behnam and Mar Qardah's assyrian identity was removed from this Assyrian People page, by myself(if i remember correctly). I added these references on the talk page to make sure people making edits to the page don't reinsert them on politically motivated grounds as is usually the case on this page. The explanation of why this section was collapsed is illogical and warrants further examination.

We see this same problem of Mar Behnam and Mar Qardah's appearing on other page such as:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar_Behnam
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar_Qardagh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinharib

Sr 76 (talk) 06:29, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Syrian/Syriac synonyms with Aramean

another thread veering off into exchange of personal ideological talking points.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Before anyone tries to "prove" how wrong I am on this read the whole section, especially the 7 Key notes at the bottom. DEFINITION "etymology": a chronological account of the birth and development of a particular word or element of a word, often delineating its spread from one language to another and its evolving changes in form and meaning. I added the above dictionary definition of the word etemology, because people like to throw this word around and dont really consider its impact. So when historians talk about the etymology of the word Syriac, they are referring to how the word originated only, this covers the words evolution from one meaning to another. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/etymology?s=t ORIGINS OF THE WORD SYRIAN (pre-reading before we deal with the Synonym issue) I have provided some sources from academics subscribing to the view that the word Syrian was derived from Assyrian, this etymological relationship between the two words was that they referred to the same people same AT FIRST, hence the derivation. This includes Robert Rollinger that has been the main protagonist in arguing the for the theory for the past few decades, where he also claims that he has settled the question of where the name Syrian/Syriac come from "once and for all". The word Syrian and Assyrian were synonyms and stipulate that this was reflected at only a given period during the inception of the word Syrian from Assyrian. Guy Bunnens - Essays on Syria in the iron age: Syria in the iron age - problems of definition page 4 "The term 'Syria', inseprable from the adjective 'Syrian', is therefore synonymous, at least originally, with 'Assyria'." .... page 6 Bunnens then question the logic of using a purely Symantec definition of 'Syria': "the Aramean invasion of the area and the foundation of the foundation of powerful and flourishing states in the Iron Age. Alt's great merit is to underline continuities in Syria's history and to have to show that apparent obstacles did not hamper the country's development as an autonomous entity. His enquiry impaired by the fact that he did not demonstrate the existence of any kind of internal logic within whatever notion is covered by the term 'Syria', that would explain the continuities he observed." ROBERT ROLLINGER, Journal of Near Eastern Studies: THE TERMS “ASSYRIA” AND “SYRIA” AGAIN page 283 "Since antiquity there has been a debate about whether there is a linguistic connection between the words 'Assyria' and 'Syria.' In 1617 John Selden suggested that the name 'Syria' is simply a corruption of 'Assyria'. Konrad Nöldeke restated this assumption in 1881 in a meticulous reexamination of the question. The results of Nöldeke’s study were generally received as authoritative. The debate, however, was kept alive in the following century. Eduard Schwartz examined some of the Classical authors’ statements in greater detail. and agreed with Nöldeke’s conclusions. Payton Helm, in his 1980 survey of the current state of the debate, reafirmed the conclusions of Nöldeke and Schwartz." page 284 "There were also slight differences concerning the original meaning of the terms “Assyria” and “Syria” in the Greek sources." page 287 "It also seems that these Greeks encountered “Sura/i” and “Asura/i” (by now the fully evolved equivalents for one and the same region) and rendered them in Greek as “Syria” and “Assyria.” These terms were used in subsequent centuries as interchangeable toponyms, although both terms also began to carry special connotations as was demonstrated by Nöldeke, Schwartz, and others. Since antiquity, scholars have both doubted and emphasized this relationship. It is the contention of this paper that the Çineköy inscription settles the problem once and for all." NOTE: Not only does Rollinger claim to have proven that the name 'Syrian' came from 'Assyrian' once and for all, he also claims they were used interchangeably with one another for a short period. Just like the statements by Brunnes. He then goes on to acknowledge and confirm Nöldeke and Schwartz: "From the time the Greeks came to have a more intimate acquaintance with Asia, they designated by the name "Syrians" the people who called themselves "Arameans". The main academic (Rollinger) arguing for the theory that the word Syrian was derived from Assyrian, suggests that the names were synonyms in ORIGIN (first couple of centuries) and then CONCURS WITH the idea (Nöldeke and Schwartz) that the name Syrian took on a different meaning, and BECAME A SYNONYM OF ARAMEAN. Keep in mind these are referring to a time prior to the Christian period and only from the European perspective, the Arameans themselves were still called themselves Arameans at that time. In other words just because the word Syrian/Syriac came from the word Assyrian, does not suggest the two words meant the same thing through out history ACADEMICS CONFIRMING THE SYNONYMITY OF SYRIAN AND ARAMEAN Theodor Noldeke, Compendious Syriac Grammar Page iv "From the time the Greeks came to have a more intimate acquaintance with Asia, they designated by the name 'Syrians' the people who called themselves 'Arameans'." Theodor Nöldeke, Assyrios Syrios Syros, in Zeitschrift für klassische Philologie, Hermes 5, Berlin 1871 page 460 "The main body of the population of all these wide landscapes from the Mediterranean Sea to beyond the Tigris belonged to a certain nationality, that of the Arameans." page 461 "It is well understandable that people have started to transfer the name of the country to the most important nationality and so the name 'syrian' was apprehended ethnological and was equated with 'aramaic'." page 468 "Since the times of Alexander [the Great], if not already somewhat earlier, people have started to transfer the name of the Syrians exclusively over the prevailing in Syria nationality, and in this way this originally political-geographical term became an ethnological one that was identified with the local Arameans." Theodor Noldeke, Die Namen der aramäischen Nation und Sprache,” in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 25 (1871) page 131 "Regarding the name of this nation and its language is the original 'Aramean’ in essence also the only one, that for the employment of the present-day scholarship as yet strongly fits.” Karl Eduard Sachau, Verzeichnis der Syrischen Handschriften der königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin von Eduard Sachau 1. Abteilung, Berlin 1899 Page i "The nation of the Arameans: This national name later, mainly in consequence of Jewish-Christian literature influences, gave way to the Greek designation Syrians." Prof. Dietrich Hermann Hegewisch, Die Aramäer oder Syrer; ein kleiner Beitrag zur allgemeinen Weltgeschichte, Berlinische Monatschrift, 2, 1794 page 193 "Do not the Syrians, as they are usually called, or the Arameans, as they in fact are termed, deserve more attention in world history than they are usually given?" page 197 "The names Syria, Assyria, Mesopotamia, Babylon, etc. stem from the Greeks, who were not familiar with the true geography of these lands when the names first started to be used. Later, partly because of continuing ignorance and partly because of convenience despite having accurate knowledge, they persisted in using them since it would have required something of an effort to give up the old, familiar names and divisions of the countries and switch to the new ones, even if they were more accurate. The old, true, and single name of these lands is Aram; it is mentioned numerous times in the Bible of the Old Testament, and Greek scholars were also familiar with it and probably described the population of these areas as Arameans, though seldom, as they usually continued to use the term Syrian, which had been familiar to the Greeks." page 307 "The Syrians or Arameans were not merely a numerous and large people, they were also a much cultivated people." Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, written between 1854 and 1856, Leipzig, by Theodor Mommsen, Book First Chapter One "the Arameans defended their nationality with the weapons of intellect as well as with their blood against all the allurements of Greek civilization and all the coercive measures of eastern and western despots, and that with an obstinacy which no Indo- Germanic people has ever equalled, and which to us who are Occidentals seems to be sometimes more, sometimes less, than human." S.P.Brock and J.F.Coakley, Syriac Heritage Encylopedic Dictionary page 31 "In many Syriac writers Aramoyo[Aramean] and Suryoyo [Syriac] are synonyms; normally this refers to the language, but on occasion they are used as alternate ethnic terms" Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard/Article/Aram-Nahrin--the-Aramaeans--the-Bible--Christianity--and-the-West/27211 "The Semitic Arameans ('not to be confused with "Armenians") underwent a change of name after they had embraced Christianity and were then called "Syrians", in order to be distinguished from the Arameans who were not converted. However, this should not be confused with the present-day Syrian Arabs." R.Zadok, "The Ethno-Linguistic Character of the Jezireh and Adjacent Regions in the 9th-7th centuries (Assyria Proper vs Periphery),"(1995) page 280 "These Arameans were presumably the forerunners of the sizable Syriac-speaking population of this region during the Byzantine and later periods" John Joseph, Assyria and Syria: Synonyms? page 37 "FIRST: WESTERN USAGE OF 'SYRIA' AND 'ASSYRIA': There was a time when the West [the Greeks], not fully familiar with the Near East, did not differentiate between Syria and Assyria, especially when the Assyrians were still in power. But as early as the fifth century B.C., about two centuries after the fall of Nineveh, Herodotus very clearly differentiated between the two terms and regions. Randolph Helm’s researches show that Herodotus “conscientiously” and “consistently” distinguished the names Syria and Assyria and used them independently of each other." page 38 "page he even speaks of “the long-accepted statement of Herodotus (7.63) that the Greeks called Assyrians by the name Syrian without initial a-.” On the following page he notes that Herodotus “may represent a turning point” in the separation of the two terms." ..... "When the Greeks became better acquainted with the Near East, especially after Alexander the Great overthrew the Achaemenian empire in the 4th century B.C., and then the Greeks and Romans ruled the region for centuries, they restricted the name Syria to the lands west of the Euphrates. During the 3rd century B.C., when the Hebrew bible was translated into the Greek Septuagint for the use of the Hellenized Jews of Alexandria, the terms Aramean and Aramaic of the Hebrew Bible were translated into 'Syrian' and 'the Syrian tongue' respectively." SYRIAC ARAMAIC EXAMPLES S.P.Brock and J.F.Coakley, Syriac Heritage Encylopedic Dictionary page 31 "Bardaisan is described as Suryoyo [Syrian] and Aramoyo [Aramean]" "Ya'qub of Edessa, in his 'Encheiridion' and elsewhere, speaks of 'we are Suryoye [Syriacs], or Aramoye [Arameans]'." "This equation [Syriac = Aramean] is further elaborated in Appendix II to Michael Rabo's [Michael the Syrians] Chronicle." (see the Dorothea Weltecke below for the actual Michael the Syrian's quote) Crone Cook, Hagarism page 196 "they [Nestorians or Eastern Syriacs] quite frequently speak of themselves and their language as Aramean" Dorothea Weltecke,Religious Origins of Nations?: The Christian Communities of the Middle East Page: 119 "Things become less clear when we try to decide his position concerning secular and ethnic identity. It is obvious that for Michael the ancient Near East had a very special importance. The ancient Near East recurred in the Chronicle. In the heading of his Appendix II Michael states: 'With the help of God we write down the memory of the kingdoms which belong in the past to our Aramean people, that is, sons of Aram, who are called Suryoye [Syriacs], this people from Syria'....This statement seems to be straightforward enough. But compared to other phrases, some contradictions arise. Following the work by Flavius Josephus (37-after 100 CE) through intermediaries, Michael explains the change of the name of ancient Near Eastern people end empires through the changes by the Greeks 'The Arameans were called Syrians by the Greeks and Oturoye were called Assyrians.' This statement is in accordance with the sentence just quoted." KEY NOTES FROM THE ABOVE: The significance of Syrian/Syriac synonymity to the word Aramean as opposed to the initial derivation of the word Syrian from Assyrian, is based on a number of fronts - 1) There will be people that will argue that the synonymity between the word Syrian and Aramean only applied to the Roman provence of Syria, as is currently stated on the 'Assyrian People' Wikipedia page, and that this does not implicate Mesopotamia. However this is just wishful thinking by the modern-Assyrians and is incorrect because as we have seen, from the above sources there has been examples directly from Mesopotamiaand as Noldeke has stated that it may have been used as geographical synonym it also became an ethnic synonym, completely eliminating that argument. We also see from the Septuagint (sources above) that the Hellenic Jews replaced location names like Aram-Nahrin (northern Mesopotamia) with Syria-Nahrin. Demonstrating that word Aramean was substituted for the word Syrian everywhere not just the Roman provence of Syria but also in Mesopotamia. 2) The initial Assyrian synonymitity was a Greek usage and at a time the Greeks were not familiar with the near-east. 3) This initial usage CHANGED shortly after the Greeks became familiar with the region. This usage ceased to exist. 4) The word Assyrian continued to be used in Greek and even when the word Syrian replaced the word Aramean. The word Assyrian stayed the same. For example: the word Assyrian was NOT replaced by the word Syrian in the Septigint and other Greek texts, only the word Aramean was. 5) The two words Syrian and Assyrian continued to coexist in the European languages for over 2500 years, despite sounding and being spelled almost identical to one another. The reason why both names coexisted is because they had two different meanings, if the two names referred to the same people one name would have absorbed the other, but they didn't. 6) The Arameans took on the name Syrian for themselves, during the Christian period, at a time when the name Syrian was used exclusively to refer to the Arameans. This is because of the Greek influences by closer political, cultural and religious relationships through the Christian churches. The Arameans knew the Greeks called them Syrians, and took on the word Suryoyo, which is the Aramaic form of the Greek word Syrian. 7) The Syrians/Syriacs themselves, during the Christian period, continually refer to their Aramean heritage and the synonymity between the words Syrian and Aramean. Point 6 - is very important FIRST PARTY SOURCES OF SYNONYMITY BETWEEN THE WORDS SYRIAN AND ARAMEAN I have included these to supplement the academic views above, for the purposes of this discussion (and I guess not for use on the page). I don't have time to find an academic reference to each of these. SYRIAC ARAMAIC EXAMPLES Paul Bedjan - Ecclesiastic History "Bar Daisan the Syrian".... "Bar Daisan the Aramean" Notice Bar Daisan is both Syrian and Aramean, NOT Assyrian. FYI Bar Daisan still sits on the Assyrian People page. St Jacob of Sruj (521AD), refering to St Ephram the Syriac: "became a crown of Glory for all the Aramean nation" Today St Ephram is called "the crown of the Syriacs", because of the synonymity between the words Syrian and Aramean Dionysius Jacob Bar Salibi 12th AD "As to us Syriacs we descend racially from Shem, and our father is Kemuel son of Aram, and from this name of Aram we are also called sometimes in the Books by the name of "Arameans." We are called "Syriacs" after the name of "Syrus," who built Antioch with its banlieue; and the country was called after him, "Syria". "The name Syriac [Suryoyo] is derived from Syrus who ruled in Antioch, and Syria was named after him. We are the sons of Aram we were called Arameans" St Ephrem the Syrian 306AD - 373AD "Aram-Nahrin our country" "From Hebrews and Arameans, and also from the Watchers: to You be praise and through You to Your Father, be also glory!" "The Arameans praised him with their branches" "But the Philosopher of the Arameans (i.e. Bardaisan) made himself a laughing-stock among Arameans and Greeks" thought to be St Ephram "and from Adam until the present time they were all of one speech and one language. They all spake this language, that is to say Syriac, which is Aramaic, and this language is the king of all languages. Now, ancient writers have erred in that they said that Hebrew was the first [language], and in this matter they have mingled an ignorant mistake in their writing. For all the languages that are in the world are derived from Syriac, and all the languages in books are mingled with it." Severious of Antioch 465AD - 538AD "It is in this way we the Arameans, that is to say Syriacs..." Chronicle of Zuqnin 504AD-505AD "As for the people who married (Syriac) women, sired Syriac children, and mixed with the Syriacs, and whom no one was able to distinguish from the Arameans, he quickly found out about them." Gregorios Bar Hebraeus born 1226AD - 1286AD "You have not corrupted me in the barbaric, pagan astrology, but [instead] You have brought me to the eloquent Aramean-Syriac nation." "From Aram, that is Syria, we are saying Aramean [...], that is to say Syriac and from Aram, which is Harran, the city of the pagans, we are saying pagan" Eastern Writers Yeshudad Bishop of Hadeetha 835AD "The Greek translation calls all Aram and Arameans 'Syrians'. Consequently Aram becomes the father of the Syriacs. For this reason, those living in Mesopotamia were called Arameans" ANCIENT GREEK EXAMPLES Strabo 63DC - 24AD "the people which the Greeks call Syrians call themselves Arameans" Poseidonios from Apamea (ca. 135 BC - 51 BC) "The people we Greek call Syriacs, they call themselves Arameans" Xenophon 430BC - 354BC "The king of the Assyrians subjected the Syrians [refering to the Arameans]" JEWISH EXAMPLES The Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament): With very few exceptions the word Aram was replaced with the word Syria, and the word Aramean was replaced with the word Syrian/Syriac. The name Assyrian was not changed Flavius Josephus (37AD – 100 AD) "Aram had the Arameans, which the Greeks called Syriacs." Eusebius of Caesarea (275AD – 339AD) "and from Aram the Arameans, which are also called Syriacs" ARAB EXAMPLES Abu Al-husayn 895AD - 957AD "Tur Abdin is the mountain where remnants of the Aramean Syriacs still survive." Hasan Bar Bahlul 963AD "Surus killed his brother and ruled in Mesopotamia, and his country was called Syria, in early times, we were called Arameans but when Surus ruled, the inhabitants of the country began to be called Suryoye (Syriacs)" Sr 76 (talk) 02:21, 14 April 2015 (UTC) @Suryoyo124: you may be able to add a few more examples.Sr 76 (talk) 02:50, 14 April 2015 (UTC) These are rather controversial conclusion, Sr 76. Both Rollinger and Bunnens confirm them as synonyms. Your interpretation of "centuries" as "a short period" is kind of strange. Where is the so called switch explained? "Syrians" was used for Assyrians, Arameans - and others too. In Richard N. Frye's "Assyria and Syria: Synonyms", he mentions several examples of "Assyrian" and "Syrians" as synonyms; "The use of both terms, with and without a-. is found in writings of authors living to the west of the Euphrates. In the 2nd century A.D., the satirist Lucian of Samosata reputedly wrote a book in Greek De Syria Dea [The Syrian goddess], which has survived. It contains interesting passages relevant to the usage of the terms "Syrian" and "Assyrian." The author says (par. 1): "I who write (this) am Assyrian." Later (par.11), he says, "he calls the people of Syria by the term Assyrian," and (par. 15), "he came to Syria, but the people beyond the Euphrates did not receive him" (cf. also pars. 23 and 59)" "Macrobius, a writer of the 5th century and a pagan, wrote a book called Saturnalia which recalled antiquity and themes of Virgil in reaction against the Christian spirit of his day. In this book (1.23.14-16), he speaks of the cult in which the Assyrii (i.e., Syrians) dedicated offerings to the sun in the village of Heliopolis (modern Baalbek). This off-hand usage of Assyrian for Syrian by Macrobius indicates that the two forms, with and without a-, were in use, even for inhabitants of the baqaC Valley in modern Lebanon." "The Carmelites in Iran, much later in the 17th century, were also not consistent in their usage of the terms "Syrian" and "Assyrian." We find in their writings the terms "Jacobite Syrian," "Eastern Assyrian," "Chaldaean," "Syrian," and Assyrian.l4 One may say that the words were used almost interchangeably, and the assertion by some that the word "Assyrian" was a creation of Westerners in the eighteenth or 19th century is surely incorrect.l5" Regarding the later Greek distinguishing between "Assyria" and "Syria" that you mention, he writes this: "At some point, however, the Greeks began to distinguish between Syria=the Levant and Assyria=Mesopotamia, and Herodotus may represent a turning point in this separation. After him, the separate designations continued in use until the time of the Romans and to the present in the West. The Romans made a Roman province of Syria with its capital at Antioch under Pompey in 62 B.C. By Byzantine times, the use of the word "Syrian" had expanded such that in writings of western Europe before the Arab conquests the subjects of the entire Byzantine Empire were, at times, called Syrians." In Parpola's "Assyrian Identity in Ancient Times and Today" Table II (based on Nöldeke 1871) shows how some authors used Assyria(ns) and Syria(ns) as synonyms during the centuries. Parpola has some views on this too, but what does it matter when you dismiss his works as nonsense every time (even though people as Hayim Tadmor, frequently quoted by you, worked together and used many of Parpolas work). I have a question here too, when Nöldeke is talking about "this nation", isn't he refering to the ancient Arameans, which I guess "Die Namen der aramäischen Nation und Sprache" is about? I would like to add that the so called "Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis" is nothing but a self-proclaimed scholar. Shmayo (talk) 14:43, 14 April 2015 (UTC) Thank you @Shmayo, As I wrote numerous times, both Rollinger and Bunnens with others considered the terms Syrian and Assyrian as synonyms, initially. They also acknowledge this changed. This change is mentioned in the sources i provided a number of times, including Rollinger. Actually the views above are NOT controversial , they are the concunsus. It is Richard Frye's views that are controversial and he has been criticized for it in academic works including J.Joseph's. Richard Frye the Iranialogist that married a modern-Assyrian Eden Nebbi, he has a tenancy to dissect certain bits of information and feed this to the modern-Assyrians as support. Unlike Parpola, Frye has not gone as far as to write that the modern-Assyrians are the descendants of the ancient-Assyrians, he simply throws them a tid-bits here and there to allow the modern-Assyrians to form their own far-fetched conclusions. For example, In Frye's paper "Assyria and Syria: Synonyms": 1) He started "the Assyrians ATTEMPTED to assimulate the Arameans...". However made no mention of the fact that the Assyrians were not successful in their attempt to assimilate the Arameans. Til this day modern-Assyrians incorrectly claim the Assyrians assimilated the Arameans. 2) He writes that the Armenians (not to be confused with Arameans) called the Syriacs, "Asori". But leaves out the part that Armenian word for Assyrian is "Asorestants’i" and hence defining the "Asori" different to "Asorestants’i". Til this day modern-Assyrian incorrectly claim the Armenian word "Asori" means Assyrian. 3) Macrobius, we have already dealt with the issues of the Greek and Roman usage during the Christian period. 4) The Carmelites??? Some obscure tribe in Iran? Your ancestors started calling themselves Suryoye (Syriac) because of centuries of Greek/Roman political, religious and cultural influence. If the Carmelites "One may say that the words were used almost interchangeably", does that define you? Frye is not even committing to it: "One may say". Are the indigenous nations of North America, Indian? No, but the person that called them Indians had a cultural influence and that created an insensitive incorrect synonymity. The Carmelites didn't have a cultural influence, hence no Synonym. So far as Herodotus is concerned: Yes, Helm identified him as having distinction with the terms Syria and Assyria. This is mentioned in the sources I provided. Think about it @Shmayo, If Parpola is familiar with Nöldeke's work and still came up with the conclusion "the Arameans stopped calling themselves Arameans", then it is all the more reason why YOU should start dismissing Parpola's works. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis is an Associate Professor at the Somali International University (SIU) – Mogadishu Sr 76 (talk) 02:34, 15 April 2015 (UTC) Of course it's not the consensus, it's nothing but your own conclusions. Pro-Aramean Joesph's reply to Frye does not make it controversial. The reason for this publication was, as Frye writes in his reply, "in answer to the assertion that the word Syria was anancient Egyptian word and did not realize the hornets’ nest of modern Assyriandisputes which arose. I do stand by the last sentences of my article, with theadded observation that disputes over the use of the word Syrian/Assyrian remindsone of the disputes by Western Christian theologians in the Middle Ages over thenumber of angels who could dance on a pin point". Here is his reply, if you have not read it already. The above quotes by Frye proves the already obvious, that Syrian and Assyrian have been used as synonyms. The four points above are your own thoughts. And yes, this have changed, a multiple of times too. Frye did describe this too, see the last quote above. Just as Syria(n) refer to something different today. To claim that it was used "exclusively to refer to the Arameans" (which was the switch I was asking for above) is absurd. As Frye wrote: "By Byzantine times, the use of the word "Syrian" had expanded such that in writings of western Europe before the Arab conquests the subjects of the entire Byzantine Empire were, at times, called Syrians". Shmayo (talk) 16:32, 15 April 2015 (UTC) You're not being realistic, it's like you are arguing for the sake of arguing. I provided 16 references from 8 different academics. You provided 1, with his biases. Not only do my sources refer to the consensus between one another, that Syriac is a synonym for Aramean. They also refer to the consensus among ancient Syriac writers that Syriac is a synonym for Aramean. Further more, from the sources: - The Greeks derived the name Syriac - They then applied it exclusively to the people that called themselves Arameans - Your ancestors knew the Greeks called them Syriacs - Your ancestors then took this Greek term Syriac and applied to themselves - Your ancestors continually referred to the Synonymity of the word Syriac and Aramean Then comes your reference: - some 1500 years later in the 17th century AD, some little know tribe from Iran called the Carmelites with no influence, MAY have used the term Syriac and Assyrian interchangeably. Your ancestors took the name Syriac from the Greeks some time in the early centuries of Christianity, NOT the Carmelites in the 17th century AD. So even if Frye is correct, it has nothing to do with you and your ancestors. If you have a problem with the use of the term "exclusively", that's fine. Because that was only the perspective of the Greeks, the Romans, the Jews, the Syriac Arameans and pretty much everyone else that mattered. You can have the Carmelites in the 17thC A.D. Sr 76 (talk) 04:29, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Reworked: Just Quotes from academics:

ACADEMICS CONFIRMING THE SYNONYMITY OF SYRIAN AND ARAMEAN

Theodor Noldeke, Compendious Syriac Grammar
Page iv
"From the time the Greeks came to have a more intimate acquaintance with Asia, they designated by the name 'Syrians' the people who called themselves 'Arameans'."

Theodor Nöldeke, Assyrios Syrios Syros, in Zeitschrift für klassische Philologie, Hermes 5, Berlin 1871
page 460
"The main body of the population of all these wide landscapes from the Mediterranean Sea to beyond the Tigris belonged to a certain nationality, that of the Arameans."
page 461
"It is well understandable that people have started to transfer the name of the country to the most important nationality and so the name 'syrian' was apprehended ethnological and was equated with 'aramaic'."
page 468
"Since the times of Alexander [the Great], if not already somewhat earlier, people have started to transfer the name of the Syrians exclusively over the prevailing in Syria nationality, and in this way this originally political-geographical term became an ethnological one that was identified with the local Arameans."

Theodor Noldeke, Die Namen der aramäischen Nation und Sprache,” in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 25 (1871) page 131
"Regarding the name of this nation and its language is the original 'Aramean’ in essence also the only one, that for the employment of the present-day scholarship as yet strongly fits.”

Karl Eduard Sachau, Verzeichnis der Syrischen Handschriften der königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin von Eduard Sachau 1. Abteilung, Berlin 1899
Page i
"The nation of the Arameans: This national name later, mainly in consequence of Jewish-Christian literature influences, gave way to the Greek designation Syrians."

Prof. Dietrich Hermann Hegewisch, Die Aramäer oder Syrer; ein kleiner Beitrag zur allgemeinen Weltgeschichte, Berlinische Monatschrift, 2, 1794
page 193
"Do not the Syrians, as they are usually called, or the Arameans, as they in fact are termed, deserve more attention in world history than they are usually given?"
page 197
"The names Syria, Assyria, Mesopotamia, Babylon, etc. stem from the Greeks, who were not familiar with the true geography of these lands when the names first started to be used. Later, partly because of continuing ignorance and partly because of convenience despite having accurate knowledge, they persisted in using them since it would have required something of an effort to give up the old, familiar names and divisions of the countries and switch to the new ones, even if they were more accurate. The old, true, and single name of these lands is Aram; it is mentioned numerous times in the Bible of the Old Testament, and Greek scholars were also familiar with it and probably described the population of these areas as Arameans, though seldom, as they usually continued to use the term Syrian, which had been familiar to the Greeks."
page 307
"The Syrians or Arameans were not merely a numerous and large people, they were also a much cultivated people."

Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, written between 1854 and 1856, Leipzig, by Theodor Mommsen, Book First
Chapter One
"the Arameans defended their nationality with the weapons of intellect as well as with their blood against all the allurements of Greek civilization and all the coercive measures of eastern and western despots, and that with an obstinacy which no Indo- Germanic people has ever equalled, and which to us who are Occidentals seems to be sometimes more, sometimes less, than human."

S.P.Brock and J.F.Coakley, Syriac Heritage Encylopedic Dictionary
page 31
"In many Syriac writers Aramoyo[Aramean] and Suryoyo [Syriac] are synonyms; normally this refers to the language, but on occasion they are used as alternate ethnic terms"

Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard/Article/Aram-Nahrin--the-Aramaeans--the-Bible--Christianity--and-the-West/27211
"The Semitic Arameans ('not to be confused with "Armenians") underwent a change of name after they had embraced Christianity and were then called "Syrians", in order to be distinguished from the Arameans who were not converted. However, this should not be confused with the present-day Syrian Arabs."

R.Zadok, "The Ethno-Linguistic Character of the Jezireh and Adjacent Regions in the 9th-7th centuries (Assyria Proper vs Periphery),"(1995)
page 280
"These Arameans were presumably the forerunners of the sizable Syriac-speaking population of this region during the Byzantine and later periods"

John Joseph, Assyria and Syria: Synonyms?
page 37
"FIRST: WESTERN USAGE OF 'SYRIA' AND 'ASSYRIA': There was a time when the West [the Greeks], not fully familiar with the Near East, did not differentiate between Syria and Assyria, especially when the Assyrians were still in power. But as early as the fifth century B.C., about two centuries after the fall of Nineveh, Herodotus very clearly differentiated between the two terms and regions. Randolph Helm’s researches show that Herodotus “conscientiously” and “consistently” distinguished the names Syria and Assyria and used them independently of each other."

page 38
"page he even speaks of “the long-accepted statement of Herodotus (7.63) that the Greeks called Assyrians by the name Syrian without initial a-.” On the following page he notes that Herodotus “may represent a turning point” in the separation of the two terms."
.....
"When the Greeks became better acquainted with the Near East, especially after Alexander the Great overthrew the Achaemenian empire in the 4th century B.C., and then the Greeks and Romans ruled the region for centuries, they restricted the name Syria to the lands west of the Euphrates. During the 3rd century B.C., when the Hebrew bible was translated into the Greek Septuagint for the use of the Hellenized Jews of Alexandria, the terms Aramean and Aramaic of the Hebrew Bible were translated into 'Syrian' and 'the Syrian tongue' respectively."

SYRIAC ARAMAIC EXAMPLES

S.P.Brock and J.F.Coakley, Syriac Heritage Encylopedic Dictionary
page 31
"Bardaisan is described as Suryoyo [Syrian] and Aramoyo [Aramean]"
"Ya'qub of Edessa, in his 'Encheiridion' and elsewhere, speaks of 'we are Suryoye [Syriacs], or Aramoye [Arameans]'."
"This equation [Syriac = Aramean] is further elaborated in Appendix II to Michael Rabo's [Michael the Syrians] Chronicle."
(see the Dorothea Weltecke below for the actual Michael the Syrian's quote)

Crone Cook, Hagarism
page 196
"they [Nestorians or Eastern Syriacs] quite frequently speak of themselves and their language as Aramean"

Dorothea Weltecke,Religious Origins of Nations?: The Christian Communities of the Middle East
Page: 119
"Things become less clear when we try to decide his position concerning secular and ethnic identity. It is obvious that for Michael the ancient Near East had a very special importance. The ancient Near East recurred in the Chronicle. In the heading of his Appendix II Michael states: 'With the help of God we write down the memory of the kingdoms which belong in the past to our Aramean people, that is, sons of Aram, who are called Suryoye [Syriacs], this people from Syria'....This statement seems to be straightforward enough. But compared to other phrases, some contradictions arise. Following the work by Flavius Josephus (37-after 100 CE) through intermediaries, Michael explains the change of the name of ancient Near Eastern people end empires through the changes by the Greeks 'The Arameans were called Syrians by the Greeks and Oturoye were called Assyrians.' This statement is in accordance with the sentence just quoted." Sr 76 (talk) 06:13, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Jumping to Assyrian People

I just search for "Syriac People" and it jumped to "Assyrian People", why is it doing this???!! --ArameanSyriac (talk) 11:55, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes it's wrong, it needs to change. --ZhangFeii (talk) 13:05, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

@ArameanSyriac I advise you to take a look into the archives of the Assyrian people and Syriac people articles on Wikipedia and you will notice that this mess occurred due to poor administration of some Wikipedia admins here who are not familiar with this topic. They gave a certain group of Syriac Christians a free pass to spread their ideological agenda and got backing from most Wikipedia admins. Where is the neutrality of those admins here!? They don't even bother to fix this mess. German Wikipedia fixed this problem by creating identity articles rather than ethnicity articles. This means that you would have articles about the modern Assyrians "Assyrians (present)" and about the ancient pre-Christian nation called "Assyrians". The current Assyrian people article reflects the idea of Assyrian ideology, where only members of the Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church and Syriac Catholic Church are part of their "Assyrian" nation with the idea to be the descendants of the ancient Assyro-Akkadian nation. The Syriac-Arameans disagree with them on that and reject the Assyrianization of their Aramean heritage. Most Syriac-Aramean articles were either removed, falsified or redirected to the Assyrian people article, because of alleged content fork. Interestingly none of the Syriac-Aramean content of the Syriac people page was accommodated to this page, so much for the content fork claim by the Assyrian fraction and the Wikipedia admins. I am wondering when the admins will redirect Christianity and Judaism to the Islam article. The name or ethnicity conflict is a serious problem, but to ignore the Syriac-Aramean people totally and by giving the Assyrians more credit than other Syriac Christians is the wrong way to solve this problem on Wikipedia at least.--Suryoyo124 (talk) 13:50, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

@Suryoyo124: But don't they realize how wrong this is? what can be done about it? I have read the page it's just Assyrian nationalism there is no real information Syrius777 (talk) 06:32, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

@Syrius777 We need more Wikipedians to get involved into this topic and especially neutral admins. Last year in December, we have tried to find a solution, but only a few people were involved into this discussion. Ironically the discussion was led by one of the admins who is responsible for this mess and the redirection of the Syriac (Aramean) people article to the Assyrian people article without a valid reason. Why is there a WikiProjectAssyria, instead of a WikiProjectArameans or WikiProjectChaldeans? I mean their name and so called ethnicity is not less disputed. Why do they have a higher status on English Wikipedia in comparison to other Syriac Christians? Like I said many, many times before, this is not a simple name conflict among the Syriac Christians about which group has the nicest sounding name. People need to understand that Syriac-Arameans and Assyrians have a !fundamental! different point of view of defining their ethnicity/nation, so that it would be inaccurate to call an Aramean 'Assyrian' or an Assyrian 'Aramean'. German Wikipedia fixed this problem by creating identity group articles (Assyrer (Gegenwart) and Aramäer (Christentum)), instead of following a certain ideology, even though Syriac Christians, including the Assyrians and Chaldeans, are commonly known as Aramäer (Arameans) in Germany. You can use both names on German Wikipedia, because German Wikipedia distinguishes between modern Arameans and Assyrians and the ancient pre-Christian nations.--Suryoyo124 (talk) 14:16, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

The assyrians are just a political creation, they are Syriac Arameans. The whole assyrian history is just a bad story from the british. Iphoneonderdeel (talk) 11:58, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

@Suryoyo124:Why more people? Why would more people being involved fix this? Syrius777 (talk) 14:13, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

More people will not really help, they will just end up getting blocked because they don't understand the Wikipedia rules and Wiki-Admin are just tired of this issue. The reality is in the hands of the Wikipedia Administrators to correct the issue. They know the sources are lacking and most of the content is simply false.

My original solution was to have Aramean People page and Assyrian People page and Chaldean People Page referring to the modern-Day Arameans/Assyrians/Chaldeans. With the ancient pages separate. Now I am thinking since there was a consensus at the time to keep them on the one page and change the name of the page to accommodate all the appellations appropriately.Sr 76 (talk) 06:11, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

First of all, Aram is equivalent to Syria; Syria is what the Greeks called Aram. Some Bible translations choose one or the other; I tend to use both designations. Many Bibles also tend to sometimes use one, and then sometimes use the other, even though they are translating the same exact word (e.g., the ESV, LITV, KJV, etc). In fact, there are surprisingly few English translations which maintain some consistency here (Young’s translation does, as we would expect; as well as the BBE, ECB, ERV, God’s Word™, HCSB, etc.). The Complete Apostles Bible, which is a translation from the Greek, consistently has Syria rather than Aram (which makes sense, as Syria is the Greek word for Aram). In the original Hebrew text and Aramaic text, there is no word which can be transliterated Syria; only Aram.

User:Caliph Ibrahim Caliph el Muslemin Caliph el Muslemin — Preceding undated comment added 15:38, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 31 May 2015

I can't believe how the Assyrian movement has made this possible in just 50 years since the diaspora.. We are all Arameans and have nothing to do with the old Assyrians from the bible. Check all the academic sources like the work of Prof. S. Brock. Syriac have to be Arameans. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.160.223.204 (talk) 18:36, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Assyrian vs. Syrian naming controversy

According to Syriac Orthodox Church (1), unlike “Assyrianism”, the Aramaean-Syriac identity is an outcome of a living civilization that is represented by people with an identity, culture and active spoken language. Whereas “Assyrianism” artifically emerged in 1836 in Iraq, and has no living language or other cultural artefacts.(2)

It must be noted that already in 1871 the renown Prof. Th. Nöldeke(3) asserted that the only correct name for the Syriac people and their language/culture is ‘Aramean/Aramaic’. For ‘Syria(ns)’ is indeed, as Nöldeke pointed out, originally a Greek loanword that denotes the Aramaic name ‘Aram(eans)’. The significance of the Aramean people to the world was noted by [x] who stated “The Greeks and Romans knew the Near East mainly through the Arameans, for it was they who united and canalized the sources of its culture, bringing together Babylonian, Persian and Hebrew elements and transmitting them to Christianity, and with Christianity to the West. From the West, at a later date, the Arameans [sc. Syriac-Orthodox & ‘Nestorians’] were to bring to the East Greek culture, especially philosophy, which became known to the Arabs through the medium of Aramaic.”(4)

1. http://www.adiyamanmetropolitligi.org/default.asp

2. http://www.suryaniler.com/suryani-tarihi.asp?id=31

3. T. Nöldeke, “Die Namen der aramäischen Nation und Sprache,” in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 25 (1871), p. 131: “Von den Namen dieser Nation und ihrer Sprache ist im Grunde der ursprüngliche ‘aramäisch’ auch der einzige, der noch für den Gebrauch der heutigen Wissenschaft streng passt.” English translation: “Regarding the name of this nation and its language is the original ‘Aramean’ in essence also the only one [sic], that for the employment of the present-day scholarship as yet strongly fits.”

4 S. Moscati, Ancient Semitic Civilizations (New York, 1957), p. 179.

Yamansert (talk) 11:52, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

 Not done, obviously tendentious and based on poor sources. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:03, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Warning: Rules for this page

Re-posting this. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:34, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

This article has been a cesspit of some of the most ridiculous ethnic tendentious editing for years and years, from all sides of this sorry mess of an ideological conflict. This needs to stop. I will therefore be applying a new set of administrative rules here, with a zero tolerance approach to tendentious editing:

1. Any editor making substantial content changes in the article that have the potential of being contentious, without discussing and explaining them on the talkpage beforehand, will be blocked.
2. Any editor reverting another editor without explaining the need for the revert on the talkpage beforehand (with the exception of cases of plain and obvious vandalism), will be blocked.
3. Any editor calling another's edits "vandalism" when they are not will be blocked.
4. Any editor who makes edits in the article that are obviously aimed at giving preferential treatment to one of the ideological parties or terminological preferences involved (pro-"Assyrian", pro-"Aramaean" etc.) or at bolstering up historical claims associated with such preferences, will be blocked.
5. Any editor misusing the talkpage for any form of argument about which of these ideological positions is "correct" or about his own opinions regarding their ethnic identity, will be blocked. The only thing everybody is expected to use the talkpage for is to discuss how this group and its history are described in high-quality, neutral reliable sources, and how the article should be changed so that it reflects those sources.

Please pay special attention to this last point, as pretty much everybody has been abusing the talkpages for those kind of arguments in the past.

Any such blocks will be imposed immediately, without further individual warnings, for periods no shorter than two weeks on a first offence, and regardless of whether an editor is experienced or new. You have been warned.

That said, the article clearly needs to change, as it is currently quite obviously written from a tendentious perspective. To get the ball rolling, I will myself make a start by entirely removing the "Assyrian continuity" section, which appears to be one of the most tendentious bits and whose sourcing is abysmal. This is a somewhat uncommon thing for an administrator to do, but given the special history of this article and the long-term well-documented inability of its habitual editors to maintain a constructive and encyclopedic editing debate on this topic, I believe it is justified and will not change my status as an uninvolved and neutral administrator. (Which means I also reserve the right to block editors should they reinsert it, as I would consider such an edit a clear violation of principle 4 above. Material about the idea of an "Assyrian continuity" may ultimately be reincluded, if and when the overall NPOV profile of the article has been fixed and a policy-based WP:CONSENSUS for the appropriateness of such material has been established; not earlier.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:30, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

@Future Perfect at Sunrise: Can I get an explanation of why the section "Legends Mythology used as historical evidence to promote notions of Assyrian Continuity" was collapsed?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Assyrian_people#Legends.2FMythology_used_as_historical_evidence_to_promote_notions_of_Assyrian_Continuity

The explanation given does not make any sense...."another thread veering off into exchange of personal ideological talking points." it could not of possible been the case, since there was only my single post in the section. It could not have been an "exchange" nor "veering off", and the rest of the edit was in complete compliance with the Rules.

Sr 76 (talk) 13:27, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Bilingual Dictionary Definitions of the words Syriac and Assyrian

Dictionary definitions of the Term Suryoyo (ܣܘܪܝܐ / ܣܘܪܝܝܐ)

S.J Louis Costaz, Dictionnaire Syriaque-Francis, Syriac-English Dictionary:
Suryoyo/Suroyo (ܣܘܪܝܐ / ܣܘܪܝܝܐ) Syrien, Syriaque [in French], Syrian, Syriac [in English]

D.D.J Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible:
Syria/ Syrians – See Aram, Arameans.

R. Payne Smith, A Compendious Syriac Dictionary
ܣܘܪܝܝܐ (Suryoyo) a) Syrian, Palestinian, Chaldeans i.e. ancient Syrians. b) Syriac.

Margoliouth Dictionary:
ܣܘܪܝܝܐ: a) a Syrian Palestinian b) Syriac, the Syriac version

Zitoun, Bukhro English Syriac Dictionary:
Syriac (ܣܘܪܝܐ / ܣܘܪܝܝܐ) Suryoyo, Syrian (ܣܘܪܝܐ / ܣܘܪܝܝܐ) Suryoyo

Eugine Manna Syriac Arabic Dictionary:
ܣܘܪܝܝܐ (Suryoyo): Suryani Arami (Syriac Aramean)

Dictionary definitions of the Term Ashuroyo (ܐܬܘܪܝܐ)

Zitoun, Bukhro English Syriac Dictionary:
Assyrian (ܐܬܘܪܝܐ) Othuroyo

Margoliouth Dictionary:
ܐܬܘܪܝܐ (Othur) Assyrians
ܐܬܘܪܝ (Othur) Region of Assyria
ܐܬܘܪܝܘܬܐ (Othuroyotho) Assyrianism

Sr 76 (talk) 06:39, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Edit Request on 25 June 2015

•  Not done Please note that no renaming of this article is going to happen without a formal WP:RM process and a clear consensus based on valid reliable sources. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:14, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Resolving the long running issue of edit-warring and disputes and references and the page content will be consistent the academic consensus.

Solution
Change the name of the article to the following:
"Syriac People (Arameans, Assyrians, Chaldeans)"

This will page will refer to the common Christian period leaving all political POVs ambiguous from their ancient namesakes. Leaving the "Arameans" page, "Assyrians" page and "Chaldeans" page to refer to the ancient peoples. None of these groups can deny their Syriac identity, if they did they would need to forgo 2000 years of heritage.

The page should reflect on the common name (Syriac) that is not contentious, but then refer and explain the 3 current politically-national designations that all happen to be labeled based on the ancient names.

Currently the page name Assyrian is not only disputed but is the reflection of the ONE political ideal. That leads to offence and disputes and to put it simply it is historically incorrect. Please see the below link of what the name Suryoyo actually translates to in the European languages:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Assyrian_people#Bilingual_Dictionary_Definitions_of_the_words_Syriac_and_Assyrian

Time line of existing appellations

Ancient Period: ancient names regardless of historical and political persuasion are: Arameans/Assyrians/Chaldeans
Christian Period: Syriac
Modern Period:
1600s Vatican give the break-away group from the Nestorians the title "Chaldeans" as a religious designation. (They continue to called themselves Suraya - Syriac)
1860s introduction of the name Assyrian (They continue to called themselves Suraya - Syriac)
1950s regenesis of the name Aramean as a means to combat Assyrianism, the name Aramean was mainly considered a Synonym for many Syriac scholars (They continue to called themselves Suryoyo - Syriac)

Reasoning
The name Syriac (Suryoyo) is accepted by all the Arameans, Assyrians and Chaldeans.
All Christian Churches from the near east trace their origins to Syriac tradition including the Maronites (how can people that far west be Assyrian's?), all have a Syriac Aramaic liturgy.

Syriac avoids the complex historical issues and the problem of people promoting their own political ideologies. Since every ideology does not deny the Syriac identity. What an individual considers his ancient ancestors becomes irrelevant, since the term Syriac only came to be used by the Syriacs themselves during the Christian period. Naming the page Syriac People (Arameans/Assyrians/Chaldeans) causes little historical contention. This also makes finding sources and references for the page very simple and compliant with the academic consensus.

Right now, none of the page has any valid sources, because Assyrian history since the fall of Ninveh in 615BC (from the perspective of the modern-Assyrians) was simply made up by the modern-Assyrians that got their name in the 19th cenurty.

Calling the page "Syriac People (Arameans, Assyrians, Chaldeans)" is verifiable, Non Original research and Neural view point.

Calling the page "Assyrian People" falls short on all fronts is NOT-verifiable, NOT-Non Original research and NOT-Neural view point. All violations of the Wikipedia naming protocols

Changing the name to "Syriac People (Arameans, Assyrians, Chaldeans)" would comply with the following:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Article_titles#Deciding_on_an_article_title
Recognizability – The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize.
Naturalness – The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English.
Precision – The title unambiguously identifies the article's subject and distinguishes it from other subjects.
Conciseness – The title is no longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects.
Consistency – The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles.

Current Ambiguity.
The page being called Assyrian people does not distinguish between the modern-Assyrians and the ancient-Assyrians, naturally this happens to be the ideological agenda of the modern-Assyrians.

The current academic consensus considers the modern-Assyrian identity to be introduced by Western Missionaries during the 19th century A.D and any ancestral connection between the two, to be "hog wash".
The widely criticized Simon Parpola is the "only academic" that supports the claims of the modern-Assyrian's ancestry, please see the following sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Assyrian_people/Archive_14#Origin.27s_of_today.27s_Assyrian_Identity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Assyrian_people/Archive_14#Reference_-_Simon_Parpola

The Synonymity issue becomes a void argument.

Weather synonymity of the word Syriac is with Aramean (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Assyrian_people#Syrian.2FSyriac_synonyms_with_Aramean) or the word Syriac is Synonymous with Assyrian, with my proposal either answer becomes irrelevant. What do i mean by this:

If the Assyrians are correct, and word Syriac means Assyrian then the why would they object to the page being called Syriac People instead of Assyrian people? Any objection is politically driven.
If the Arameans are correct, and word Syriac means Aramean then the why would they object to the page being called Syriac People instead of Aramean people? Any objection is politically driven.

By doing this Wiki-Admin can easily identify ideological and political POVs being inserted into Wikipedia pages.

The St Ephram the Syrian example
St Ephram called the Assyrians "Filth".
He also refered to "our nation Aram-Nahrin".
His contenporaries called him "Aramean" and "the crown of the Arameans"

It is impossible to look up any refence that refers to St Ephram as an Assyrian and yet St Ephriam the Syrian is displayed on the Assyrian People page as an Assyrian. The ONLY way St Ephriam can be an Assyrian is to accomodate a political POV of the modern-Assyrians....that is: The current page.

Consistency with Academic Sources
Wikipedia has become inconsistent with the academic sources. Right now looking at Wikipeadia would send someone in a direction of complete confusion. Even the further reading section of the page, does not match the content of the page, the Saint Ephriam example above is a good example of this.

Sr 76 (talk) 09:30, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

I prefer Aramean because official translations translate the name Aram as Syrian (Syriac), but it is better to use the name Syriac because the two groups of Assyrians and Syriacs always make quarrel. Syriac sits between the two, and both use that name to identify themselves.

Caliph el Muslemin 13:55, 25 June 2015 (UTC) Caliph el Muslemin 13:55, 25 June 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Caliph Ibrahim (talk • contribs)

Changing the name to "Syriac people (Arameans, Assyrians, Chaldeans)" (Or simply Syriac people) would be a good choice or may be also the name "Syriac Christians (Arameans, Assyrians, Chaldeans)" (Or simply Syriac Christians) would be a good choice for an umbrella term in order to reflect their affiliation to the Syriac Christianity, and leave the pages for each group Arameans, Assyrians, Chaldeans separate without overlapping and putting together one group within another group's page. MaronitePride (talk) 22:56, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback @MaronitePride:, the separate pages did exist at one point: "Syriac People", "Assyrian People" and "Chaldean People". But the page Syriac People was removed, because of concerns of a content fork. Leaving just the "Assyrian People" page, which is why i put my proposal in the way that it is. @Future Perfect at Sunrise: As per the rules of the page all significant changes much be discusses on the Talk page, which is what I have done. Changing the name to "Syriac people (Arameans, Assyrians, Chaldeans)" is a significant change, so I am free to make the change.Sr 76 (talk) 01:39, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

I think Syriac People would be the most appropriate, rather than Syriac Christians as that is also used to refer to the St. Thomas Christians of Kerala and thus would incorporate non-Syriac people. To have the primary identities in the title is not necessary, I feel, as that can be covered in the article itself. To work with the existing category framework, Syriac people should include the Aramean and Assyrian people categories. The Assyrian/Syriac category should be deleted. Mugsalot (talk) 11:57, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

The best choice would be "Assyrian/Syriac people" as it reflects the position of all our leading movements (Assyrian and Syriac nationalists) and also the churches that we're one people. Then in the same page you can add sub categories or redirect to pages for each church denominations (Syriacs Orthodox/Catholics, Assyrian/Nestorians, Chaldeans), just like for the French people who have a page for each people (Bretons, Catalans, Corsicans, Basques...) who are part of the French nation. More over "Syriac people" alone should not be used as it's not as popular as the Assyrian term: you can see by yourself in Google Trends which collect data from 2004. We should remember that the most popular term in the language of the page should be used. "Syriac Christians" also should not be used as it can include Indians Christians and Maronites who don't speak our language, don't share our history and are different ethnically. 'AynHaylo (talk) 21:20, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Mugsalot and also MaronitePride are correct that the umbrella term Syriac people (with or without specification for Arameans, Assyrians, Chaldeans) would be the most appropriate, rather than Assyrian/Syriac people, which would eliminate the Aramean people (those people that are West of the Euphrates river, who are ethnically different from the populations East of the Euphrates river as the Assyrian people (or Chaldean people). And the Assyrian/Syriac category should be deleted.

Catalans and Basques do not see themselves to belong to the French nation. Most of their populations reside within the Spanish territory and even there they do not identify as Spanish people (more specifically they do not identify as Castilian Spanish people). Therefore, it is not an appropriate example for the issue here. Sprayitchyo (talk) 22:55, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

@Sprayitchyo In an ideal world I too would prefer "Syriac People". But as @AynHaylo has demonstrated there will always be people that REFER to (hopefully not impose) nation/political agendas and this is understandable since the page refers to these movements in its contents. By grouping "Syriac People (Arameans/Assyrians/Chaldeans)" together in the title in the way that i have suggested, it sends a direct statement to all editors that the labels are all considered equal on the page and the appellation Syriac is unique in it's lack of contention and historical position.

It demonstrates to readers and new editors on the page, that a high level of mutual respect between all these groups is establish on the page and that Wikipedia is not here to propagate people's political biases. By calling the page "Syriac People" it leaves a small opening in editor's thinking that they can manipulate the page, by calling it "Syriac People (Arameans/Assyrians/Chaldeans)", it leaves no doubt in people's minds as to what the content is and how these groups are going to be dealt with on the page. Please do not refer to separation of Arameans or Chaldeans based on historical grounds in this section, because the discussion will just snowball into something else....especially without sources. I am trying to put an end to bickering about this issue, at least on Wikipedia.

For example based on what you have written, "Syriac People" would leave room for people to take issue if there was any form of Aramean content on the page and remove it...starting an editing-war. "Syriac People (Arameans/Assyrians/Chaldeans)" defines the content much better and prevents these problems.

Sr 76 (talk) 06:09, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

I think you guys don't understand something: The people of the Syriac Orthodox/Catholic Churches, Church of the East and Chaldean Catholics have always seen themselves as one people. From the time of the Kingdom of Edessa, the emergence of Nsibin, Omid (Dyarbakir), Urmia, Rish'Ayno, Mardin, Midyat, the Nineveh plains to the Seyfo and the awaking of nationalism and armed groups (Battaillon Assyro-Chaldéens in Gozarto, The army led by Agha petrus (though mostly composed of Chaldeans and Nestorians)) and today the MFS and GPU in Syria, the NPU and the NPF, who was and are always composed of Nestorians, Chaldeans and Syriacs orthodox/catholics. Note also that all of them speak a dialect of eastern Aramaic.

So this page is for this people and not for Maronites or others people "West of Euphrates", Greek orthodox/Catholics from Syria, Lebanon, Israel who today a very little minority of them identify as Aramean, and this started just 10-20 years ago for them (though for Maronites it's different).

By putting "Assyrian/Syriac people" it refers to the Assyrian nationalim (present in all 3 church), the Syriac/Aramean nationalism of the Syriac orthodox Church and Chaldean Church (recent words of Mar louis sako and before him Mar Emmanuel III Delly). It also refers to Syriac Christianity and it uses the most used word in the English language for this people.

And I do think that the example of the French nation is good, if you don't count Basques (though a good percentage of them see themselves as part of the French nation) you still have a page for Bretons, Corsicans and Catalans.'AynHaylo (talk) 10:48, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

@AynHaylo what you are suggesting gives primacy to the word Assyrian over Chaldean and Aramean and puts it on par with the word Syriac. For that reason it will not resolve any of the issues on Wikipedia. Besides these supposed facts that you have presented are not sourced and don't belong in this section. Sr 76 (talk) 13:05, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

@AynHaylo Assyrian POV editing also includes to replace the terms Aramean or Syriac-Aramean, especially when it comes to Mesopotamian Syriac Christian related topics, with Syriac and then claiming in the article or the main article (Assyrian people: this is where Syriac people is currently redirected to) that the term Syriac ultimately and only means Assyrian to avoid any synonymity or ethnic connection of modern Mesopotamian Syriac Christians with Arameans. Nice try, AynHaylo and your other comments aren't even better regarding the defintion of ethnic identity/nation, which is obviously the idea of Assyrian nationalism. An ethnicity or ethnic group can be defined by origin, language, religion, culture, history etc. up to a certain point where individuals form a cohesion (See Israeli Maronites and Syriac-Orthodox Christians). You're trying to separate Mesopotamian Syriac-Arameans from other Syriac Christians in the Middle East by defining the idea of Assyrian nationalism, e.g. Eastern Aramaic. Should I point out that even within Eastern Aramaic the so called Aramaic dialects are rather languages like Spanish and Italian or Dutch and German. Don't tell me that you can easily communicate in Turoyo/Suryoyo with a Chaldean Neo-Aramaic or Assyrian Neo-Aramaic speaker. And what about the Kha b-Nisan (Assyrian New Year), which is not celebrated by the Western Suryoye (maybe except for those who call themselves Assyrian)? I could give more examples to make the Syriac Christians from Mesopotamia different nations to show your own behaviour. "The people of the Syriac Orthodox/Catholic Churches, Church of the East and Chaldean Catholics have always seen themselves as one people" You probably speak for yourself, because my family is from northeastern Syria, they and the others have always referred the Chaldeans and Assyrians (Assyrian Church of the East members) as distinct nations which are "simliar to us". But what I want to say is that this whole ethnicity/identity stuff about the Syriac Christians (Maronites, Melkites, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs) in the Middle East is a highly sensitive and complex subject in general and the best way is to keep it as neutral as possible. --Suryoyo124 (talk) 15:13, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

These supposed facts ? Just to be clear: Greek Orthodox/Catholics and Maronites just have no idea of what is Nsibin, Edessa, the Seyfo etc. They have never fought with our people and this is a fact. Today the MFS is composed of Syriac orthodox and Assyrians Church of the East, they fought side by side with the Khabour guards and Tell Tamer guards. It's the same for Sutoro and Sootoro. The GPU (Gozarto protection forces) is also a mixed of Syriac Orthodox and Assyrians Church of the East. In Iraq the NPF (Nineveh protection forces) and the NPU (Nineveh protection units) are composed of Syriac Catholics/Chaldeans/Church of the East. So this a fact that other middle east Christians are not a part of our people and this is a reality. None of them are fighting with us. When Mor Aphrem Barsoum went to the league of nations he spoke for the 3 sects and not for Greek Orthodox/Catholics and Maronites. In Syria and Lebanon, is the Syriac union party composed of Greek Orthodox/Catholic or Maronites ? I don't think so and yet Maronites people and politicians do not see us as part of their people if so Maronites seats in the Lebanese parliament would be renamed Syriac/Aramean seats and would include Greek Orthodox/Catholics etc.

@Suryoyo124 My definition of ethnic of identity/ nation is based on history from Christianity to today and you can't ignore that the 20th century has been led by Assyrian nationalism, especially in the beginning.

What you are trying to do is like including Irish people into the English people. you are driven by an Aramaic agenda who desperately wants to include Greek Orthodox/Catholics and Maronites with our people but the reality has shown us that this peoples considers themselves to be Arabs Christians for the vast majority and they are not a part of our history. It's even difficult to include Greek Orthodox/Catholics into Syriac Christianity and yet you want to include them with us ? You can't ignore the fact that Greek Orthodox/Catholics and Maronites don't care about Nsibin, Edessa, Seyfo and our language.

My proposition gives primacy to the most used term in the English language by most media and people and it shows that we are part of Syriac Christianity. And it let you develop every sect into sub categories or pages so it is definitely a solution. I want to be clear that this pages if for this people and not for others people.

The position of Sr 76 is good but it forget that in English it's Assyrian that is the most used and will definitely result in editing and complaints though it is not even sure for my proposition but I believe it will not end into editing wars.'AynHaylo (talk) 16:26, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

In Germany, the common name for Suryoye/Suraye is 'Aramäer' (Arameans) yet those Suryoye/Suraye who call themselves Assyrians in Germany reject this term and want to be called 'Assyrer' (Assyrians). The same deal with Suryoye/Suraye who call themselves Arameans in English-speaking countries, who don't want to be called Assyrians, but Aramean. Like I said before it's not a simple name conflict among the Suryoye/Suraye. Both groups have a total different view about their ethnic identity/nation. Therefore it would be wrong to call an Assyrian Aramean or an Aramean Assyrian. Sr 76's Ephrem the Syrian example clearly shows this issue. German Wikipedia fixed this problem by creating an umbrella article called "Suryoye" and ethnic-identity articles called 'Assyrer (Gegenwart)' Assyrians (present) and Arameans (Christianity) and it works. German Wikipedia don't have to follow a certain ideology.--Suryoyo124 (talk) 19:08, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

People: Again, everybody, stop. Stop. Stop. You are again exchanging your personal opinions about the identity and history of your people(s). This is not the place to do that. Stop it. If anybody wishes to have this article renamed, do a proper WP:RM. In that RM, the only valid type of argument will be: what terms and what distinctions are applied to these people in reputable, outside, English-speaking academic sources? Any editor sidelining these arguments again with their own opinions and their own ideologies and their own views about history will be blocked. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:56, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

@AynHaylo, Future Perfect at Sunrise

Neutral Umbrella term/article:

• Rename the "Assyrian people" article into "Syriac people (Arameans, Assyrians, Chaldeans)" or "Syriac people". Pre-Nationalism persons like Ephrem the Syrian are called Syriac and will be redirected to this page.

Sub-categories/articles of Syriac people (Arameans, Assyrians, Chaldeans) or Syriac people, which are basically ethnic-identity articles:

• Rename and modify Assyrian continuity, e.g. into Assyrians (Christians) about modern Assyrian nationalism. Modern Suryoye/Suraye like Rosie Malek-Yonan who see themselves as Assyrians are still called Assyrian, but it redirects to the Assyrians (Christians) article to distinguish between ancient and modern Assyrians.
• Arameans (Christians) about modern Aramean nationalism.
• Chaldeans (Christians) about modern Chaldean nationalism.

Important article:

• Name/Ethnicity conflict among modern Syriac Christians

These articles are ONLY about the pre-Christian nations:

• Assyrians
• Arameans
• Chaldeans

Suryoyo124 (talk) 18:35, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Congratulations Suryoyo124, it is the best formulated. Just go ahead with the procedure renaming of this/these article/s with the formal WP:RM process. MaronitePride (talk) 21:22, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Thank you @Future Perfect at Sunrise:!!! The term is Syriac, easy.Sr 76 (talk) 05:36, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

@AynHaylo this is not a popularity contest in the English use of Assyrian, Aramean or Chaldean. Even if it was, you couldn't correlate the results anyway. You are offering conclusions based on your own perspective.

The key issue is anyone that visits the page will be presented with information that is not consistent with academic texts. This will create inconsistencey when people do further research. The texts that support an Assyrian identity are generally those that are published by politically bias modern-Assyrians. And so this will always create issues on Wikipedia because of it's liberal editing rules. Every individual must put aside his personal preferences, in the same way I don't insist on Aramean.Sr 76 (talk) 05:45, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

I have create a move request, to redirect the page to Syriac people

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Assyrian_people#Requested_move_5_July_2015

Sr 76 (talk) 06:01, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Ref of previous source clean discussion for the page

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Assyrian_people/Archive_14#Identification_of_modern-Assyrian_Sources_on_the_page

Sr 76 (talk) 04:17, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 5 July 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. Participants were warned at the outset that the only valid kind of argument would be to document current usage in reliable sources, per WP:COMMONNAME. Proponents of the move have spectacularly failed to heed this notice. The main proponent (Sr 76) has brought forward numerous citations, but they all appear to be geared towards debating the tired old ideological issue of the factual correctness of Assyrian "continuity", rather than present-day naming practices. People are apparently still finding it hard to comprehend that these are unrelated issues. All the other "support" votes are easily discarded, as almost all of them come from single-purpose accounts on the same side of the ideological debate, and (more importantly) because they make even less contact with Wikipedia policy, being mostly based purely on personal ideological preference and politics. Against this, opponents of the move have at least given some indication of what they think current English naming practice is (De Causa and Moxy, who incidentally are also the only participants from outside the entrenched native POV parties, both provided valid material). While this doesn't rise to the level of having actually demonstrated and proved the predominance of the "Assyrian" naming practice, given the utter lack of evidence to the contrary, their argument wins the day. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:52, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

---

Assyrian people → Syriac people – Resolving the long running issue of edit-warring and disputes and references and the page content will be consistent the academic consensus Sr 76 (talk) 05:55, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Obviously I am for the move to Syriac people, everyone has the right to be identify with their heritage in a manner that is respectful and dignified. Regardless of Christian denomination, national aspirations and political allegiances......the Maronites, Assyrians, Arameans, Chaldeans, Syriac Catholics and Nestorians...etc.

The name Syriac hosts all these people in a manner that is not contentious and also happens to be the academic consensus in representing these people.Sr 76 (talk) 06:18, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

I will warn you from the outset that this is not going to happen, and your votes will be discounted, unless you finally start doing the only thing that will turn this into a valid enterprise: start documenting current usage in reliable sources. You have not yet done anything of the sort. Arguments based on your personal perception of what the self-identification of these people is and what might or might not be contentious with them, of the kind you stated in this nomination, are worthless. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:53, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

OK @Future Perfect at Sunrise: I'll keep it short. Sources:

Brock, Butts, Kiraz, Van Rompay, "Encyclopedic Dictionary of Syriac Heritage"
"there are isolated references that connect the Syriac Christians with the ancient Assyrians, but this idetification was not developed until the 19th century"
page 45

S.Brock, "An introduction to Syriac Studies"
"Various alternatives have been adopted, including (by the more secular minded) 'Assyrian' which has caused considerable controversy (and trouble in some countries); a better choice would seem to be 'Aramean'"
...
"I have used West Syriac and East Syriac as the most practical general designations"
p68

David Gaunt, Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia During WWI
"The aboriginal Syriacs of northern Mesopotamia and Persia were amoung the very first to convert to Christianity."
page 2
"As a generic term I use 'Syriac' here to designate all of the Christians who use variant of the Aramaic language."
page 3

Aron Butts: Lector of Semitics in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Yale University,
Assyrian Christians
"It is well known that various individuals and groups associated with the Syriac Heritage are today called Assyrians."
"What is less understood is when, how, and why this identification came about. This has unfortunately led to a good deal of controversy and misunderstanding. Within the Syriac communities, the so called “name debate” continues to be a hotly discussed topic, especially in the diaspora." "The present essay is not concerned with evaluating the legitimacy of connections between the Syriac Heritage and ancient Assyria. Rather, it assumes as a given that certain individuals and groups associated with the Syriac Heritage have in the past identified as Assyrian and continue to do so until the present. The essay does, however, take up the more modest task of outlining the historical background for the events that led to the promotion of this identification in the nineteenth century and to the ensuing development of an Assyrian ideology within the Syriac communities."..... "In premodern Syriac sources, the term athoraya 'Assyrian' is not the typical self designation for individuals belonging to the Syriac Heritage, whether East Syriac or West Syriac. The typical selfdesignations, rather, are aramaya 'Aramean' and suryaya 'Syrian,' along with its truncated variant suraya. The early Syriac author Bardai an, for instance, is described both as aramaya and suryaya in the Syriac version of Eusebius of Caesarea’s Ecclesiastical History (Wright and McLean 1898: 243.18 and 183.7, respectively), which was translated before 420 (Van Rompay 1994: 73 n. 15). The adjectives aramaya and suryaya serve as the typical self designations for Syriac Christians throughout the premodern sources."

John Joseph,
"Throughout the 19th century the Nestorians were also refered to as Syrians by the European travlers and writers. Indeed, the 'Syrians" (Suraye/Suroyo) was the name by which the "Nestorians" and "Jacobites" called themselves until the post-WWI period; thereafter, Suraye was gradually replaced amoung the 'Nestorians' by Aturaye, the name of the ancient Assyrians in Syriac. The 'Jacobites' continue to call themselves Sroyo""
page 9

Kathleen E. McVey, Ephriam the Syrian
"Neither a member of a monastic community nor a hermit, he was given instead an ascetic of a peculiarly Syrian sort"
page xi

@Sr 76: Most of your quotes are irrelevant to your move request and two actually support keeping Assyrian people if you apply WP policy. You need to study WP:COMMONNAME. It doesn't matter why a name has become commonly used (or even if that is a "bad" reason), it only is an issue of whether it is commonly used by reliable sources. Two of your qutes specifically say Assyrian is the common name. What you need to show is that in reliable sources (i.e. modern works of reference in English - not historical documents) "Syriac" is used more commonly than "Assyrian" - and self designation is not relevant. You haven't shown that yet. DeCausa (talk) 13:44, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks @DeCausa:, but none of them specifically say "Assyrian" is the common name. Im not sure what you are reading. Some groups may call themselves Assyrians but the rest don't.......thats what the sources are referring to. Simply referring to the name Assyrian doesn't mean the writer is suggesting that Assyrian is the common or the most common name across ALL these groups. I don't think you have understood the situation, the common name is Syriac no-one disputes this or denies this name across ALL the groups. This is evident from even from the discussion in the above section.

I know the St Ephram the Syrian quote is out of left field, but I put that as an example of the how the Assyrian people page confuses the issue. If you have an identity that in every possible reference know is called Syrian/Syriac then why is St Ephram on the Assyrian people page?

I strung those quotes together in 15 minutes, ill go through my books and produce more.

BTW you wont be able to find a reliable reference that does what you are asking for the name Assyrian, anyway. This is just a double standard that exists because the page is currently title "Assyrian people", which is a result of Assyrian breaking Wikipedia policies anyway.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Shmayo

Sr 76 (talk) 15:39, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

You are going about this the wrong way. It's not about any particular source. You need to present a survey of reliable modern sources and say "these all use 'Syriac'" and not Assyrian. Ideally, you would also say "this compares to these sources who use 'Assyrian' and the sources who use 'Syriac' are preponderant". Often, this is supported with search results in Google Books etc but that may not be helpful here because of the multiple meanings of the words. You need to stay away from commentary on which is "more correct" or which is used by the people themselves. What will sway the neutrals drawn to this move request is the preponderance of the use of one word versus the other in reliable sources. And, btw, it would be quite wrong of you to claim that there are no reliable sources that use Assyrian. I see John Joseph's book, who you quote, is named "The modern Assyrians of the Middle East" and a quick Google Books search reveals multiple academic usage of the term for the modern people and, from Google, multiple usage in reliable news outlets. I would say you have an uphill task. I don't know enough about the subject to have a strong view one way or the other - so I await to see your case with interest. DeCausa (talk) 17:29, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

One further point. You say "Some groups may call themselves Assyrians but the rest don't.......thats what the sources are referring to. Simply referring to the name Assyrian doesn't mean the writer is suggesting that Assyrian is the common or the most common name across ALL these groups." This article should be about the group which reliable sources call "Assyrian". If there are other groups that this article covers but which reliable sources don't call Assyrian, then they should come out of this article. It's not a reason to change the name of the article. And, as I've said, what the groups themselves call themselves is irrelevant: the question is what do English-language reliable sources call them. DeCausa (talk) 18:05, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

@DeCausa your request is very specific, you want me to present you with a survey. If I was to put together a survey myself and present it to you, are you then going to turn around and say that you meant a survey produced by reliable academic in peer reviewed publication?

You now have a double standard. Everything else was about consensus, but now you need a survey? Show me the survey that lead to the Syriac people page being deleted? Show me the survey that meant the Arameans page was just for the ancient Arameans? show me the survey that lead to the Chaldean people page being deleted?

Besides you have created a logical anomaly, for any survey....based on the John Joseph example you gave. If an academic uses the name Assyrian, more often then not in today's context it is to refute the use of the modern name Assyrian. It seems to be the only interest academics have in the Assyrians these days. Why should this count as "use" of the name Assyrian? Off-course they are going to use the name Assyrian to refute the name Assyrian. For example John Joseph and Adam Becker wrote entire books about false origins of the name Assyrian in the 19th century, these should count as uses of the name Assyrian? Go ask the modern Assyrians what they think of J.Joseph and A.Becker.

@DeCausa: if an atheist were to write a book about the falsehood of religion, does this mean he is not allowed use the word 'God' in that book? If he did use the word 'God' in any context would you accuse him of being a devout Christian?Sr 76 (talk) 03:52, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Have you seen or been involved in other move requests before? You don't seem to get how they work. Go and have a look at a few. I don't, at the moment, have a view as to what this article should be called. I'm waiting for you to put your case forward before deciding. The onus is on you to justify what you want to do. If you can't then the default position is the status quo. I'll repeat, what's expected of you as the proposer is to show that the commonest name used in modern English-language reliable sources for this group of people is "Syriac". It's quite simple really. Have you read WP:COMMONNAME? DeCausa(talk) 07:35, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose for the time being absent Sr 76 providing evidence of Syriac being the COMMONNAME. From my (imperfect) research, Assyrian seems to be widely used in reliable news sources [1] [2] and academic sources [3]. Just as a general indicator, and not to be relied on of course, Google Books searches gives 552 results for "Assyrian people" + Iraq [4] and 638 for "Assyrian people" + Syria [5] compared to 234 for "Syriac people + Iraq" [6] and 276 for "Syriac people" + Syria [7]. (the addition of "people" and, in the case of Iraq, the modern country name hopefully takes out most of the references to the ancient Assyrians). Although many of these results are not on point, I'm not seeing a strong and obvious case for replacing Assyrian with Syriac. I'll keep this page under review though and if evidence of Syriac beeing the COMMONNAME is brought forward I would be happy to revise my Oppose. DeCausa (talk) 08:32, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

• Support Did you actually read Sr 76's proposal? "This will page will refer TO THE COMMON CHRISTIAN PERIOD leaving all political POVs ambiguous from their ancient namesakes. Leaving the "Arameans" page, "Assyrians" page and "Chaldeans" page to refer to the ancient peoples. None of these groups can deny their Syriac identity, if they did they would need to forgo 2000 years of heritage." Sr 76 provided academic sources in English that the common and widely accepted name is Syriac/Syrian during the Christian period before the Syriac Christians started to establish various national movements, e.g. Assyrians, Arameans, Chaldeans etc.. Trying to make Ephrem the Syrian an Assyrian is misleading and distorting for someone who is familiar with this topic otherwise you can make Julius Caesar an Italian. Even German Wikipedia do not regard Ephrem the Syrian as an Aramean either, only as Syriac/Syrian since there was no Aramean national movement at this time despite his statements regarding the synonymity between Syriac and Aramean. English Wikpedia shouldn't degenerated into a propaganda platform by supporting a certain idelogy and remain neutral. I don't understand, why English Wikipedia cannot do the same as German Wikipedia and distinguish between national movements (Arameans (Christianity), Assyrians (present)), ancient peoples (Arameans, Assyrians) and Christian period (Suryoye/Suraye or Syriacs)? If readers look up for Information about the Assyrians who are currently persecuted in Iraq, they could simply get redirected to an article that is about modern Assyrians and Assyrian nationalism, e.g. Assyrians (Christians) leaving the Christian period (Syriac people) and ancient people (Assyrians) articles alone for readers who are looking for specific Information about these topics. --Suryoyo124 (talk) 11:14, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

  Yes I did read it. In order for an article to be moved there are specific policy requirements that need to be addressed. Sr 71 hasn't addressed. Most of his points are irrelevant to Wikipedia policy. He subsequently posted a message on my talk page pointing out his justification for the move in his edit request of 25 June. For info, this is my response (hatted because it includes a cut and paste of his original post). It pretty much covers the same ground as your points.

Commentary on Sr 76's edit request of 25 June 2015
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Reasoning The name Syriac (Suryoyo) is accepted by all the Arameans, Assyrians and Chaldeans. All Christian Churches from the near east trace their origins to Syriac tradition including the Maronites (how can people that far west be Assyrian's?), all have a Syriac Aramaic liturgy.Irrelevant. That has no bearing on WP:COMMONNAME. What English language reliable sources use, not the people themselves is the test. Syriac avoids the complex historical issues and the problem of people promoting their own political ideologies. Since every ideology does not deny the Syriac identity. What an individual considers his ancient ancestors becomes irrelevant, since the term Syriac only came to be used by the Syriacs themselves during the Christian period. Naming the page Syriac People (Arameans/Assyrians/Chaldeans) causes little historical contention. This also makes finding sources and references for the page very simple and compliant with the academic consensus.Irrelevant. Read WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Avoiding "complex historical issues" and people promoting ideologies is not a reason to avoid a term which English language reliable sources use. Right now, none of the page has any valid sources, because Assyrian history since the fall of Ninveh in 615BC (from the perspective of the modern-Assyrians) was simply made up by the modern-Assyrians that got their name in the 19th cenurty. Irrelevant. Has no bearing on article name. If there is unsourced material in the article, that should be addressed by editing the article. Calling the page "Syriac People (Arameans, Assyrians, Chaldeans)" is verifiable, Non Original research and Neural view point.Has a bearing, but does not address the main question of what do English-language reliable sources use Calling the page "Assyrian People" falls short on all fronts is NOT-verifiable, NOT-Non Original research and NOT-Neural view point.All violations of the Wikipedia naming protocols.There's already on the page plenty of sources cited which indicate that what you say is incorrect Changing the name to "Syriac People (Arameans, Assyrians, Chaldeans)" would comply with the following: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Article_titles#Deciding_on_an_article_title Recognizability – The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize.This applies to "Assyrian people" too Naturalness – The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English.This applies to "Assyrian people" too Precision – The title unambiguously identifies the article's subject and distinguishes it from other subjects.This applies to "Assyrian people" too, according to the cited sources on the page Conciseness – The title is no longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects.This applies to "Assyrian people" too Consistency – The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles. This applies to "Assyrian people" too Current Ambiguity. The page being called Assyrian people does not distinguish between the modern-Assyrians and the ancient-Assyrians, naturally this happens to be the ideological agenda of the modern-Assyrians.Irrelevant, provided English language reliable sources use the term in this way. The current academic consensus considers the modern-Assyrian identity to be introduced by Western Missionaries during the 19th century A.D and any ancestral connection between the two, to be "hog wash".Irrelevant. Doesn't matter how it got to be the COMMONNAME, provided it is the COMMONNAME The widely criticized Simon Parpola is the "only academic" that supports the claims of the modern-Assyrian's ancestry, please see the following sources:Irrelevant. It doesn't matter whether Assyrian is right or justified - it's the usage in reliable sources that count https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Assyrian_people/Archive_14#Origin.27s_of_today.27s_Assyrian_Identity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Assyrian_people/Archive_14#Reference_-_Simon_Parpola The Synonymity issue becomes a void argument. Weather synonymity of the word Syriac is with Aramean (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Assyrian_people#Syrian.2FSyriac_synonyms_with_Aramean) or the word Syriac is Synonymous with Assyrian, with my proposal either answer becomes irrelevant. What do i mean by this: If the Assyrians are correct, and word Syriac means Assyrian then the why would they object to the page being called Syriac People instead of Assyrian people? Any objection is politically driven.Irrelevant. The motivation of Assyrians has no bearing - only usage in English-language sources. If the Arameans are correct, and word Syriac means Aramean then the why would they object to the page being called Syriac People instead of Aramean people? Any objection is politically driven.Irrelevant. The motivation of Arameans has no bearing - only usage in English-language sources. By doing this Wiki-Admin can easily identify ideological and political POVs being inserted into Wikipedia pages.Irrelevant. There is no ground in our article naming policy which allows for article naming to be manipulatd for this purpose. The St Ephram the Syrian example St Ephram called the Assyrians "Filth". He also refered to "our nation Aram-Nahrin". His contenporaries called him "Aramean" and "the crown of the Arameans" All irrelevant. Has no bearing on usage in English-language reliable sources It is impossible to look up any refence that refers to St Ephram as an Assyrian and yet St Ephriam the Syrian is displayed on the Assyrian People page as an Assyrian. The ONLY way St Ephriam can be an Assyrian is to accomodate a political POV of the modern-Assyrians....that is: The current page.Irrelevant. Has no bearing on usage in English-language reliable sources Consistency with Academic Sources Wikipedia has become inconsistent with the academic sources. Right now looking at Wikipeadia would send someone in a direction of complete confusion. Even the further reading section of the page, does not match the content of the page, the Saint Ephriam example above is a good example of this. This is an assertion without evidence - you need to present a survey of academic sources that show this

DeCausa (talk) 09:42, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose : Assyrian is and has been the most widely used appellation for those Aramaic-speaking peoples of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey in the English language for the last two centuries. It is how the group is and has been referenced to in politics, academia, and other media. Penguins53 (talk) 16:07, 6 July 2015 (UTC)Penguins53
• Oppose : as per Moxy (talk) 16:42, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Sources

References

• Oppose :
  

About Sr 76 request and position:
I think he's right that Syriac is by far the most used name in academic studies especially in the field of Syriac Christianity and Semitic Languages. Most researchers, scientists will not bother themselves and take a stance in our internal dispute name. You have even the Syriac Orthodox Church who uppset by this internal dispute, refuted the name Assyrian and Aramean after it synods in 1981, and even recently the new Patriarch reaffirmed the position of the Church. Moreover Syriac is the academic name to study us as subject (of study), and researcher, students, will sometimes use East-Syriac or West-Syriac to be more precise etc. Even today some still use Syrian Christians and divide their subject (us) into West-Syrian and East-Syrian. Note at least that even in academic sutdies Assyrian (to designate our people) is heavily used, see the work of Pr. Frye and Pr. Parpolla but just like any academics studies it's discutable. This is an academic approach and Wikipedia will just benefit from this.
Why I oppose:
Assyrian has always been the name used by World institutions, English speaking institution etc to address our case. Just after the Seyfo (Assyrian Genocide), the Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church of this time, Mor Ephrem Barsoum used in his letter here "our ancient Assyrian nation" for the syriac speaking people of the 3 followings sects: Church of the East, Syriac Orthodox/Catholic Church, Chaldean Catholic Church. This was the same for the Patriarch of the Church of the East when he adressed our case to the United Nation. in Syria under the French mandate, The French formed militias composed of Assyrians (Bataillon Assyro-Chaldéen Fench minisitry source). The British formed the Assyrian levies (mostly composed of Church of the East members, but you had also hundred of Syriac Orthodox members from Syria (Djazirah) and Turkey (Tur'Abdin), unfortunately I can't retrieve SuroyoTV's documentary). Now, if you take Google Trends (statistics about most researched topics/words etc) which collects Data from 2004, you can see that Assyrian is by far the most used name (note the country in blue where there is big communities of Assyrians: Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Sweden, USA, Australia...), note also the related research (assyrian, süryani (in Turkish), etc.) to the point that Google says that there is not enough data for Syriac People. To return to "Our case", let's consult the web site of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, here again, you can see that assyrian is the most used name for our people (Assyrian gives 58 results while Syriac only 5), here an article about refugees, you can see that the Iraqi towns of Qaraqosh, which is mostly populated by Syriac Catholics and few Syriac Orthodox is referred as Assyrian. So, since the Seyfo, our people has always been designate under the name Assyrian, of course not only this name but it's the most used name in the English language. So let's stick to the real word and choose the decision that will the most help us to adress our case to the media and the world.
About this page:
This page is not about Maronites, Melkites (Greek Orthodox/Catholics) or people "West of Euphrate" who just began, for the vast majority, only 10-20 years (and I'm pretty nice, most of these peoples have been pan-arabists during the 20th century) to reject Arab identity. This page is for our people who live in the upper valley of Mesopotamia and its historical cities (Nsibin, Edessa, Mardin, Dyarbakir (Omid), Rish'Ayno, Urmia all Syriac speaking cities inhabited by Church of the East and Syriac Orthodox (and now they Catholics dupes) followers). For this people decimated by the Seyfo and still fighting to this day for his survival. 'AynHaylo (talk) 21:32, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. Shmayo (talk) 22:38, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
• Support I support the move of the page to the name Syriac people. Even if you look at the current page it needs to have the word Syriac as the first bit of information, because without Syriac the people have no meaning, because the word Assyrian is deficient in describing who these people actually are ArameanSyriac (talk) 08:08, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
• Support Syriac is the only name that is fair and logical to me. It connects us( assyrians, arameans, chaldeans) as one, unlike the word assyrian, that separates usSyrius777 (talk) 12:55, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose Although the move proposal has good intentions, it obviously does not follow WP:COMMONNAME. Mugsalot (talk) 14:47, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Is this how Wikipedia works according to the motto:"Big fish eats small fish"? Does Wikipedia's WP:COMMONNAME rule also accept to hide and twist facts like they used to do on this and other articles, because Assyrian is more common than Aramean, Syriac or Chaldean? Every academic source about Arameans or Syriacs is wrong then? How do you make sure that Wikipedia keeps its credibility as an encyclopedia and that readers won't get confused and mislead through possible Assyrian POV editing with the ancient Assyrians (See "Assyrians after Assyria" section in the "Assyria article"), Assyrian nationalism/ideology (Best example:AynHaylo's comment regarding ethnicity) and all the Syriac Christian groups (including those who reject this appellation) but are labeled as Assyrians by simply calling everything Assyrian? Everyone who is not familar with this issue, e.g. would assume that St Ephram and other Syriac-Arameans ,since they are all called "Assyrians", are the same people as the ancient people (Assyrians), whereas high quality academic sources in English (Sr 76 has provided some of them) would reject this. The question is how can Wikipedia even though "Assyrian" being the common name for Mesopotamian Syriac Christians in English avoid such misconception and misuse of this appellation, because this is exactly what Assyrian POV editing intends. --Suryoyo124 (talk) 17:44, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

@Suryoyo124: I think in this situation it would be best to approach it similarly to that of Arab people. In the West, Coptic and Palestinian Christians, for example, are commonly referred to as Arab Christians. That may not be factually correct as many Copts and Palestinian people do not see themselves as Arabs but are considered Arab regardless. As a result, to remedy this, Wikipedia expands on this and if one was to look at the article for Arab Christians, one will see that WP:COMMONNAME is adhered to, but simultaneously their separate identities are acknowledged. Therefore, on the Assyrian people article perhaps it would be more acceptable to acknowledge that it is applied to all Aramaic speaking Christians in the Middle East, and that multiple identities exist within that category. Mugsalot (talk) 18:23, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

@Mugsalot: @DeCausa:Because it is a source of great offence to these people to be labeled Assyrian. It is not simply a case of being right or wrong it strikes at their very core. Even as @'AynHaylo has pointed out, that the Syriac Orthodox church has rejected all appellations except for Syrian/Syriac for the people to use. For some people being Assyrian is fine, for others being anything other than Syriac is an act of defiance of their religious belief. Sr 76 (talk) 18:47, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm afraid that's not relevant here. WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. If that's where you are coming from, you are wasting your time. DeCausa (talk) 18:54, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

I have posted some sources below, even @'AynHaylo said Syriac the most used in his first paragraph (only now he admits it, because he knows the extent of what can be collated). His final sentence sums-up this entire issue "This is an academic approach and Wikipedia will just benefit from this."...."JUST"???.....@DeCausa: in other words the Assyrians wont benefit from it? "just" Wikipedia will benefit from the change? thanks for the freudian-slip @'AynHaylo. I have been saying it for the past year. Wikipedia has been used as a propaganda platform for the Assyrians.Sr 76 (talk) 06:15, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

off-topic squabbles
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Why did you ping me for that? I'm loosing patience with you. I don't care what another user said. Whatever he said has no bearing on me. I can see that there are two clashing POVs here. So what? I couldn't care less. DeCausa (talk) 06:47, 8 July 2015 (UTC) @Future Perfect at Sunrise You as an admin knew this issue for almost six years or maybe even longer, claiming "POV forks won't be accepted" in 2009 and obviously haven't done anything till nothing against it or how do you explain this mess? I've noticed that you only get active once someone draws attention on it and it often ends with unfair blockings that even people with good intentions are fed up with Wikipedia and leave it completely. With your administration you've cleared the way for Assyrian POV editing. Are you aware of your responsibility as an admin?--Suryoyo124 (talk) 10:37, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

• Support I can't believe that it has been allowed to get this far. The name Assyrian is wrong and it's commonality has been exaggerated by these new-assyrians on Wikipedia Chris Elia (talk) 09:02, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
• Support I think we should change it as soon as posible!

sorry that was me i forgot to login Iphoneonderdeel (talk) 14:13, 9 July 2015 (UTC) 2A02:A03F:2AA6:C300:68A3:7CEB:32B3:D393 (talk) 13:31, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

• we need the single purpose meat puppet accounts to give an explanation or sources this is not just a vote--Moxy (talk) 16:54, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

• Support History attests Syriac means Aramean. as Arabs we know of our books that Syriac means Aramean User:Caliph Ibrahim (User talk:Caliph Ibrahim) 16:59, 8 July 2015 (UTC) Caliph el Muslemin 16:59, 8 July 2015 (UTC) Caliph el Muslemin 16:59, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
• Support I can't believe how the Assyrian movement has made this possible in just 50 years since the diaspora.. We are all Arameans and have nothing to do with the old Assyrians from the bible. Check all the academic sources like the work of Prof. S. Brock. 77.160.223.204 (talk) 19:33, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
• Support We are in a time where we must all unite as one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MikeFlies (talk • contribs) 19:32, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Sources

Support: use of Syriac/Syrian(Suryoye) Sr 76 (talk) 03:54, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

References

@Suryoyo124: this is bogus. They are stacking the votes against the move. I just looked at the version history and contribution log for all the usernames on the page. to see the meaning of the tags "has made few or no other edits outside this topic.". @Future Perfect at Sunrise: what does this mean? does their vote not count? and why did you block- the user @CaliphIbrahim? Sr 76 (talk) 18:48, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

First all need to understand that this is not a vote....if you have no rational and sources for a position....then there is no point in commenting as the so called vote has no meaning behind it. As for Future's comments he is referring to the fact the editors are here out of the blue (its a very odd thing that theses editors are even here). Looks like meatpuppets or some outside canvasing. An editors reputation does have some weight here. All that said good job with the sources.....we will have to let others look at them a evaluate there merit. I have lots to read over myself...lots of books I have never heard of listed. -- Moxy (talk) 21:23, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

This may have something to do with it, Wikipedia and the continuation of Western Spiritual Colonial practices Mugsalot (talk) 22:07, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

@Mugsalot may have hit on something. I remember an Assyrian visiting an Aramean facebook page a few months and taunting people about not having a Wikipedia page.Sr 76 (talk) 03:35, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

And BTW if people have reacted to this then good on them Sr 76 (talk) 03:41, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

@Moxy we have administrators in this section that called it votes/voting. If what you are you suggesting is correct then the votes of "Oppose" without any sources or people that have just incorrectly referred to WP:COMMONNAME to disguise their political bias, should all be discounted also. To be honest some of the people here have looked at this in a manner that contradicts the WP:COMMONNAME. Since WP:COMMONNAME refers to English, not English in the USA. Where people migrated to in diaspora played a big part in that perspective. And at least 2 of the 4 sources that you used are indicators of that. By referring to the "claims" of the Assyrians.Sr 76 (talk) 04:00, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

@Moxy should @shmayos vote (or what ever it is) count, since we are dealing with user's reputations? https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ASockpuppet_investigations%2FShmayo&type=revision&diff=669713805&oldid=669529616 Sr 76 (talk) 04:10, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

pls see WP:WIKINOTVOTE .....pointing to policy like WP:COMMONNAME is good as long as a good argument is made with it. Its not vote ....its about the best arguments put forth

Since Wikipedia refers to itself as "Wikipedia the free Encyclopedia", the choice is obvious as to what the best argument is. Wikipedia is making a mockery of the word Encyclopedia, since the page is only as good as it's sources, and they don't match the appellation used on the page. People cant keep a consistent understanding of a subject matter when cross referenced against other books. Even a majority books detailed in the page's further reading. And most of the page is made up of content that refers to subject matters older than 100 years, where for the most part the name Assyrian was not applicable in its current context. Syriac is clearly the best choice.

Dictionary References to Syriac/Syrian:

Dictionary References to Aramean is Syriac:

Dictionary References to Assyrian (A completely different word, Othoroyo and Shuroye):

References

and lets not forget this also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Assyrian_people#Bilingual_Dictionary_Definitions_of_the_words_Syriac_and_Assyrian Sr 76 (talk) 06:39, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation and Common name The current article title Assyrian people, does not conform to WP:DISAMBIG. From the sources below there is a clear distinction between the modern-Assyrians and the acient-Assyrians, the current article's title and content do not account for this (because it is just an Assyrian political POV). This has resulted in Users even in this section of the talk page offering google search results that don't distinguish between ancient and modern people. So in accordance to the Determining a primary topic within WP:DISAMBIG, the name Assyrian is less suitable that Syriac.

Anthony O'Mahony, Emma Loosley, "Eastern Christianity in the Modern Middle East" "This term 'Assyrian' became increasingly popular, encouraged by A.H.Layard's assertion that the Nestorians were the decendant of the ancient Assyrians. The term was later [1976 A.D] incorporated into the title of the church so it became the Assyrian Church of the East"

Adam.H Becker, "Antiquity in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Pasts in the Greco-Roman World, The Ancient Near East in the Late Antique Near East" "My immediate response to many of these claims of continuity is: hog-wash. As others have pointed out, Western missionaries to the region in the nineteenth century introduced the idea that the indigenous Christians were an ancient race, or the remains of Nineveh." p396

David Gaunt, "Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia During World War I" "Toward the end of that century, the English term 'Assyrian' and the Russian term Aisori came into use, and during World War I it made its worldwide breakthrough into the newspapers" p3 "A.C Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury. was the first major English-language opinion-builder to use the term 'Assyrians' for the Oriental Christians. He did this in a fund-raising appeal in 1870 to set up the 'Assyrian Christian Aid Fund'. The reason given for the use of 'Assyrian' was that it was considered more neutral compared with the negative-sounding Nestorian, with its intimation of heresy" p16

Sebastien de Courtois, "The Forgotten Genocide: Eastern Christians, the Last Arameans" Interprets Xaview de Planhol: "Were the Nestorians of Hakkari [Assyrians] originally Arameans from the plain 'kurdized' by contact with the Kurds, or were they Kurds who had become Christian under the cultural influence of the Aramaic world?" p51

Brock, Butts, Kiraz, Van Rompay, "Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Syriac Heritage" "this [Assyrian] identification was not developed until the 19th century" "Anglicans, seeking to avoid the 'Nestorian', began to use the name 'Assyrian Christian' for the whole Church of the East" "the general adoption of 'Assyrian' and Assyrian ethnology by the people themselves came after 1900 under the influence of nationalist writers like Freydon Atoraya" p45

John Joseph, "The Modern Assyrians of the Middle East: encounters with Western Christian Missions, Archaeologists, & Colonial Powers" "The people who today call themselves Assyrians are, strictly speaking, members of a cultural and religious group, moulded together into a minority by ties of a common language and, until the nineteenth century, a common church membership which, until the birth of the modern nation-state in the Middle East, was the strongest tie among people." p32 "Prior to World War I, the Anglican mission to the Nestorians gave the Assyrian nomenclature a new impetus. Formally known as 'The Arch Bishop of Canterbury’s Assyrian Mission' it re-enforced, no matter how unintentionally, the linkage between the Nestorians and the ancient Assyrians. 'Assyrian Christians', which originally had only meant 'The Christian of geographical Assyria', soon became 'Christian Assyrians'. By the late nineteenth century, a few of the educated and politically conscious among the Nestorians, especially those who had immigrated to America, began using Aturaye [Assyrians] in their writings" p18

Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D. retired from the Department of Philosophy, Los Angeles Valley College "and the record shows that the name of "Assyrian" is a recent adoption" http://www.friesian.com/notes/note-n.htm#syrian

A.M. Butts, Lector of Semitics in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Yale University: "Assyrian Christians" "outlining the historical background for the events that led to the promotion of this identification in the nineteenth century and to the ensuing development of an Assyrian ideology within the Syriac communities" "The earliest systematic use of Assyrian for Syriac Christians seems to have developed in the second-half of the nineteenth century within the context of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Mission in Urmia"

S.Brock, "An introduction to Syriac Studies" "with the conjecture of some nineteenth century archaeologists and missionaries that the modern Christian population of northern Iraq are the descendants of the ancient Assyrians. This was taken up especially among people of the Church of the East" p67 "Various alternatives have been adopted, including (by the more secular minded) 'Assyrian' which has caused considerable controversy (and trouble in some countries); a better choice would seem to be 'Aramean'" p68

M.Levene, "A Moving Target, the Usual Suspects and (maybe) a Smoking Gun: The Problem of Pinning Blame in Modern Genocide" "the term 'Assyrian' is just plain wrong, owing everything to nineteenth-century western orientalisim and nothing to the community it purports to describe" p8

A. Fortescue, "The Lesser Eastern Churches" "A favourite name now among their Anglican sympathizers seems to be 'the Assyrian Church'. This is the worst of all. They are Assyrians in no possible sense." p7

J.F Coakly, "Church of the East and the Church of England, a history of the Arch Bishop of Canterbury’s Assyrian Mission" "I refer here to the link created between the modern 'Assyrians' and the ancient Assyrians of Nineveh"..."in short, the name [Assyrian] is now inseparable from a whole bogus ethnology" p366

Arther J.Maclean. Head of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Assyrian Mission from 1886 to 1891 "Why should we invent a name when we have such a very convenient one, used for centuries, at our hand?"..... "should have a fit enthusiasm of Old Assyria"..... "is it common sense to cast aside the name used by the people themselves [Suraye/Suryoye] and invent another [Assyrian] for them of very doubtful applicability?"

S.Zubaida, "Contested Nations: Iraq and the Assyrians" "National myth and history were created for the Assyrians by European missionaries and archaeologists."..."This appellation 'Assyrian' was eagerly taken up as a national designation with an ancient history and glorious romantic associations, the stuff of nationalist mythology" p372

Bulent Ozdemir, "Assyrian Identity and the Great War - Nestorian, Chaldean and Syrian Christians in the 20th Century" "Nineteenth-century Protestant missionaries applied the term 'Assyrian' loosely to various Eastern Christian groups, including (very misleadingly) some Nestorian groups."..... "Modern Eastern Christian nationalists (in Sweden, Germany and elsewhere) use the term 'Assyrian' to describe a national ethnic group that they have constructed for political purposes. In Turkish and Arabic the term 'Suryani' was and is used to mean the Syrian Christians, but sometimes is applied to the Nestorians as well." p1

Sr 76 (talk) 04:33, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

What are you on about @Future Perfect at Sunrise:?

Then explain what this is, if its not examples of WP:COMMONNAME then what is it?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Assyrian_people#Sources

The explanation of the origins of the name Assyrian had nothing WP:COMMONNAME but was there for WP:DISAMBIG.

WP:DISAMBIG issue of the page between ancient Assyrians and modern needs to be ignored. Why? Wikipedia's article naming policy based just on common names??????

Should I wait until hell freezes over before you give an answer? Because all you seem to do is block people and then use terms like "Single purpose accounts", why do you think people join Wikipedia as editors?

You are the one that deleted the Syriac People page in the first place, shown me your sources? Sr 76 (talk) 10:34, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

@Fut.Perf. "The main proponent (Sr 76) has brought forward numerous citations, but they all appear to be geared towards debating the tired old ideological issue of the factual correctness of Assyrian "continuity", rather than present-day naming practices." I disagree with you on that nonsense claim. Sr. 76 has provided academic sources in English about the common appellation regarding the Christian period of Syriac Christians (Arameans, Assyrians, Chaldeans,...), which is Syriacs or Syriac people. Fut.Perf. show sources that the appellation "Assyrians" is the common appellation even for the Christian period in "present-day naming practices" in English. Everything else would be falsification and POV editing! He gave sources about the usage of the appellation Suryoye/Suraye or Syriacs for both Assyrians and Arameans, which forms the common appellation for all of them and none of them can reject this appellation. Moreover, he provided reliable sources about the disputed appellation Assyrians for Syriac Christians, and which problems occur by using this appellation for people like Ephrem the Syrian. BTW why didn't you answer Sr. 76's question especially because of Wikipedia's Wikipedia:Disambiguation rule? Even if you want to keep the "Assyrian" appellation you would still need to make a distinction between ancient and modern Assyrians then!--Suryoyo124 (talk) 13:01, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

@Future Perfect at Sunrise: I took the time to present you with the references that were asked of me, you can at least show some level of courtesy and respond with an explanation.Sr 76 (talk) 17:02, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

I gave you all the explanation there is to give, in he closure note. If you don't like the closure, you are of course free to ask for a review; the standard page for that is WP:MR. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:19, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

@Future Perfect at Sunrise: That is not what we asked for, you explanation in the closure notes avoided the key-points of Move request. Sr 76 (talk) 04:15, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

From a strictly academic perspective, which i assume is the POV to which Wikipedia is intended to prescribe, the collective group of Neo-Aramaic speaking people should be referenced by the common feature which is the language. In English this language is referred to as Neo-Aramaic, in Neo-Aramaic this language is referred to as Surath. The plural form of Surath speaking people is Suraya, hence this is, in fact, the correct name of this group of people. There should be no debate about that. Within this group, there are individual groups. Only one of these groups is referenced in this article which clearly displays a bias for that group. To my knowledge, this is not for which Wikipedia was intended. Please change this name or create other pages to equally represent those other groups. Thank you and peace be with you all. Rapidsunset (talk) 15:51, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Google Search Results - Why should we rely on them?

@DeCausa: this is an example of why users such as @Suryoyo124: get frustrated.....

This is comment by a user complaining about edit warring to @Future Perfect at Sunrise: about this topic in 2009, displaying google search results:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard&diff=prev&oldid=283985387

So why the imbalance now? What has changed since 2009?...the answer= Wikipedia. Wikipedia is the cause of the google search results.
Look at the contribution logs for these 2, all they have contributed to Wikipedia for the past 6 years is the removal of any appellation and replacing it with Assyrian.

@Penguins53
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/penguins53&offset=20140828233655&limit=500&target=Penguins53

@Shmayo
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/shmayo&offset=20100423180320&limit=500&target=Shmayo

Sr 76 (talk) 05:00, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Why have you pinged me for that? What's it got to do with me? And by the way, can you learn how to format your comments properly. You are putting endless white space into this page and making it unnavigable and unreadable. Stop putting <br> everwhere in your posts. DeCausa (talk) 06:51, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Why am I getting brought up here? The appellation replacement has been to reduce confusion, repetition, and content forks. Penguins53 (talk) 16:02, 8 July 2015 (UTC)Penguins53

@Penguins53 The opposite is the case, where the appellation replacement was used to create a distorted view of reality and in many cases it wasn't even necessary or doesn't make any sense, that's the fact. Do you want to see some an examples? Why did you replace "Aramaeans" with "Assyrian" (linked to the biased propaganda article "Assyrian people") as an ethniciy for Western Neo-Aramaic speaker of Ma'loula, Bakh'a and Jubb'adin, when the inhabitants are Arameans or share an Aramaic identity? User Ordo de Essentia added, without bad intentions or trying to spread Assyrian propaganda on Wiki, Information about the ancient Assyrians to the "Assyrian people" article, because he thought this article is about them. You don't call this confusion?

• http://www.rahim.eu/maaloula/aboutus.html
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Western_Neo-Aramaic&oldid=625179110
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Assyrian_people&oldid=659384877

--Suryoyo124 (talk) 16:32, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

I have moved on from those days, but thanks for digging up almost a year-old edit. Penguins53 (talk) 19:03, 9 July 2015 (UTC)Penguins53

Removal of transcription and footnote?

@Sr 76:, you made these [8] edits "as per the talk page", but I can't quickly see discussions here on the talkpage that are related to these removals in any obvious way. Can you please clarify what talkpage discussion you were referring to? Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:59, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

@Sr 76: What's your reasons to remove ܣܘܪܝܝܐ from the page ?'AynHaylo (talk) 12:18, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Yeah....why am i not surprised?

I removed the reference because we discussed it in section under Ref 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Assyrian_people#Ref_of_previous_source_clean_discussion_for_the_page

Now, Can you now explain how you missed the 21 modern sources using the name Syriac? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sr 76 (talk • contribs) 15:27, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

@AynHaylo, when you construct a sentence like this: "The Assyrians (Syriac: ܣܘܪܝܝܐ), also known as......" it suggests that the word inside the brackets is the Syriac translation for the English word preceding it. The Syriac translation for the word Assyrian is not "ܣܘܪܝܝܐ" it is "ܐܫܘܪܝܐ" Or in it's gentilic form it is "ܐܬܘܪܝܐ. this was discussed on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Assyrian_people#Bilingual_Dictionary_Definitions_of_the_words_Syriac_and_Assyrian Sr 76 (talk) 15:59, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

(ec) First, keep the topics separate. This thread is not about the move debate but about why you removed that material. Second, it would certainly be more helpful if you just said straight out what your reason was, rather than keeping us guessing on the basis to a link to an old talkpage section that nobody else commented on, which in turn links to some other talkpage section of months ago. So, back in February, you included the reference used in fn.1 ("Nicholas Awde, Nineb Limassu, Nicholas Al-Jeloo, Modern Aramaic Dictionary & Phrasebook: (Assyrian/Syriac) (2007), ISBN 978-0-7818-1087-6, p. 4") in a list of refs that you thought ought to be removed because they were "written by modern-Assyrians". The subsequent thread clearly showed that you did in fact not have consensus for a blanket removal, that "being written by modern Assyrians" is in itself obviously no reason for declaring a source unreliable, and that the reliability of each source for the statements sourced to it needs to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Indeed, the only other person who commented specifically on this source said that it was "authoritative in linguistic matters". So, could you please now specify why exactly it would be unsuitable for supporting the idea that "all of [ā] Error: {{Transliteration}}: unrecognized language / script code: arc-Latn (help), [ō] Error: {{Transliteration}}: unrecognized language / script code: arc-Latn (help) and word-final [ē] Error: {{Transliteration}}: unrecognized language / script code: arc-Latn (help) [in the various transcriptions of Suroye] transliterate Aramaic Ālaph"? Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:13, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

And if I see any more of this kind of revert-warring on this page, I'll hand out blocks starting from two months in duration. Final warning. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:14, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

The transliteration for the word Assyrian, it does not take the form:

group = Assyrian people
[Sūrāyē] Error: {{Transliteration}}: unrecognized language / script code: arc-Latn (help) / [Sūryāyē] Error: {{Transliteration}}: unrecognized language / script code: arc-Latn (help) / [Āṯūrāyē] Error: {{Transliteration}}: unrecognized language / script code: arc-Latn (help) also transliterated [Sūrōyē] Error: {{Transliteration}}: unrecognized language / script code: arc-Latn (help) / [Sūryōyē] Error: {{Transliteration}}: unrecognized language / script code: arc-Latn (help) / [Ōṯūrōyē] Error: {{Transliteration}}: unrecognized language / script code: arc-Latn (help); all of [ā] Error: {{Transliteration}}: unrecognized language / script code: arc-Latn (help), [ō] Error: {{Transliteration}}: unrecognized language / script code: arc-Latn (help) and word-final [ē] Error: {{Transliteration}}: unrecognized language / script code: arc-Latn (help)

For the same reason I gave @AynHaylo above. That is the party driven POV, hence the removal of the Awde,Limassu,Al-Jeloo reference. Latn|ā, Latn|ō and Latn|ē are inconsequential to the issue.

Sr 76 (talk) 16:49, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm the one that posted on the talk page as instructed in the rules. I'm the one that's here discussing this issue. I'm not the one edit-warring. Sr 76 (talk) 17:07, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

You can't remove it like that. You can simply add brief explanations or a link to another page. ܣܘܪܝܝܐ is the historical name of our people before any nationalism. Other people have their name in their language so we should also have our.'AynHaylo (talk) 18:16, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

I concur. You cannot simply remove the word that our people have called themselves for two thousand years Penguins53 (talk) 20:13, 12 July 2015 (UTC)Penguins53

Pro tip: if the relationship between the native name ("ܣܘܪܝܝܐ" or whatever else) and the English title at the start of the lede sentence is not a totally straightforward one, e.g. because the one isn't a straightforward direct translation of the other, the obvious solution is to take that bit out of the lede sentence and integrate it somewhere else, together with the discussion of other name variants. Always remember: (a) we make decisions about including or not including things in order to maximize the information value for our readers, not in order to satisfy the feelings of the subject group – it's not about "us" "having" "our" name there; (b) for 99.9% of our readers the information value of that string is precisely zero, because they can't read the Syriac script anyway. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:21, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

@AynHaylo and @Penguins53 the 2 of you did not complain when the word "ܣܘܪܝܝܐ" was misrepresent as Assyrian, see the original explanation I gave @AynHaylo. Because this misrepresentation fits the narrative of Assyrian propaganda.

@Future Perfect at Sunrise: see what i mean when i wrote it will reduce the conflicts and edit-warring in the move request: "None of these groups can deny their Syriac identity, if they did they would need to forgo 2000 years of heritage"... "Weather synonymity of the word Syriac is with Aramean or the word Syriac is Synonymous with Assyrian, with my proposal either answer becomes irrelevant".... "By doing this Wiki-Admin can easily identify ideological and political POVs being inserted into Wikipedia pages." But your abuse of the "commonname" took priority over common sense. Sr 76 (talk) 04:33, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Explaining this change today.... https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Assyrian_people&type=revision&diff=673444709&oldid=673444328 because the original change was made incorrectly and not inline with the discussion above.

"ܐܫܘܪܝܐ" replaced "ܐܬܘܪܝܐ"

The gentilic form of the word Assyrian "ܐܬܘܪܝܐ" othuroyo is found mainly in Syriac literature, up until the 20th century. as opposed to the word "ܐܫܘܪܝܐ" that literal translation of the word Assyrian. The word othuroyo was originally used to refer to the Syriacs from the Mosul region of today's Iraq. Sr 76 (talk) 09:48, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

That is not yet an explanation of why you consider the form "ܐܫܘܪܝܐ" to be more appropriate here. Could you please provide a Latin transliteration of this form ("Oshuroyo"?), and links to reliable sources describing it as the common self-appellation? I've seen a couple of reliable sources that appear to be giving the "ܐܬܘܪܝܐ" form (i.e. forms with "th" in Latin transcription), but none of the ones I've seen appear to be giving a variant with "sh". – Also, please do be prepared to explain your removal of those sections from the history section [9]. Why did you keep the "pre-Christian" and the "from Safavid to Ottoman" sections in, but removed all those in between? It's not at all obvious to me how that follows from anything "as per talk page". Just as the last time you explained some article edit only with a vague hand-waving of "as per talk page", you really need to learn to be more explicit about telling people what you're doing and why. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:17, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

@Fut.Perf yes, its Oshuroyo some times Ashuroyo is used, we can stick with Oshuroyo. The gentilic form of Assyrian was used during the for centuries through out Syriac literature to refer to the Syriacs from Mosul and it surrounds, up until the 20th century. Then the word took on a different connotation with advent of Assyrian nationalism. Especially within the Syriac Orthodox Church the word was use by Assyrian Nationalist as only a direct synonym of Assyrian. So in the pre 20th century era the word did not mean Assyrian, hence the need to change it. During the 20th century it took on a purely political definition, most devoid of its original meaning.

So far as the history section goes we have been discussing it below in the "Clean up of the History Section". And i agree with other parts should be removed also. Sr 76 (talk) 12:23, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

This doesn't answer my question. You have explained why you think the meaning of the word changed since the 19th/20th century, but you haven't explained why you think the new meaning has to correspond with this different form (with sh rather than th). Sources or it didn't happen. (Also, incidentally, I'm not sure why you keep throwing the term "gentilic" around – do you feel it signifies something about the th form that doesn't apply to the sh form? Please explain.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:40, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

BTW didn't @Penguins53 just violate the rules for the page? by reverting my edits without explaining it on the talk page? https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Assyrian_people&action=history Sr 76 (talk) 12:27, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

@Future Perfect at Sunrise: Assyrian Christians, Aaron Michael Butts - Yale University, page 2

"While ʾāthorāyā “Assyrian” is not the typical self%designation for Syriac Christians in pre%modern Syriac sources, Assyria (ʾāthor) and Assyrian (ʾāthorāyā) do occur in several senses throughout this period. First and foremost, ʾāthor refers to the ancient empire of Assyria and the area surrounding its last capital Nineveh. In the Syriac translation of the Hebrew Bible, for instance, Hebrew ʾaššur is often rendered by Syriac ʾāthor (Kings 15:19, 20, 29; 17:6, 23; 18:11; etc.). Following this usage, the gentilic adjective ʾāthorāyā designated a person from the ancient empire of Assyria or more specifically its capital Nineveh. From this primary sense of ʾāthor, at least two secondary senses developed in pre%modern Syriac literature. First, Syriac ʾāthor came to refer to the city of Mosul (Fiey 1965%1986: 2.570), which was built on the west bank of the Tigris directly across from the ancient ruins of Nineveh. This is the primary meaning of ʾāthor relayed by the native Syriac lexicographers Ishoʿ bar ʿAli (ninth century; Hoffmann 1874: 63) and Ḥasan bar Bahlul (mid%tenth century; Duval 1888%1901: 1.322). This meaning of ʾāthor is also found in the Arabic geographer Yāqūt (d. 1228) who states that Mosul was called ʾathūru before it was called al�mawṣil (Wüstenfeld 1866%1873: 1.119.16%19).

With ʾāthor referring to the city of Mosul, the gentilic adjective ʾāthorāyā was, then, used as a designation for one from the city of Mosul. It is probably in this sense that the Syriac Orthodox patriarch and historian Michael the Great (d. 1199) called ʿImād al%Dīn Zangī (ca. 1085%1146), who was the atabeg of Mosul, an “Assyrian (ʾāthorāyā) pig” in his Chronicle (Chabot 1899%1910: 3.261 [French translation]; 4.630.2.24 [Syriac text]). This meaning continued to be used in Classical Syriac at least until the turn of the 20th century (see Fiey 1965: 156 with n. 53; Heinrichs 1993: 105)."Sr 76 (talk) 07:12, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

i'll be going back to my edits before @Penguins53 reverted them.Sr 76 (talk) 00:11, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Removal of Severus of Antioch

What is the connection of Severus of Antioch with the Assyrian People page? Sr 76 (talk) 14:02, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

There is a connection ..but its not a big one at all....Fact is many at the time in the church thought St. Severus of Antioch to be an evil men. Not a subject that needs mention in this article (let alone an image of the person)...thus I agree -- Moxy (talk) 18:25, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Clean up of the History Section

The "History" section contains the following subcategories. - Arab conquest - Mongolian and Turkic rule

Since this page is about the modern Assyrians then this topic is covered in this section is not only outside the scope of the page, but is covered in other pages anyway. I suggest the removal of these two subcategoriesSr 76 (talk) 04:18, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

I oppose such removal. The sections listed provide a glimpse of a people gradually becoming a minority in their homeland the catalysts behind it, with Arab and Turkic conquests being two such reasons. Penguins53 (talk) 05:59, 21 July 2015 (UTC)Penguins53

This page is for the modern Assyrians, the disambiguation of related articles requires a consistency of the pages across Wikipedia. By keeping these sections here, the page does not conform to this. Sr 76 (talk) 06:14, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Your argument rests upon the false assumption that modern Assyrians and those who lived at the time of these events are separate and unrelated. Mugsalot (talk) 07:18, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

@Mugsalot, not even close. Did you even read what i wrote before disagreeing with me? Sr 76 (talk) 07:23, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

@Sr 76, firstly, I would suggest a more hospitable approach to discussions regarding content. More importantly, you continue to assert your POV in separating modern and historic Assyrians. Regarding your point that this information is elsewhere, in other articles,the history of an ethnic group is included in its article, and links to further information are made available. Mugsalot (talk) 16:37, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Again, I am not mentioning my POV, I am discussing the page structure against the other related pages. If I was discussing the separation of the ancient Assyrians from the modern Assyrians, then trust me, you will know it.

If this page is a representation of the modern Assyrians, and the Assyrian Empire pages refer to the Ancient Assyrians. Then it needs to be consistent with the Arameans page. There is no need a history section that predates the modern era, since the page is about the modern era.Sr 76 (talk) 17:25, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Are you referring to Arameans? I see history here..be it poorly sourced. Most "peoples" type pages have a historical section. Could you be a bit more clear at what point in history you believe this article should start at and why? -- Moxy (talk) 18:34, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

If Assyrian continuity is to be believed then the Assyrian people article should cover the ancient period also. Mugsalot (talk) 09:09, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Now that some of you stick on the term "Assyrian", where is the distinction between ancient Assyrians and modern Assyrians? I type Assyrians into the search bar and I still getting redirected to this article. No Assyrians (disambiguation) page available until now, when I want to read about the ancient, pre-Christian people?--Suryoyo124 (talk) 13:40, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

@Mugsalot it seems that you want to have your cake and eat it too.

@Moxy not that this was original intention with the suggestion....but.....most people pages are not forced together, based on the bogus notion of a content fork, to enable the Assyrian political ambition assimilating other groups. How can you sustain a history section beyond the modern era, when no historical sources refer to the Assyrians? Are you going to go out of your way to misrepresent the sources? that hardly seems reasonable nor ethical. I kept telling you guys, WP:COMMONNAME is not applicable. "Bill Clinton" for "William Clinton" makes sense, "Assyrian people" for "Syriac people" doesn't make any sense. Any attempt to construct this history will be a political POV.

My original suggestion was that we are having trouble containing the scope of the page, already a history section will only conflate this. The Aramean Syriacs were not limited to just Mesopotamia, the Assyrians and Chaldeans were. But the Aramean Syriacs were grouped under the name Assyrian on a page that is constructed to reflect just Mesopotamia, it even says it on the first line. Before any one comes up with the bright idea expanding this page to outside Mesopotamia, that wont work because you have very large groups of Syriac background such as the Maronites that have nothing to do with Assyria.Sr 76 (talk) 15:29, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Maronites are Maronites and they have their own page, they are not Syriac, not even 1% or 5% of Maronites identify with the name "Suryani". The majority of them are maintream Lebanese/Arabs, I will not even talk about their diaspora... They don't know Syriac, most of them see it as "Latin" a dead language. Today Lebanon parliament clearly show it, they have their own seat, for Maronites, etc. It's the same with the people of Maa'loula (the last remnants of true "ܡܠܟܝܐ"/Melkites), they have no connection with us, they don't even know our people, they just know their language is closed to Palestinian Aramaic. I will not even talk about other Greek Orthodox/Catholic: "Rum" who are completely arabized. Stop spreading false propaganda about people "west of Euphrates" or with "Syriac Background" (Let's include the Jews and the Mhalmoye now ? at least they still speak our language them...), or the Maronites and Greek Orthodox of Israel who decided (with the effort of WCA and Suryoye from Diaspora who are Aramean nationalists) to take up the name Aramean to not be assimilated with the Arabs. "you have very large groups of Syriac background such as the Maronites" what a joke, if thats was really the case, Lebanon would be full of Syriac Aramean nationalist flag (just like the few villages of Maronites in Israel who adopted the name Aramean), Syriac Union Party, ESU and so on. Making this page "Syriac" or "Aramean" or other pages will just be forks... The solution is to rename it to Syriac-Assyrian and include a nationalim section, that's all. Sr_76, if you want to work from a strictly academic point of view, then work on the page Syriac Christianity which of course include maronites and to an extent melkites. In some of your posts you claimed that Chaldeans, Syriac and Assyrian sects are different peoples (Not even coherent with what Arameans nationalists say), then now you try to include them under the name Syriac with your arabized people "west of Euphrate". And it's the same with Suryoyo124. So again, this page is for our people: U.S.-led coalition disappointed us in anti-IS battles: Assyrian commander, We welcome the statement of US Gen. John Allen on Self-Government in Syria, Syriac-Assyrians welcome US statement on self-government and self-defence, ISIS Onslaught Engulfs Assyrian Christians as Militants Destroy Ancient Art, Three Assyrian fighters killed during clashes with ISIS, isis-hundreds-of-assyrian-christian-hostages-in-syria, ASSYRIAN CHRISTIANS DEMAND ARMS, SUPPORT TO FIGHT ISIS AS HUNDREDS KIDNAPPED, Fight Against ISIS In Syrian Province Crosses Religious And Ethnic Lines,Fight Against ISIS In Syrian Province Crosses Religious And Ethnic Lines,On the front line in Syrian Kurdistan, militias fight to free kidnapped families,Meet the militia fighting ISIL’s “dictatorship and inhumanity” in Syria,Is This the End of Christianity in the Middle East?. 'AynHaylo (talk) 22:05, 22 July 2015 (UTC) "Us" and "Our people"???? POV and nothing else. Wikipedia is not here as a platform for your political aspirations, dont bring that here, there are plenty of places on the internet for that.Sr 76 (talk) 03:38, 23 July 2015 (UTC) Since the issue is a content fork, then this may work: A main page called "Syriac people". that lists all the heritage and history of these people. Then linked from this main page. a "Assyrian people" for nationalists and a "Aramean people" page for nationalist. "Chaldean people" With these three sub pages will be restricted from providing any historical information beyond the modern era. Your solution of "Syriac-Assyrian people", wont work because it gives priority to the name Assyrian over Aramean and Chaldean. So it will be a cause of offence and disruptions. Sr 76 (talk) 03:51, 23 July 2015 (UTC) The current page is fine as is, but should give a bit more explanation of "Chaldean" and "Aramean" nationalisms. Penguins53 (talk) 16:17, 23 July 2015 (UTC)Penguins53 Again Where are your Maronites and Melkites ? These are arabized people for 99% of them, not even counting those among them who consider themselves as Asian Greek ("Rum" which is still used by the way), those who advocate phoenicianism... REgarding my proposition, it will be a cause of offense only if you're POV on Assyrianism, Arameanism or Chaldeanism. Before saying someone is POV or has political aspirations, check what you said and did on Wikipedia: From sayings Assyrian, Chaldeans and Arameans are different people, claiming 3 diffenrents pages, you are now trying to include them under "Syriac people" but in other hand you are proposing separate pages for each nationalism still hiding yourself and trying to divide our people ? By the way I made similar proposition but you were again against only because the name "Assyrian-Syriac people" "gives primacy to the name Assyrian over Aramean and Chaldean" of course because English media in English speaking countries use Assyrian and then Syriac. You only know us from academics books. You have clearly no internal knowledge of our people, our political history and movements and again your position is also at the opposite of all our political movement (WCA leading Aramean nationalist organization) and church leaders (recent words of Syriac Orthodox Patriarch (interviewed by SuroyoTV, AssyriaTV and SuryoyoSat), Mar Louis Sako Chaldean Catholic Patriarch (regarding our name in the Iraqi KRG and Bishop Mar Awa royel in his letter adressed to Chaldean Catholic Church regarding unity of the Church of the East), to conclude it's against the people concerned by this page.'AynHaylo (talk) 22:17, 23 July 2015 (UTC) Since the logic of Maronite and Melkite heritage escapes you. Then try this: Why do ignore the Arameans and Chaldeans self determination, and insist on labeling them Assyrian? When refuting the Maronites your argument relies on what they call themselves, when pursuing your political aspirations of Assyriamism you must ignore what the Arameans and Chaldeans call themselves. Its an example of the redicouluse double standard the Assyrians fanatics have used to ruin this page. BTW I have seen that interview before: The final answer given by Syriac Orthodox Patriarch is that he insists the people are Syriac and is willing to call them Arameans. The label Assyrian was not given as an option.Sr 76 (talk) 06:22, 25 July 2015 (UTC) Its clear this is deviating from the original suggestion, please lets try and keep the talk limited to the history section.Sr 76 (talk) 06:25, 25 July 2015 (UTC) "Why do ignore the Arameans and Chaldeans self determination" ==> You clearly show yourself and this does confirm, you are clearly POV, your only agenda is to divide our people, making 3 separate pages because this is what you believe and convinced of. But the links and videos that I provided in my previous posts clearly show you that the organisations of our people, none of them, state that we are different people and no church also is dividing this people => Your "Self determination" of Arameans or Chaldeans are just the beliefs and views of few individuals like you, even academics do not state that (check your sources). Same thing for the interview of Moran Mor Aphrem II, you only retained what was matching your POV. In the interview they used the name "parties/ܓܒ̈ܐ", insisted on unity and using the name Suryoyo in the Church etc... Again, your proposition fit only your POV and not the people.'AynHaylo (talk) 10:50, 25 July 2015 (UTC) "...your only agenda is to divide our people..." Sr 76 does not divide our people. You and the other Assyrian nationalists are dividing our people particularly within the Syriac-Orthodox community by forcing your Assyrian ideology upon all of them. What do mean by saying "our people"? First of, there has never been something like a unification in the sense of nationalism among Syriac Christian. The separations are much deeper in history and didn't start with the name/ethnicity conflict. The only thing they all cared about for centuries was their Christian faith, before the rise of various nationalist groups and ideologies. You gave the example with the Israeli Aramean Maronites, but you forgot to mention that this is exactly the same case when some Suryoye from the Syriac-Orthodox Church joined Assyrian nationalism. I don't know from where your family came from, my family and the others from Syria have always referred Assyrians (Assyrian Church of the East members) and Chaldeans (Chaldean Catholic Church members) as different people with their own language and tradtion. The first time they meet Assyrians and Chaldeans was in the diaspora. What is our or your language: Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, Chaldean Neo-Aramaic or Turoyo? Your are talking about "our people" and ironically they can't converse with each other in their Eastern Aramaic languages/dialects, which would be like speaking Spanish with an Italian or Dutch with a German. Seriously, you're still trying to make your nation different from other Syriac Christians in the Middle East? "...state that we are different people and no church also is dividing this people..." The Syriac-Orthdox Church always tries to keep politics and nationalism (even Aramean nationalism which is rooted in the tradition and heritage of the Syriac-Orthdox Church) away from the church since the church is a place of faith unlike the "Christians" at the Assyrian Church of the East, who mix nationalism with faith (See:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3Q8nK0vAxk). From the perspective of Aramean organisations Assyrian nationalists are dividing our people and prevent a unification among Syriac-Orthodox Christians, Maronites, Melkites etc.. "...making 3 separate pages because this is what you believe and convinced of...insisted on unity and using the name Suryoyo in the Church etc..." If Suryoyo is the name that unites all of us, why would you oppose a common Syriac people article for our Christian heritage, while the other three separate pages refer to the nationalist groups!?--Suryoyo124 (talk) 16:37, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

And here we go again, everybody exchanging the same tired old ideological points about what each of you think the identity of your people should or shouldn't be. Dammit, will you people never learn? Stop this, now, all of you. This is my absolutely last and final warning to all three of you, Suryoyo124, 'AynHaylo, and Sr 76. Stop debating your opinions, and start developing the article. The next time I see people dragging each other into these kinds of ideological debates, it's indef-blocks for all of you. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:58, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

But our hands are tied. So you tell us. There is now a period of about 2000 years that no-one can find any sources for.......how do we start developing the article? Sr 76 (talk) 19:30, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Thousands of books on the topic, Your simply not stating your point clearly or the rest of us dont understand your POV, What time period would you like sources for ? Not sure blanking sections over adding sourced content will help anyone reading the article understand any POV. -- Moxy (talk) 20:50, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

@Moxy I'm not sure what you mean by this, we are getting our wires crossed somewhere. Are you suggesting that there are thousands of works that refer to Assyrian history during the last 2000 years; prior to just the modern period?Sr 76 (talk) 07:16, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

@Shmayo we have discussed this at length, stop edit warring. Read the rules of this page, there is no need for consensus on the content since the page is poorly referenced. If you want the section there then please provide sources.

@Future Perfect at Sunrise: you have blocked several users at the drop of hat, and yet you allow @shmayo to continue uninterrupted with his edit warring.Sr 76 (talk) 04:28, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Thumbnail Clean-up

Removal of the following individuals from the thumbnail window. Abgar V, Lucian, Bardaisan, Ephrem the Syrian, Simon the Stylite, Bukhtishu, Hunayn bar Ishaq, Shimun VIII Yohannan Sulaqa

Since these people don't belong to the modern era, it is more appropriate if they were listed under Syriac Christianity not Assyrian People.Sr 76 (talk) 03:54, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Article title

Now, where most of you want to keep the term "Assyrian" for all modern Aramaic speaking-peoples, we would still need a proper distinction between ancient Assyrians and the modern Aramaic speaking-peoples who are all labeled as Assyrians in order to prevent misunderstanding and Assyrian POV editing. The Assyria article refers to the empire originally, not the ancient peoples themselves. My suggestions: Assyrians (Aramaic speaking-peoples), Assyrians (Syriacs) or Assyrians (Syriac-Christians) for Aramaic speaking-peoples. "Assyrian" is already a disambiguation page. The current title "Assyrian people" should be the title for the ancient people article, while "Assyrians" simply redirects to the "Assyrian" disambiguation page.--Suryoyo124 (talk) 16:28, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

They are not interested in improving the article, the article currently meets their political needs. Sr 76 (talk) 04:44, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Identity Section

As per the talk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Assyrian_people/Archive_14#Origin.27s_of_today.27s_Assyrian_Identity

Sr 76 (talk) 04:41, 16 August 2015 (UTC)