Talk:Arameans

Fusuin with Aram

I would strongly argue against a fusuin with Biblical Aram, as Aram was just one of a whole plethora of Aramaean states that developed in the period between the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age.

Regards John D. Croft 16:25, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I would say not to. Aram is a region (not a state, by the way) and Aramaeans are a people. It is the norm to seperate the two into seperate articles. Examples would include Thracians and Thrace, urther, Shemite is used these days as an alternative to the tricky word Semitic. The latter word has linguistic connotations while Shemite is still terminology purely used in reference to biblical genealogy i.e. the country called Elam was certainly Shemite in the biblical sense but by no means semitic in the linguistic sense. The word Shemite is used here in this article to infer to the more discening reader that although the bible mentions a nation known as Aram as one of Shem's 5 immediate offspring, the linguistic nature of that alledged nation (nor indeed their eastern location) cannot be determined with any certainty despite attempts to connect them with central asia.

This article continues to contain completely incorrect information as the two gentlemen above point out that makes use of the traditional evangelical Christian narrative in the English language concocted by false and disproven reference sources of so-called "Biblical archaeology" which has been disproven in its entirety by Israel Finkelstein, Ronny Reich and others both working for the Israeli Antiquities Authority and around the world. The Kingdom of Israel never existed historically- the lands were Canaan, Samaria and Judea. The map is totally fictitious. We know from recent archaeology that Jerusalem only has the sort of habitation that would justify a city of David by earliest the 600's BCE, more likely the 500's. Solomon, David and Saul and that bunch are definitely fictional characters, and the earliest inscription of Jerusalem we have is from the 1st century BCE. Request that an editor place the article under monitoring and require authors make use of sources published at earliest within the last 10 years. Canlawtictoc (talk) 03:35, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

shemite

"Shemite:" a descendent of Shem, one of the sons of Noah. If the 17th century terminology is confusing, the article "Abraham wasn't a Jew" at the "Bible Study" website will help you understand this entry. Wetman 08:58, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Wetman is the official monkey on my back. He is sad enough to check out every new page I create. Maybe I should make a few up just to entertain him? To help any reader interested in this stub further, Shemite is used these days as an alternative to the tricky word Semitic. The latter word has linguistic connotations while Shemite is still terminology purely used in reference to biblical genealogy i.e. the country called Elam was certainly Shemite in the biblical sense but by no means semitic in the linguistic sense. The word Shemite is used here in this article to infer to the more discening reader that although the bible mentions a nation known as Aram as one of Shem's 5 immediate offspring, the linguistic nature of that alledged nation (nor indeed their eastern location) cannot be determined with any certainty despite attempts to connect them with central asia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zestauferov (talk • contribs) 09:25, 15 February 2004 (UTC)

it's

It's Aramaean or Aramæan, not Aramean. — Chameleon My page/My talk 07:46, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

-- http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=deut%2026:5;&version=45; Deuteronomy 26:5 Amplified Bible uses Aramean, which is why I searched for the term. If Aramean wasn't used, the wiki article would not have appeared in search results. Dave

poor condition

This article is in a very poor condition. It does not distinguish properly between different uses of the name 'Aramaean' through history. Nor does it give a decent history of ancient Aram. I think this is a fair candidate for complete rewrite. Does anyone disagree?

Gareth Hughes 00:37, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree! (sharrukin 03:34, 26 October 2005 (UTC))

Bible

History Section: Since when is the bible a historic document? One can't use biblical stories as a historical source.

You can use the Bible as a historical source, but you need to remember its accuracy and bias (like every source) and not use it as the only source. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 04:40, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Dialect of Akkadian

According to the Semitic languages article, Aramaic is a West Semitic language like Hebrew and Arabic. Akkadian is an East Semitic language. So Aramaic is probably not a dialect of Akkadian.

You are right, and so I have removed the offending sentence. This article is poorly written and is need of a lot of cleaning up. Please feel free to help out with it. --Gareth Hughes 22:18, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The confusion come from the fact that when Aramean spread in the region, it mixed with the local language. There's a kind of aramean spoken in the akkad region who is know as akkadian aramean because akkadian had a strong influence on it.--equitor 23:06, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

NO not only in germany, in Syria and Lebanon too. tehre are also Muslim Arameans wich speaks fully Aramiac and writes wich acient aramaic scripts. Nochi 19:32, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

That seems wrong. By the time that the Arameans were moving into Mesopotamia, Sumer and Akkad were generally collectively called "Babylonia." Also, "Aramean" is the people, and Aramaic the language. Wouldn't it be called "Babylonian Aramaic"? john k 23:19, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

14th century

I was under the impression that the Aramaeans arrived around 1100 BC. Apart from the enigmatic references to "Nahrima" in the Amarna letters, is there any evidence for an Aramaean presence in the Levant before 1100 BC?--Rob117 22:55, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

New version....

Tell me what you think, it needs alot of work, I you can.... HELP... thanks (sharrukin 08:01, 26 October 2005 (UTC))

I like it a lot. It is a vast improvement on what has gone before. As you noticed, I considered a rewrite almost a year ago, but I immersed myself in rewriting Aramaic language instead. I have made a couple of edits to your version, but all completely minor stuff from the Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Have a read through your article again, and add and correct as you see fit: I find that I have to keep on rereading my articles to make sure that I've covered everything. I'll hope to give some help on it when I can: I think the modern section needs a bit of work; after all, that's the section you didn't do much too! Thanks for this. --Gareth Hughes 15:42, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. I am seriously considering changing Arameans to Aramaeans, all the "What links here" will then go to Arameans which will be linked (transfered) to Aramaeans. Slowly all related articles will adjust. What do you think? (sharrukin 17:56, 26 October 2005 (UTC))

For the spelling issue, see American and British English spelling differences#Simplification of ae (æ) and oe (œ). For the guidelines about which spelling should be used, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English. Because we have redirects, if one page references a different spelling, the link will end up here anyway. Valid reasons for moving the page would be that the page was earlier moved from Aramaeans to its present place, or that the entre article has be rewritten by someone in British, or Commonwealth, English, and would like the title to reflect their usage. --Gareth Hughes 18:14, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Topic closed. Neither reasons (mentioned) are valid enough, to make the transfer, since many scholars now spell it Arameans and also that its widely used in Wikipedia (less vas et viens). (sharrukin 18:35, 26 October 2005 (UTC))

modern Aramaeans

I will be working on the modern Aramaeans section, indeed it is uncomplete and weak. At the moment I did not have much documentation or personal solid knowledge on this specific topic. (sharrukin 19:40, 26 October 2005 (UTC))

New version II....

I am sure there's alot more of work/study/research to be done on it. Hope to get some help achieving this:

• Documenting the different periods of time in general context, if not see the next point.
• Combining the History subcategories into one homogeneous text, so it could gently resume the Aramaean history in a chronological frame.
• Listing the different Aramaean kingdoms, their location, cities, kings and their specific chronology.
• Demonstrate the Bible's vision of Aramaeans / the ethnic relationship between Aramaeans and Hebrews.
• ...

(sharrukin 19:40, 26 October 2005 (UTC))

Chaldeans

As the Chaldeans are often said to have originally been an Aramaic tribe, should they be addressed as well?--Rob117 02:40, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

George Rawlinson quotation removed --sharrukin 04:03, 30 October 2005 (UTC)--sharrukin 05:12, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

They were definitely Semitic, or at least Semiticized. Every source I look at that attempts to trace their origin calls them an Aramaic tribe.--Rob117 01:37, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Rawlinson was writing more than a hundred years ago. It's quite possible that what he called the "Chaldeans" may be what we would call the "Sumerians." Even if not, he's certainly not a reasonable authority at this point - the Chaldeans were certainly semites, and apparently spoke Aramaic. john k 01:58, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

The quote is found at Gutenberg. He seems to be talking about Chaldeans rather than Sumerians (though he muddles the two a bit) but I agree generally with John K's above remarkBriangotts (talk) 03:06, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree, quoting Rawlinson is notably precarious, specially regarding Chaldean origins. I shall spurn the quotation. But are we confident, 100+ years, later that they were Semitic or Aramaeans? is the use of a widely spoken language(Aramaean) adequate to say they were Semites or Aramaeans?--sharrukin 05:12, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Since "Semitic", used in any realistic scientific sense, is purely a linguistic definition, I would say yes. --Briangotts (talk) 14:56, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Looking at Rawlinson's discussion of the "Chaldees" and their language, it seems clear he is referring to Sumerian - or, at least, to a possibly non-Semitic language spoken in lower Mesopotamia centuries before the time of Nebuchadnezzar. The only possible language this could be is Sumerian, as far as I can tell. I think it is perfectly fine to say the Chaldeans were an Aramean group. john k 01:00, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

The terms Chaldean and Chaldee were often retrospectively and in a much later sense applied to regions and peoples in southern Mesopotamia at a time long before the Chaldeans actually arrived. An example of this is Abraham supposedly coming from Ur of the Chaldees. This would have been impossible, as IF Abraham existed, he would have lived circa 1800-1700 BCE, and that is almost a thousand years before the Chaldeans actually arrived. There is no mention of them prior to the 9th century BCE, and no mention of them in Mesopotamian records after the 6th century BCE.

The Chaldeans are generally believed to have been culturally similar to the Arameans and hailing from the same Levantine regions, but a different group, Sennacherib differentiates the two peoples in his annals. The idea that they were Arameans is now a dated argument. The Roman Catholic Church kept the name alive, applying it inaccurately to Greek, Anatolian and Assyrian converts to Catholicism in the late Middle Ages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.100.25.101 (talk) 08:29, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Syriac vs Aramean

Durring the advent of Christianity, Christian Arameans (Aramaye) referred to themselves as Syriac (Suraye) as apposed to Aramean to distinguish themselves from the Pagans (Kappore). In fact the term Syriac is used almost interchangably with Christian albeit the two terms aren't the same.

The forefather of the Syriacs have allways identified themselves as Aramean, there is no misstake here. Many sources still survive. There are many famous quotes that validate this.

St Jacob of Serugh (451-521AD) famously wrote this about St Afrem the Syrian: "He who became a wreath to the whole Aramean nation"

Jacob Bar Salibi (ca 1171AD) wrote that "we are the sons of Aram"

Remember forward (talk) 20:23, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Modern Arameans

I reverted Pylambert's removal of the the Modern section, and subsequently the Syriacs template.

I also think the quality of the section needs a lot of improvement, but simply deleting it is in my opinion a misleading way of changing the subject of the article, which was apparently the primary objective of the editor. --Benne ['bɛnə] _(talk) 11:51, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

This article is now tagged for not being accurate because of the "modern" section and your ill-designed Syriacs box. --Pylambert 11:55, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I think that this article would be better without the modern section. However, there should be a sentence in an appropriate position that says that many traditionally Aramaic-speaking Christians of the Middle East consider themselves to be descendended from the ancient Aramaeans, and call themselves Aramaean. Then we could link to the article where we discuss modern Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac/Aramaean people (when we've decided what it should be called). --Gareth Hughes 13:22, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

However, there should be a sentence in an appropriate position that says that many traditionally Aramaic-speaking Christians of the Middle East consider themselves to be descendended from the ancient Aramaeans yea and we should also clearly state that these people do not live in the middle east, but rather in Germany, Netherlands, and Sweden. Chaldean 03:19, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was move. -- tariqabjotu 00:44, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Hello people. The article needs a lot of work. please lets wait for a while to improve it. Brusk u Trishka 10:37, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

Arameans → Aramaeans – In the article itself, Aramaeans is consequently used. For the sake of conformance, I suggest moving the article. Benne ['bɛnə] _(talk) 19:18, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Survey

Add "* Support" or "* Oppose" followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

• Support Despite the archaic form, the usual English spelling. Septentrionalis 19:00, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments

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

Chaldeans,Assyrians (Nestorians) and Syriacs are Aramaic

Chaldeans, Nestorians and Syriacs are part of aramiac people and its a diclamer on this article where it stands that thoose are Aramaens. Nochi 11:19, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Show me ONE group outside of Northern Europe that call themselves "Aramaya"? This was a poor attempt at a joke. Nochi please watch what you doing. You don't just make up stuff and put it on wiki. Chaldean 12:18, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

An example of the joke;

• Flag of Lebanon Lebanon 2,000,000[citation needed]
• Flag of Syria Syria 1,500,000[citation needed]
• Flag of Iraq Iraq 700,000[citation needed]
• Flag of Jordan Jordan 70,000

WHERE IN THE MIDDLE EAST DO YOU ACTUALLY FIND PEOPLE CALLING THEMSELVES AMARAEAN? NOWHERE. Chaldean 12:26, 8 August 2007 (UTC

"Aramaeans" is a self-designation of Assyrians in Germany, see de:Aramäer (Gegenwart). This may be noted at Assyrian people. dab (𒁳) 13:31, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

23 000 Assyrians in Germany. How many is there, who say they are "Aramaeans"? Since you live in Germany, I have to ask: do you ever bump into these morons? Not even here in Sweden, are the "Aramaeans" a majority. And the Syriacs are a majority here. — EliasAlucard|Talk 22:41 09 Aug, 2007 (UTC)

like u have u clue. u "assyrian" troll (: Nochi 20:57, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Aramaean religion

I do not see any mention of Aramaean religion practiced by more than 166000 people in Iraq, in this article. I found information of this religion, a news item, on Aljazeera TV news chanel recently. These people of Aramaean origin practice that religion and they claim to be very different from Islamic Arameans, they tell that they believe in peaceful living and do not believe in killing any body in the name of Jehad. They worship a river Euphrates. A movie clip showed, they reading their scripture, writen in old Aramaen language as explained by the commentor. It appeared to me that their ancient religion has something common with Hinduism of india. Pathare Prabhu (talk) 06:38, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

What is the official Aramean website?

I am fixing an Arab article and I want to refrence to the Arameans that don't identify as Arabs. Is this the right website? http://www.aramnaharaim.org/ --Skatewalk 11:15, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, there is no "official" website, but the one you've found quite elaborately explains the position of the Aramaeans. Also, you might want to check out Urhoy, which sums up a long list of historical sources, stating that Syriac equals Aramaean. --Benne ['bɛnə] _(talk) 11:21, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Honestly I am a bit confused. I know the majority among Maronites don't identify as Arabs (only a minority are ethnic Arabs and a fewer number of self idnetified Arabs). I tried changing the number of Arabs in Lebanon to 2million Arabs instead of 4 Million, but it got reverted.

Is Aramean a cultural term? similar to the Modern Arab term? can you be an ethnic Turk and be Aramean if you choose to be? Just like you can be an Arab even if you are ethnically berber?

Also religion? Can you be an Aramean Muslim? or does the religious status of Arabic in Islam conflicts with the Aramean identity?

Anyways thanks for the reply. --Skatewalk 23:43, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

There are no Aramaean people today. They are Assyrians. Assyrians speak Aramaic today, and have spoken Aramaic since the Neo-Assyrian Empire. We just have some confused Assyrians, and ant-Assyrians like Benne are perpetuating this confusion and trying to split the Assyrian nation. These "Aramaeans", only call themselves Aramaeans in northern Europe. No Assyrian in the Middle East calls him/herself "Aramaean". — EliasAlucard|Talk 03:10 14 Aug, 2007 (UTC)

Ok man you are very politically minded! I am against political imposed identities (Arabization included), anyways I asked other questions =( ! --Skatewalk 03:15, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

To answer your question - Aramaeans dont exist today. Nobody in the Middle East calls themselves ethnic Aramaean. You will only find them in Northern Europe (they are very small in numbers.) Chaldean 04:00, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

These are Assyrianist lies. I have personally met and read interviews with Syriacs in Turkey who identify themselves as Aramaeans. Also, on the website you found, and the Urhoy website I pointed out to you, you can find plenty of references to Syriacs who identify Syrians with Aramaeans. --Benne ['bɛnə] _(talk) 08:54, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

You are a liar and you know it. You even admitted asking 50 Syriacs and only ONE replied Aramaean and God knowns how you pressured him with your agenda. Chaldean 03:25, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Are you getting confused now? That time I was quoting from a Turkish book on Syriacs, mostly living in Istanbul, 2 per cent of whom called themselves Aramaean (another 2 per cent used the self-appelation Assyrian, do you remember?).

Also, if you look at the Urhoy website, you'll see that famous Syriacs like Ephrem the Syrian and Bar-Hebraeus, and more recently Patriarch Ignatius Afram I Barsoum and Metropolitan Yuhanon Dolabani have acknowledged their Aramaean identity. --Benne ['bɛnə] _(talk) 09:54, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

That website is taking things out of context. It is a crappy website along with the other crappy websites you provide. How about bringing academic material to the table? I guess you still haven't learned. PS - I acknowledge my Aramaean heritage as well, but you are so ignorant in so many ways, that you actually think you can make a whole nation change what they call themselves. Get real, its not going to happen. Chaldean 21:30, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

If anyone here is perpetuating lies, it's Benne. Either cite academic sources, or get lost with your Aramaeanist bullshit revisionist websites. — EliasAlucard|Talk 23:41 17 Aug, 2007 (UTC)

this isn't about "lies", it is about 19th century rise of nationalism in the Ottoman Empire. 19th century history isn't within the scope of this article, please take it elsewhere. --dab (𒁳) 12:28, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

This ridiculous conversation sounds like something that could have come from Borat. What on earth are you people talking about? Arameans/ Assyrians lol! It's the equivalent of a bunch of Italians arguing about whether they are Etruscan, Umbrians or Samnites after 2500 years of invasions, migrations and intermarriage. Get a life.

While I'm at it, what does The great massacre that took place in later days from the Hittites left the Arameans broken and worthless but they rose again. mean? Is this a mish-mash of broken English propagandistic editing on top of older propaganda?1812ahill (talk) 04:12, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

This article fails to mention the primary origin of Aramaeans

It is well known that Aramaeans primarily originated in Arabia. It is written in Wikipedia itself in countless places, but it doesn't show in this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HD1986 (talk • contribs) 14:57, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that recent theory is undisputed, and it actually appears in no primary sources, but if you have a secondary, feel free to cite it neutrally, with proper attributation. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 15:02, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

A completely bogus theory. If not please provide references.Sr 76 (talk) 03:36, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Armenians not from Aramaeans???

I'd always got the impression that Aram fathered the original Armenian Empire and the newer language of modern Armenia came later due to much outside influence. Is this not the case. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.34.227.166 (talk) 14:06, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

It depends whose books you believe, doesn't it? But per the neutrality policy, we allow references for any significant POV, so both sources that have stated this, and the ones disputing it, should be attributable. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 15:36, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

The toponyms Aram for the Aramaeans and Armina for the Armenians. It is unlikely that they have anything to do with one another, although it cannot be ruled out that they are both derived from a single, prehistoric, toponym, since after all, from the Mesopotamian perspective, where these toponyms were used (both are exonyms!), both regions were just "to the north". We can't know. --dab (𒁳) 13:24, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Modern Arameans

Why is this information not in this article? "An Aramean identity is one form of Syriac identity, emphasizing Aramaean identity. The Aramaeans were a people settling in the Levant since the Late Bronze Age, who following the Bronze Age collapse formed a number of small kingdoms before they were conquered into the Assyrian Empire in the course of the 9th to 8th centuries BC.

Such an Aramaean identity is mainly held by Syriac Christians in Lebanon, Turkey, Syria and in the diaspora especially in Germany and Sweden.[24] In English, they self-identify as "Syriac", sometimes expanded to "Syriac-Aramaean" or "Aramaean-Syriac". In German, Aramäer is a common self-designation.

The "Aramaean" faction often puts emphasis on the destruction of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, especially in the words of the prophet Nahum and his description of the fall of Nineveh.[25]" ChildofMidnight (talk) 00:32, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Becuase Assyrians nationalits can't stand it, and let's face it, they think they own these articles and no one seems to oppose this. It's not okay to write about the modern Arameans (more known as the Syriacs), but it's okay for them to write about the so-called "modern Assyrians" in Assyria. The TriZ (talk) 22:50, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

this is the article on the historical people, not the modern group. Like, as has been pointed out in the disambiguation hatnote at the top of the article for ages. The article on the modern group currently resides at Assyrian people. I know this violates WP:NPOV, but allegedly there was a "consensus" for this move. I have protested this claim as bullshit, but here you are. If you want to do anything about this, you want to establish that there was no "consensus" for a move of Assyrian/Syriac people to the current title. Do not attempt to begin a "proxy war" about this ill-advised move at this unrelated article about a Bronze Age topic, you will lose my support in the naming thing immediately if you try such tactics.

You are right that there should be no discussion of "modern Assyrians" on the Assyria page, but I fail to see any undue material in the current revision of that article. --dab (𒁳) 13:16, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Aramaization of the Assyrian empire

In recent edits, it has been claimed that the Aramaeans in the Assyrian empire "fell to the Assyrianization process of the Assyrian empire". Which is very doubtful. On the contrary, the mainstream opinion among modern schoolars seems to be that the Assyrian empire was Aramaized by the Aramaeans ([1], [2], [3], [4]). The TriZ (talk) 00:56, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry about the revert before, I missed this discussion. Would it be fair to say a bit of both happened? At least politically, they were under the Assyrian king. "Assyrianization" usually refers to subject people getting moved around or mistreated by the Assyrians, although it is true that Aramaic language also replaced Assyrian as a wider lingua franca dutring that era. My version was trying to explain this situation, but hopefully we can explain it in a way suitable for everyone, and is not repetitive. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 12:23, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I created the entry after your revert, so you have nothing to apologize for, so I'm therefore to blame :) Nevertheless, I agree that it can be fair to say a bit of both happened, assuming "Assyrianization" refers to what you say it usually refers to. The reason I deleted the sentence was due to that I thought it was misleading, since I interpreted it as it was saying that the Aramaeans assimilated in the Assyrian empire and became part of it as Assyrians. Because I believe, and if you read in the sources I linked to as well, that the Aramaization of the Assyrian empire wasn't only on a linguistic level, but also on a cultural. The TriZ (talk) 16:12, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Request for comment on relevance of Aramaic language to Aramaeans

From the edit log:

• 16:07, 31 ኦገስት 2010 Dbachmann (11,097 bytes) (it is pointless to give the term in Modern Aramaic because it has nothing to do with the topic. We also don't give the tranlation in Finnish or Farsi.)

I'm sorry, but I still fail to understand. You are seriously saying that Aramaic is just as irrelevant to "Aramaeans" as are Finnish and Farsi? Can the language of "Modern Aramaeans" not be traced etymologically to the language of earlier Aramaeans? Or are Ancient and Modern Aramaic wholly separate and unrelated languages now? This seems more than just assertively doctrinarian, but utterly out-to-lunch reasoning. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 20:16, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but have you been paying any attention to the huge "Aramaean":"Syriac":"Assyrian" nonsense? It has only been going on for about three years all over Wikipedia. Of course Modern Aramaic is ultimately descended from the West Semitic language of the ancient Aramaeanes. Like, about 3,400 years later (or, if we are kind, 2,700 years). Giving the Modern Aramic term for Aramaeans, aramaia, more likely than not adopted from the Greek just like English "Aramaeans", is about as sensible as giving Gaelic Na Ceiltigh and Welsh Y Celtiaid as the "native name" in the intro to the Celts article. In other words, not sensible at all, but an involuntarily comic, irresponsible pushing of the naivest sort of ethnic essentialism.

I am sorry, Til, I can hardly believe I need to point out any of this in any detail. You really left me with the impression of a mature and informed editor in recent months.

If we can cite an actual self-designation, recorded natively before 700 BCE, that would be an entirely different matter. If you have such a reference, by all means cite it. Compare the "Gutans" debate at Goths. Gutans is a reasonable reconstruction of what the Goths probably called themselves. Some people insist on beginning the article "The Goths (Gothic: Gutans)". This is at least not an anachronism, but it is highly dubious because the name is not actually attested. I am sure you will find no other encyclopedia that introduces the Goths in this fashion. What you are trying to do here is not so much like "the Goths (Gothic: Gutans)", it is much more like "The Teutons (German: die Deutschen)". The difference being that we don't get many German-speaking editors mad about the idea of being identical with the ancient Teutons while, by contrast, we get lots of Aramaic-speaking editors (or at least, editors whose grandparents could still speak Aramaic) who are absolutely desperate to be identical with the ancient Aramaeans. Wikipedia gets this a lot, it's not a problem, we just need to be on the lookout for such edits and revert them. Thank you.

--dab (𒁳) 13:23, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Could someone else other than DBachmann please explain to me clearly what DBachmann is arguing? I fear I will never be able to follow his line of reasoning in his own words. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 13:52, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Jazirah

Hi folks, fixing links to disambiguation pages and found a blue link for Jazirah in the last paragraph of the "Origins" section. I have delinked it as there is no article for this "Jazirah" at Jazira. I assume this is a document, perhaps someone here can try to link it properly if possible. Cheers, The Interior(Talk) 20:39, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Requested move - again

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: move Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:26, 17 April 2011 (UTC) Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:26, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

---

Aramaeans → Arameans — Relisted. Opposition seems to be based on WP:ENGVAR however this article began using Arameans. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:51, 15 March 2011 (UTC) Has more widespread usage over "Aram[a]eans". "Aram[a]eans" often used in academic research, and though some books can be found under the "Aram[a]ean" name, others can be found under the "Aramean" name as well.

Although it's not justifying, but Google test results shows:

• "Arameans" = 75,100 results
• "Aramaeans" = 37,900 results

Anyhow, it would not harm the article (and those redirected to it) whatsoever. - שבור (talk) 16:50, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Also, "Aram[a]eans" is an archaic form, "Arameans" is more common. - שבור (talk) 17:28, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Oppose "A wandering Aramaean is my father". At best, this is a WP:ENGVAR violation. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:37, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I understand. How about "Aramean" being a more common name and usage? Why not to support it? (for example, like in case of Judea and Judaea) - שבור (talk) 00:05, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. "Arameans" just looks weird and I suspect originates in an ENGVAR, since Americans generally seem to prefer "e" over "ae". -- Necrothesp (talk) 00:32, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

• NIV: "My father was a wandering Aramean"
• NLT: "My ancestor Jacob was a wandering Aramean"
• ESV: "A wandering Aramean was my father"
• NASB: "My father was a wandering Aramean"
• GWT: "My ancestors were wandering Arameans"
• Darby Bible: "A perishing Aramean was my father"
• Orthodox Jewish Bible: "An Aramean ready to perish was Avi"

What so weird in writing "Arameans"? It is written by many Syriac-related websites, such as Syriac Universal Alliance, Aramean Democratic Organization Etc. It is not that I insist on it, but it's more common this way. I really don't see any reason for it wouldn't be accepted here... - שבור (talk) 01:12, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Because English usage (supported by the English Bible) is Aramaean, but Aramaic. This article is not intended for the Syriac community, but for anglophones as a whole. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:04, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

7 English Bibles actually support "Aramean", not "Aram[a]ean"... - שבור (talk) 18:38, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support renaming. It appears to me that "Arameans" is more common. -- P 1 9 9 • TALK 22:43, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

Modern Aramaeans

I know this have been discussed before but I think we need to clarify here that some modern Assyrians/Syriacs may prefer to be identified as "Aramaeans".--Rafy talk 19:53, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

If modern "Assyrians" can have their own Wikipedia site, why not the modern Aramean as well since both names Assyrian and Aramean are just political names. We have enough discussed about it on the Talk:Assyrian people page and the real name for their ethnicity should be becoming clear for everyone neither Aramean nor Assyrian but ethnic Syrians/Suryoye. Such a Aramaic unification is REAL otherwise Syriac people from all over the world wouldn´t argue about it, if they are Aramean, Assyrian or whatever. An Aramean identity can be predominantly found by Syrian-Orthodox (West Syrian Rite) Christians in Syria, Turkey and Europe, while an Assyrian identity is held by Syriacs from Iraq, North America or Iran and they are of East Syrian Rite. If such an modern Aramean page is not possible then the question must be asked why there is an Austrian people Wikipedia site or Austrian portal page. Both pages must be merged with the German people Wikipedia site or not? And the Austrian flag needs to be replaced with the German flag. A modern Aramean page can refernce to the Syrian (not to be confused with Assyrian or the population of the state Syria!) ethnicity and the same applies for the Assyrian people page, which definetely needs a clean up from its propaganda. I am wondering how such a page can exist on Wikipedia without airtight evidence.--Hansestd (talk) 23:56, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Syrian/Syriac is not an ethnicity or race. These words both mean Assyrian historically, so if you call someone Syrian or Syriac it means Assyrian entymologically. Aramean and Assyrian are real ethnic words;- Aramean from the Levant, Assyrian from North Mesopotamia. Syriac always meant exactly and just Assyrian until the Greeks included The Levant into Assyria/Syria. This is all very very clear.

Quranic Reference

Is there even a reason to include this fact? - "A city of Aram (or Iram) is also mentioned in the Qur'an, as Aram of the Pillars, home to the A'ad people in Alahqaf region الأحقاف (The Rub' al Khali)." It doesn't seem to have any relation to the article at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.68.40.57 (talk) 02:14, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Quranic name is Irm That al-Imad and it is not related in any way to the Aramaeans. removed.--Rafy talk 16:53, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Flag

I do not understand what the "Aramean flag," clearly a modern invention, has to do with this article, which is explicitly "about the ancient people" (who obviously did not use such a flag). Languagehat (talk) 15:33, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 6 April 2015

The statement "In 2014, Israel has decided to..." might be incorrect because the source hasn't supported the figure of 10,000 Syriac Christians in Israel, it is about 1,000 but unconfirmed. This statement should be updated, with:-

"By 2014, Israel started to recognize the Aramean community as part of the country's population demographics."[5](updated source)

OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 07:08, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

No comments from other editors, so  Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:21, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

If you don’t reply, I’ll have to assume that you have nothing against me editing this article. Shabo.Hanna.Izgin (talk) 01:29, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

2 different pages?

Hello

I dont understand it? This is going about the Aramean history? But there is another Aramean page? Why arent these pages 1? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.123.153.68 (talk) 15:09, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

No one understands it, Wikipedia administrators have completely messed this up. Sr 76 (talk) 05:40, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

if you donnot answer this, then I’ll have to assume you have nothing against me editing this aricle. Shabo.Hanna.Izgin (talk) 11:12, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Edit request

the first line only reads this way based on the politically driven POV. There should be no reason why it still reads: The Arameans, or Aramaeans, (Aramaic: ܐܪ̈ܡܝܐ‎, ארמיא ; ʼaramáyé) were a Northwest Semitic people who originated in what is now.....

please changed to: The Arameans, or Aramaeans, (Aramaic: ܐܪ̈ܡܝܐ‎, ארמיא ; ʼaramáyé) are a Northwest Semitic people who originated in what is now.....

Sources: 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'" p68

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

E.Fraham “Wie ‘christlich’ war die assyrische Religion? Anmerkungen zu Simo Parpalas Edition in Die Welt des Orient” 31 (2000-2001), following a missionary impulse” and compares him to the “Christian Arameans ‘Assyrians’ from Northern Iraq p 31-45

In a letter to John Joseph, dated June 11, 1997 Patricia Crone wrote that she and Cook: “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.”

Sr 76 (talk) 14:54, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Not done. First, this article is only semi-protected; if you think an edit should be made, you can make it yourself. Sorry, forgot it was actually fully protected. However, the edit you suggest would in effect again constitute a content fork of Assyrian people; you know perfectly well why that's not acceptable, so don't. Final warning: you need to stop complaining about the article titles and article scopes and finally start actually developing the articles. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:51, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

@Future Perfect at Sunrise: I'm not complaining about the article title.

It was the word "were" instead of "are". No it does not constitute a content-fork. There is nothing to suggest that the ancient Arameans became extinct, so why use the phrase the Arameans were? If the Arameans page is for the ancient Arameans then so be it. and since you have the content of modern Arameans clumped into the Assyrian people in the and the disambiguation of the page pointing the Assyrian people page. Where is the content-fork? Sr 76 (talk) 18:58, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit protected}} template. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:45, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

@Future Perfect at Sunrise: where is the content fork? Sr 76 (talk) 07:32, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Established..... Sr 76 (talk) 00:24, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Where was this consensus established? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:17, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

@FuturePerfect completely misunderstood what I was talking about, I wasn't talking about the article title. That's why he didn't respond to my followup question. He's just not going to reply, that all he does, he threatens to block people for no reason. Let him explain where the WP:POVFORK is....

Sr 76 (talk) 05:50, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

@Future Perfect at Sunrise: since you clearly misunderstood my original edit request, can you now give your consensus to the edit request?Sr 76 (talk) 04:43, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

@Future Perfect at Sunrise: If you want the article to refer to the ancient Arameans only, then the sentence should start like this:" The ancient or pre-Christian Arameans, or Aramaeans, (Aramaic: ܐܪ̈ܡܝܐ‎, ארמיא ; ʼaramáyé) were a Northwest Semitic people... ." --Suryoyo124 (talk) 16:50, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

@Suryoyo124: i completely agree, however it doesn't look like he has any intention of improving any article. He is very quick to respond when he thinks i cant provide sources. Sr 76 (talk) 04:57, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

New scholarly book

A Political History of the Arameans: From Their Origins to the End of Their Polities by K. Lawson Younger Jr., 2016, Society of Biblical Literature. Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 15:48, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Request editor place article under moderation and that more recent sources be requested

This article uses historical information from myth or mythology, religious sources or narratives that are unsupported in scientifically sound and humanistically rational manner.

It makes use of sources, authors and ideas affiliated with the traditional evangelical Christian narrative in the English language concocted by false and disproven ideas of so-called "Biblical archaeology" which has been disproven in its entirety in the past 30 years by mainstream archaeologists like Israel Finkelstein, Ronny Reich and others both working for the Israeli Antiquities Authority and around the world. The Kingdom of Israel never existed historically- the lands were Canaan, Samaria and Judea. The map is totally fictitious. We know from recent archaeology that Jerusalem only has the sort of habitation that would justify a city of David by earliest the 600's BCE, more likely the 500's. Solomon, David and Saul and that bunch are definitely fictional characters, and the earliest inscription of Jerusalem we have is from the 1st century BCE. Request that an editor place the article under monitoring and require authors make use of sources published at earliest within the last 10 years as this is a controversial subject given that the Aramaics have now been permitted to serve in the IDF. Canlawtictoc (talk) 03:40, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Eg - primary reliance is on sources from 1931 and 1950's! Canlawtictoc (talk) 03:41, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

"were"

Why does it say "The Arameans (Aramaic: ܐܪ̈ܡܝܐ‎, Oromoye, Arabic: آراميون‎), were an ancient ..."?/ It seems like you're saying that Arameans don't exist today. I am Aramean, my family and relatives are all Arameans, my friends are Arameans. We speak and write the in the Aramaic language. how come you say "were"? Shabo.Hanna.Izgin (talk) 18:39, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Arameans exist

I don't know who said this, but I guess some admin did, or the person who created this article.

"The Arameans never formed a unified state but had small independent kingdoms across parts of the Near East, (present-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Palestinian territories, the northwestern Arabian peninsula and south-central Turkey). Their political influence was confined to a number of states such as Aram Damascus, Hamath, Palmyra, Aleppo and the partly Aramean Syro-Hittite states, which were entirely absorbed into the Neo-Assyrian Empire (935–605 BC) by the 9th century BC. In the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Aramaeans, Chaldeans, Suteans and indigenous Assyrians-Babylonians became largely indistinguishable, as these groups were culturally and ethnically absorbed into the native populace of Mesopotamia."

What I understand by this comment is that you are saying that Arameans died out, or were "absorbed into the Neo-Assyrian Empire", to me it sounds like you're trying to say that Arameans don't exist anymore, that they were basically Assyrians around year 0. In that case, please explain these quotes:

1. "Ṭur Abdin is the mountain where the remnants of the Aramean Syriacs still survive" - Al-Masudi, Arab historian 896-956 AD (CE) 2. "We are descendants of the old Syriac Arameans" Ḥassan Bar Bahlul 963 AD (CE) 3. "...and from Aram the Arameans, which are also called Syrians" - Eusebius of Caesarea 4th Century 4. "The darkness of the world and the blackness of Abgar, son of (the) Arameans, the world of darkness became light throught Abgar in Christ" - Jacob of Serugh 451 AD (CE) about Abgar V (the black of Orshoene) 5. "Edessa the daughter of the Arameans" - Jacob of Serugh 451 AD (CE) 6. "Aram had the Arameans, which the Greeks called Syrians" - Flavius Josephus 31 AD (CE) 7. "Former Aramean kings from 800 BC, was still remembered by the Arameans of Damascus. Adodos and Azelos (Bar Hadad and Bar Hazel) venetrated as deities of the ARAMEANS IN 100 BC" - Herbert Niehr about the Arameans in ancient Syria 8. "The people we Greek calls Syriacs, they call themselves Arameans" - J.G. Kidd, Posidontius of Apamea (ca 135 BC - 51 BC) 9. "... The kingdom which have been established in antiquity by our Aramean race, namely the descendants of Aram who were called Syrians..." - Michael The Great (ca 1126 AD - 1199 AD) 10. "The Aramean name is the right name for our people, it is a scholarly naming that has its geographical and linguistic roots" - Chaldean Catholic Patriarch of Babylon.

In case there has been a misunderstanding, please edit this article so that no one will feel left out.

Shabo.Hanna.Izgin (talk) 17:28, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Modern identity

@MixedButHumann: I reverted your edit for the following reasons. These are not reliable sources [6] [7]. More importantly, you have actually provided your own sources, [8] [9] [10] [11] amongst others, that unequivocally attest that the labels "Aramean" and "Assyrian" refer to the same ethnic group. There is already an article for this ethnic group, Assyrian people. Arameans is for the ancient people, from whom the modern group has taken their name.

Overall, I would say it is evident you have done some excellent research with good sources, and I would suggest it is more appropriate if you were to add the content that you have added to Arameans to the Assyrian people article instead. It might be prudent to start discussing the merits of renaming the Assyrian people article to something that appeases everyone, because it is undeniable that this is just going to continue to happen if a permanent solution isn't found. Mugsalot (talk) 11:19, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

User:Mugsalot

Hi, I’ve took the numbers of the worlwide population from a picture I made several months ago, I couldn’t find the website anymore so I added them to a blogspot.

Therefore it indeed is a very hard nameconflict to understand, but there are indeed some who see the Arameans and Assyrians as the same ethnic group, while others do see these groups as 2 different nations

It’s wrong to have a page about Arameans considering them under the pagename ‘Assyrian People’. It’s for example like The Netherlands who have an ethnic group living there named: the Friesians. It’s wrong in many ways to identify this group as a part of the Dutch people, but the same is happening now with Arameans and Assyrians.

And the most important reason to have 2 seperate pages is: the conflict about the name is not something that’s playing a role since a decade but it’s playing a role over centuries. These two groups have grown apart from eachother, like historical but also political. For example demonstrations for the Aramean Genocide are held apart of the Assyrian Genocide. Culturally they are not the same as well, Arameans are not aware of the Assyrian traditional clothes or the Assyrian new year feast called Akitu and even governments in the diaspora name these 2 nations apart.

also before I made the edit this page included information about the modern Aramean identity such as they converted to Christianity and that they live in a diaspora etc. I actually just added more information about it to the page.

Therefore this is maybe not the best reason to give; but every other Wikipedia page in other languages have seperate pages for this group.

So the solution I would give is: having 2 seperate pages for these 2 nations that politically and culturally are different, but to mention them with a ‘/‘ in articles such as Tur Abdin. So for example “the inhabitants of Tur Abdin are the Arameans/Assyrians”, what do you think?

MixedButHumann (talk) 12:12, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

An old version of the Arameans article references those numbers to "The Arameans and their diaspora", which had no details other than its name, and can't be found anywhere. So not only is you making a blog post as a reference for those numbers not a reliable source, but they're based on a non-existent book, so they should be discounted completely.

I've been dealing with this debate for the past six years now, so I would like to think I have some grasp of it, and whilst some may see "Aramean" and "Assyrian" as different ethnic groups, you yourself have provided the sources that attest they are in fact the same community. If you have a reliable source that outright attests that some believe they are not the same, by all means, add it to Assyrian people, but on the basis of the consensus that they are largely considered the same group, they should be treated together in a single article.

The cultural and religious differences between the two groups should be outlined in a single article, no credible author seems to suggest that these differences make them separate from one another ethnically. In censuses, e.g. USA [12], they are put together, so we should not be presenting information contrary to the reality. Assyrian/Syriac might be the best option considering its use in the USA and in Sweden [13]. Mugsalot (talk) 13:03, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

user:Mugsalot I was talking about the sources I provided on the edit I made yesterday. Not on the edit that was made a couple of weeks ago. Therefore mention that the page [Assyrian people]] also has several sources of pro-Assyrian websites without any neutral sources redirected on these websites.

and therefore I’m not sure if the Arameans and Assyrians genetically are the same people. As I said governments etc. Count them as 2 different groups and a lot of historians with them. This alone is a reason to have 2 seperate pages about these nations.

They have too much differences to be included to one page. A nation is known for its culture and traditions. Do the Assyrians and Arameans have the same culture and traditions? No. There are a lot of things Assyrians do what Arameans don’t do and there are several things Arameans do what Assyrians don’t do. By the definition of what a nation is, it’s incorrect to have one page about these 2 nations.

so again, because I didn’t really saw a clear answer: the best thing to have is 2 seperate pages about these nations, because they are historically, culturally and politically different. The page Terms for Syriac Christians can zoom in on the nameconflict and their differences instead, like you stated “ The cultural and religious differences between the two groups should be outlined in a single article”. On other pages regarding them we can use the ‘/‘ “Aramean/Assyrian” this is the only solution that will put an end to all the edit-wars between these two groups. Because 1. They both will have a seperate page about their nation and 2. Both names will be represented in articles, so you’ll get rid of the continuously change of Assyrian to Aramean and Aramean to Assyrian.

MixedButHumann (talk) 14:14, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

The Assyrian people article is a cesspit, but you're welcome to try to clean it up.

I do hope we can come to a conclusion on this issue, because it is getting repetitive. It is evident that the "Aramean" identity was created in the 1980s in the Assyrian community by the Syriac Orthodox Church, see Routledge Handbook of Minorities (2018), p. 357. You have provided reliable sources that attest they are the same ethnic group, e.g. [14], and even the Syriac Universal Alliance source you provided demonstrates they don't argue that Assyrians and Arameans are different ethnic groups, albeit they use the label Aramean instead of Assyrian.

You are clearly capable of good research, so if you have evidence that governments officially separate Assyrians and Arameans, please show me, as I have shown you governments such as the USA and Sweden both acknowledge they're the same ethnic group in censuses. For the compromise term, I know this [15] uses "Assyrians/Arameans" rather than your suggested "Aramean/Assyrian", but if you can provide plenty of reliable sources in favour of the latter I'll reconsider. Mugsalot (talk) 10:00, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

user:Mugsalot

it’s incorrect in so many ways to say that the Aramean nation is ‘created’ during the 80’s.

before 1980 there are already several of sources that we are referred to as Arameans, for example the man that on the English Wikipedia is referred to as an Assyrian Naum Faiq has several texts where he even tried to unite the Maronites under the Aramean name. Let’s take a look at some of Naum Faiq his quotes:

” “We also except great support from our Maronite brethren, who belong to the Aramean nation, because the objective of this newspaper is to unite the thoughts of all the honorable children of Aram.”

-Source: Naum Faiq in Huyodo 28/3/1921

Or the next quote where he clearly states ‘son of aram(eans)’

” Where is our beauty, where is our opulence, O Sons of Aram? You are all now lost, and we deprived of our great dignity.”[[16]]

Also there are several church fathers that referred to the Arameans, such as Mor Michael Rabo, Mor Ephrem and Mor Jacob Salibi who even referred to the church as ‘the Syriac-Aramean Church’ in 1207 A.D. [[17]], [[18]]

and maybe the most important source where the Assyrian name is being rejected by the Arameans is a statement of the Syriac patriarch made in 1952.[[19]],

the next sources are A quick search of sources of governments, news, and essays that refer to these nations as seperate nations.[[20]], [[21]], [[22]], [[23]],

MixedButHumann (talk) 21:16, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

For your own edification, you must know that primary evidence, such as referencing historical figures including Michael the Syrian, is irrelevant to controversial discussions such as this. The role of Wikipedia is to reflect academia, and to not give a platform to individuals' own beliefs. Therefore in future in discussions like this, please provide sources published in the past 50 years or so.

In regard to those sources, they are evidently pertinent and reliable, however, they don't support your conclusion, and I'll assume in good faith that this is due to a language barrier or simple confusion as this is not simple whatsoever. Of those four sources, of which two are in English and accessible, Numansen, S. and Ossewaarde, R. (2015), ‘Patterns of migrant post-memory: The politics of remembering the Sayfo’, Communication, Politics & Culture, vol. 48, issue 3, pp. 41-52 and Hanish, S. (2008), The Chaldean Assyrian Syriac People of Iraq: An Ethnic Identity Problem. Digest of Middle East Studies, 17: 32-47, neither endorse the opinion that Arameans are separate to Assyrians ethnically, nor do they state that governments give them as separate to one another. If you need more direct proof that Arameans and Assyrians are recognised as the same ethnic group, see UNPO: Assyria.

For a compromise name, whilst Numansen, S. and Ossewaarde, R. (2015), ‘Patterns of migrant post-memory: The politics of remembering the Sayfo’, Communication, Politics & Culture, vol. 48, issue 3, pp. 41-52 supports your "Aramean/Assyrian" label (p. 41), I don't see much else evidence that it's used in academia, and you haven't proven that it's used by governments. You might find this [24] interesting, as it refers to your primary evidence, but it doesn't make the argument that they are separate. Every single source demonstrates this is an identity debate in a single community, not two separate communities.

Aramäische Gemeinde feiert im Neumünster also uses "assyrisch-aramäischen" or "Assyrian/Aramean" so perhaps there is good evidence to support this term, but I would be happier supporting it if you can prove that governments use it. Mugsalot (talk) 23:02, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

user:Mugsalot

the sources I provided name the Arameans and Assyrians apsrt. They use a ‘,’ to mention them and not a ‘/‘. The other source was a Dutch source about the government recognizing the genocide of the Arameans and Assyrians as two apart genocides just like the German government also did.

and one of the sources I provided also stated;” There are heated debates and doubts about the actual identity of these people. Some writers think that these are all one group of people; others suppose that they are multiple groups of people with different identities, such as the Chaldeans, the Assyrians, and the Syriacs.”

so again the only solution to get rid of the edit wars, is to give these nations two apart pages and further use the ‘Aramean/Assyrian’ or ‘Assyrian/Aramean’. Because as I already stated first, they are not the same nation according to the definition of what a nation is. They don’t share the exact same culture, nor to they share the same history, the language is the same, but due the different variants not understandable for eachother.

MixedButHumann (talk) 03:25, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Simply using a comma does not constitute an expression of support for your belief they are separate. That source you are quoting simply acknowledged the disagreement in the community, it does not support the separation of the two identities into two separate ethnic groups.

If you had actually properly read the sources I had shown you, you'd realise this Assyrian or Aramean debate erupted solely amongst the descendants of the Syriac Orthodox people of Tur Abdin. Numansen, S. and Ossewaarde, R. (2015), ‘Patterns of migrant post-memory: The politics of remembering the Sayfo’, Communication, Politics & Culture, vol. 48, issue 3, pp. 41-52 outright states "As migrants in Western Europe, most of the Syriac-Orthodox people reported that they identified and presented themselves as ‘Aramean’ or ‘Assyrian’" (p. 45). This is not a debate between Christians of Syriac Orthodox Church and the Assyrian Church of the East whatsoever.

As of right now, "Assyrian/Aramean" as a compromise term is feasible, but there needs to be official government documentation to support this. Otherwise I'm happier with Assyrian/Syriac or even Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac to reflect official terminology. Mugsalot (talk) 23:20, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

user:Mugsalot

excuse me, but what do you mean a comma doesn’t support my belief? Let’s see the definition of what a comma is: “a punctuation mark (,) indicating a pause between parts of a sentence or >>SEPERATING<< items in a list.”

and the source I quoted didn’t refer to the disagreement in the community, but to the disagreement of WRITERS (people that write essays, books etc about this community)

therefore this debate has nothing to do specifically with the Syriac Orthodox Church. The Aramean community of Israel as example are in the north mostly Maronites while the ones in the south-west are Syriac orthodox. An Aramean identity is held by several Syriac churches. Even the previous Chaldean patriarch referred to his church as the Aramean church.

can you also please answer on the fact that the patriarch in 1952 already stated that they are Arameans and reject an Assyrian identity? And also to what I said about the definition of what a nation is and that Arameans and Assyrians are seperate nations according to that definition? I still recommend to have 2 seperate pages about these people and further use the term Aramean/Assyrian to put an end to all the wars on Wikipedia. Also you can compare it with Kosovo and Albania, both the same history, the same culture, the same language but yet 2 apart nations and countries. Arameans and Assyrians have a seperate history, a seperate culture, the same language but the variants are not understandable for eachother.

therefore when you nominated me for vandalizing the Wikipedia pages (what totally was not my intention at all) the admin said that I can edit the page IF I provide enough reliable sources. Above you agreed that I did that. So there is no reason to have my edit reverted.

MixedButHumann (talk) 00:56, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm not arguing with you on this anymore. It is clear to me that you, as someone who identifies as an Aramean, are unwilling or unable to accept the academic evidence I have given to you. You must provide official sources that support "Assyrian/Aramean" if you want me to support it. I'm seriously considering getting some kind of administrator again because you are insistent on your own personal beliefs. Mugsalot (talk) 14:55, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

user:Mugsalot, you still did not answer on the source from 1952 that an Assyrian identity is already clearly reacted by the Arameans. Unfortunately you still did not answer on the fact that a comma means to seperate something. And unfortunetaly you’re not responding on the fact that I already 3 times repeated that Arameans and Assyrians are NOT the same according to the definition of what a nation is.. and again the governments of Germany and Netherlands using a comma means that they seperate these groups as a different nation.. and I did provide several academic and governmental sources that you’re trying to avoid, I clearly told you that a comma is being used to seperate two nations.. unfortunetaly you’re willing to ignore it

and please stop personal attacking me. I’m not an Aramean myself, I’m in fact an an antropolog who lives near one of the biggest Aramean communities in Europe.

dear User:El C, a month ago we already talked about this topic, you as an wiki admin stated that I’m able to edit the page Arameans and I did. I did provide the article with several reliable sources and user:Mugsalot agreed that I provided reliable sources. Furthermore I provided several more sources that the Arameans and Assyrians are NOT the same nations to the definition of what a nation is, they don’t share the same history nor the same culture or language, in the diaspora they have different organizations to represent them and different football clubs that each represent their own nation as flag for example. Also governments use a comma by referring tho these groups to seperate them, I provided a source from 1952 that the head of the Syriac Orthodox Church clearly did reject an Assyrian identity to his source and even several quotes of 1207 A.D and 1900-1915 that there already was an existence of an Aramean continuity. I did recommend to have two seperate pages about these nations and to further use the term ‘Aramean/Assyrian’ to put and end to the Wikipedia wars between these two nations. I would like to hear your opinion on this issue. (I know that this is not a valuable reason; but every other Wikipedia sites of other languages do have 2 seperate pages for these nations; since they are historically and culturally different. I want Wikipedia to be neutral as possible without any POV of nationalism and such, what in fact is happening now. So again I recommend to have 2 seperate pages for these nations (as every other Wikipedia has) and furthermore use the term “Assyrian/Aramean” or “Aramean/Assyrian” to put an end tho these Wikipedia wars that already exist more than 15 years..

MixedButHumann (talk) 17:01, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, MixedButHumann , I don't really have an opinion. Please keep discussing the matter further toward resolution. El_C 17:04, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

User:El_C

unfortunetaly user:Mugsalot is unfortunetaly not open for any further discussion and rejects half of the sources that I provided and support an Aramean identity. Can you at least confirm that a comma is being used to seperate two/several different things?...

MixedButHumann (talk) 17:11, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

MixedButHumann, if you have a diff to submit, I may have a look — no promises. El_C 17:13, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

User:El_C, the next document is a source about the recognition of the Armenian genocide by the Dutch parliament that included greek, Assyrian and Aramean victims.

it reads:”(voor de volledigheid gaat het hier ook over de Assyriërs, de Pontische Grieken en Arameeërs die ook het slachtoffer zijn geworden van deze genocide)”[[25]]

translation:” (for the sake of completeness, this is also about the Assyrians, the Pontic Greeks and Arameans who also fell victim to this genocide)“

MixedButHumann (talk) 17:22, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

MixedButHumann, okay...? What does that have to do with me? How can I help? El_C 17:23, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

User:El_C Well, why the parliament clearly made a difference between Assyrians and Arameans, user:mugsalot somehow denies that the groups are being mentioned seperately. So I wanted a confirmation that this sentence does seperate these two groups

— Preceding unsigned comment added by MixedButHumann (talk • contribs) 17:26, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

MixedButHumann, sorry, but I still don't have an opinion on this matter. If you feel you've reached an impasse here on the talk page, there are dispute resolution requests you can avail yourself of. El_C 17:29, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

@Mugsalot In case of the Turoyo Neo-Aramaic dialect and NENA dialects, Arameans and Assyrians don’t speak the same language in a sense they can converse with each other in their respective "dialect". They are in fact mutual unintelligible! There is a reason, why they are called Neo-Aramaic languages. The difference would be similar to that of Spanish and Italian (See German quote from Dr. Otto Jastrow), when it comes to Turoyo and NENA dialects. Although Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and Chaldean Neo-Aramaic are in fact mutual intelligible in comparison to Turoyo, the case is similar to that of the South-Slavic Serbian-Croation language and people, there one group splits into several groups (Serbians, Bosnians (Bosniaks/Muslims), Croatians, Montenegrians) or never reached a level of unification in history, with their own faith, history, customs, alphabet, nationalism, country etc. that clearly seperates them from each other. This is normal, this is how new nations are born! Otherwise we wouldn't have todays Italians, Spaniards, French,..., but still Romans. Serbians, Croatians, Bosnians killed each other because of that, when Serbians tried to force them under their Serbian umbrella term to create Greater-Serbia. Even today Serbians nationalists still claim Bosnians incl. Muslims as Serbians. Bosniaks/Muslims see themselves as a subgroup of Bosnian people similar to how Bavarians and Saxons see themselves as a subgroup of a German nation. There are even Bosnian Serbian-Orthodox Christians who don't see themselves part of a Serbian nation, but Bosnian. Should they start forcing their fellow Serbian-Orthodox Christians into Bosnian nationalism? The same can be said about today's Arameans and Assyrians. Assyrians claim the Arameans to be a subgroup of an Assyrian nation, while Arameans are doing the exact same thing by claiming Assyrians are a subgroup of an Aramean nation YET BOTH GROUPS CLEARLY REJECT EACH OTHERS IDEA, therefore you can't speak of a common nation, and there are dozens of sources to prove it! Wikipedia shouldn't be a platform to promote any side, but being neutral and authentic similar to how German Wikipedia handles this case. Otherwise English Wikipedia is an Assyrian propaganda platform and not a credible source. Today's Arameans and Assyrians didn't branch out of a common ETHNIC-nation, but Christian sects known as subgroups of Syriac Christianity, big difference. The common ethnoreligious term at the time was Suryoyo/Suraya, with different ideas of what this term meant in a national sense, hence the creation of Assyrianism and Arameanism. It is not sure, if these groups used to be a common nation known as Arameans or Assyrians even before Christianity. The Assyrian term to describe modern Assyrians and Arameans pre-Christian ancestry is also very controversial. Prior to the idea of ETHNIC-nationalism, they were already devided, because of their churches and colloquial Aramaic languages.

"Turoyo, die Sprache des Tur Abdin, unterscheidet sich von den heutigen "assyrischen" Dialekten ebenso sehr wie sich z.B. Italienisch von Spanisch unterscheidet, da es sprachgeschichtlich eine ganz andere Entwicklung genommen hat."

http://www.suryoye.com/archive/lexikon/leshono/Prof-Jastrow.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by Optra2020 (talk • contribs) 12:57, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

RfC about the modern Aramean identity

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

This went nowhere and will be redone. I'll ping User:Future Perfect at Sunrise since apparently it's ALL THEIR FAULT, and they certainly should know if they're being bad-mouthed. Good luck to all. Drmies (talk) 00:46, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

---

Should the "Arameans" have information about their modern identity? (Like all other pages of :Wikipedia in other languages do have) MixedButHumann (talk) 17:47, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

• Yes, see no reason why they shouldn't since other all other languages have. Idealigic (talk) 15:27, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
• Yes, In my opinion they should have a page about their modern identity and continuity. It looks like it’s a strong nationalistic POV that the Assyrian fraction don’t want that an page about the Arameans will be established. I did a quick research and found out that both groups have different academic sources about their modern identity and that cultural organizations for example are apart from eachother as well, but also football teams or youth organizations maintain their own name, flag, etc. Without mentioning an other group. Suryoyutho (talk) 20:39, 10 August 2020 (UTC) — Suryoyutho (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

@El C: I apologise if you're the wrong person to tag, but I think it's worth mentioning that it is notable that this discussion has attracted the attention of a number of users who all espouse the same argument without actually pointing to any reliable evidence directly or any at all and have seemingly come out of nowhere. [26] [27] both of these users have never contributed before or after commenting on this page in favour of MixedButHumann's argument. Mugsalot (talk) 20:52, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

user:Mugsalot, Maybe you should point out that this is not the first time someone mentioned to have a page about the modern Arameans. It’s an ongoing editwar that only will stop if we’ll have a solution for it, and this really is the only effective solution that academically is also correct and the users contributed to this RFC actually do redirect in their text to the sources that were given during our discussion MixedButHumann (talk) 21:08, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

I have marked two of these accounts as SPAs. Comments which are unrelated to reliable sources are likely to be discounted, anyway. El_C 21:19, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

El C, I'm about to drop a block on Z3US, and one on MixedButHumann. More may follow. Drmies (talk) 17:23, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

• Yes, because Arameans are not a subgroup and never have been unless people like Mugsalot can prove otherwise that Arameans see themselves as part of an Assyrian nation or they branched out of an Assyrian nation to classify Assyrians to be the generic term to describe these people without any counter-sources that proves him otherwise. They have their own flag, organizations, culture, history, language/dialects, sense of nationality that is distinct from modern Assyrians. Pro-Assyrian writers such as Mugsalot and others refer to WP:COMMONNAME in order to prevent fixing this issue despite dozens of academic sources from people like MixedButHuman that would justify the creation of an specific Aramean related article or removing Assyrians POV sources. By doing this, they hurt the credibility of English Wikipedia badly as a neutral encyclopedia: Collecting high-quality academic sources no matter if it is pro-contra Aramean or pro-contra Assyrian, then creating the corresponding articles, that's it. This is how German Wikipedia and many others work. They totally forget that WP:COMMONNAME would be only justified, when the content of Aramean and Assyrian articles matches perfectly, which is not the case. The current Assyrian people article is Assyrian POV undermining and distorting Aramean related topics in order to be alligned with Assyrian nationalistic views. Aramean academic sources are either falsified, removed or spread on various Wikipedia articles just to prevent the creation of a specific Aramean related article. MixedButHumann and many others have pointed out this many times in the past. I have academic sources, e. g. about Sadad and Ma'aloula, where people are Arameans about their history, culture etc.. I cannot include them into the Assyrian people article, because 1. they do not fit into the overall content since it is Assyrian POV driven. According to Assyrianism, these people are not Assyrians since they are native to the Levant for example. 2. I would be distorting academic sources to include them in the Assyrian people article, when it is CLEARLY ARAMEAN related. So much for "WP:COMMONNAME". Also the Assyrian people article disqualified itself by claiming the Assyrian flag is used by most "Assyrians" incl Arameans, Chaldeans etc without any references.

  To give you an idea what I am talking about: www.aram-sadad.com/en/home/; www.youtu.be/WSZeohqHHmE; www.friendsofmaaloula.de/en/

  English Wikipedia should follow the example of German Wikipedia instead by creating following articles.

  Arameans, Assyrians: Should deal with the ancient people only.

  Aramean (present), Chaldean (present), Assyrians (present): Should deal with the modern groups. The Sadad content would be only included the Aramean article for example. Akitu which is an Assyrian holiday belongs to the Assyrian article. Sayfo can be briefly mentioned in both articles since it affected both groups, then redirected to the main Sayfo genocide article that already exist.

  Suryoye/Suraye or Syriac Christians: Should deal with the Christian, pre-nationalistic period of these various groups as main articles.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Optra2020 (talk • contribs) 17:18, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

  • Optra2020, really--too many words, and dropping a few websites and a YouTube video is not going to convince anyone. Drmies (talk) 20:57, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
    • If you seriously believe this was the kind of Information I would use as sources in an article then I feel sorry for you. This was just to give you a glance of what I was talking about. I don’t have to convince anyone here since Wikipedia is not American Idol or Britains got talent! Ironically, this kind of cheap referencing is floating all around here, yet nobody is complaining about it as long as it fits the agenda. I highly doubt you know anything about this topic. MixedButHumann and if I remember correctly especially S76 and many others before them provided plenty of reliable academic sources that have been removed or vandalized. Do you know how tiresome it is, if whole sections, articles etc are permanently distorted, removed or vandalized by a group of Assyrian nationalists? Nobody is doing anything against it. MixedButHumann edited the article, provided reliable sources, while Mugsalot deleted everything. Actually Mugsalot should have received a warning for his behavior for blocking useful contributions to Wikipedia. These  people do not work in  Wikipedia's interest other than spreading propaganda. This was not the first time Mugsalot did that.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Optra2020 (talk • contribs) 22:49, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

This mess was created by a Wiki admin named FuturePerfect, he failed to deal with the issue appropriately at the time and then followed did a poor job of maintaining the pages afterwards, he has since declared that he wished remove himself from overlooking the pages. Sr 76 (talk) 03:31, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon: please can you close this RFC, I'll make a new RFC, with hopefully less SPAs and sockpuppets. Mugsalot (talk) 20:12, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

User:Mugsalot - I think that any administrative action can be requested from User:Drmies, who is already participating in these discussions, and appears to be in the capacity of a neutral administrator. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:32, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

@Drmies: please can you close this RFC. Mugsalot (talk) 00:41, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Sure thing. Drmies (talk) 00:46, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Arameans are Assyrians

@El C: @Drmies: @H0llande: It is clear from academic evidence that I have previously provided that modern Arameans are a subgroup of the Assyrian people, and thus should be covered in the latter article, alongside other subgroups. To separate this subgroup from Assyrians is to contradict academic consensus. The following supports this conclusion:

• "The Assyrian nation is composed of multiple sub-identities known as Souyrayih, Chaldeans, Nestorians, Syriacs, Jacobiets, Maronites, and Arameans. They are all coming from an historical heritage that is extracted from the Assyrian ancestry. The AUA acknowledges that all of the above mentioned diversities, collectively, are an integral part of the Assyrian nation, each with equal and non-discriminatory right and privilege with respect to one another".
• "In the last fifty years, West‐Syriac Christians have continued to promote Assyrian identity as a means of uniting all Syriac Christians, regardless of religious affiliation, within a single nation...Many Syriac Orthodox individuals and groups have resisted the adoption of an Assyrian identity and ideology. As an alternative, some have developed an Aramean identity and ideology... Despite this effort, Assyrian identity and ideology continue to be present within some Syriac Orthodox communities". This source demonstrates that the issue is characterised as a naming dispute within a single ethnic group, not as a dispute between two separate ethnic groups.
• "The 'name debate' of the Christians of Syriac tradition (juxtaposing Assyrian, Chaldean, Aramaean, and Syriac labels in multiple combinations)...only became a fierce intra-communal struggle in Western diaspora...After a period of 'hegemonic use of the designation' Assyrian (Assyrier in Swedish) in the 1960s and 1970s, the Assyrian movement, particularly in the Swedish diaspora, was opposed by...the emergence of the Aramean (Syrianska in Swedish) movement". Again, this source illustrates a name debate within a single ethnic group.
• "Arameans, Assyrians and Chaldeans are inter-connected Mesopotamian, Semitic peoples. These peoples originally spoke different Aramaic dialects and called themselves Syriac-Orthodox and Chaldean. The identifications, Syriac-Orthodox and Chaldean, were based on their membership in the Syriac-Orthodox church and the Chaldean Catholic church, which, in the Ottoman Empire, were both recognised as different milieux. Arameans, Assyrians and Chaldeans typically identified themselves as the descendants of the ancient Christian community of Antioch, but, after migrating to Western Europe following another wave of persecution in Turkey, they began questioning their own identity constructs that had been shaped in the context of the Ottoman Empire. As migrants in Western Europe, most of the Syriac-Orthodox people reported that they identified and presented themselves as ‘Aramean’ or ‘Assyrian’, while the Chaldeans continued to define themselves as Chaldeans".
• "There is no consensus among Syriac speaking people in Iraq to accept any one identity, like Assyrian, Chaldean, or Syriac. There is a possibility that some who call themselves Chaldeans today were Assyrians in origin and others who call themselves Assyrians were Chaldeans. Chaldeans and Assyrians eventually absorbed one another. What distinguishes them today are their religious sect affiliations and their dialects. An agreement on a unified identity name will not soon be seen. A better option now is to use a name that includes all these people together without putting the conjunction “and” between them (Many Syriac speaking writers commonly use the Chaldeans, the Assyrians, and the Syraics, implying that they are three groups of people)".

This is only the tip of the iceberg. In no shape or form does academia sponsor the belief that people with Assyrian, Chaldean, Aramean, or Syriac identities are ethnically separate to one another. Thus, this article should only cover the ancient people, and the modern people with this identity should be covered equally with the other subgroups on the Assyrian people article. This edit [28] contradicts this academic consensus, and sponsors a belief in separation of these identities. Mugsalot (talk) 18:02, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

• Optra2021, you will have to do this all over again, and this without interweaving your comments into someone else's. And please sign. Mugsalot, please don't ask administrators to make judgment calls about content. Drmies (talk) 12:35, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
  • user:Mugsalot I will answer on all of the points you mentioned.
  • The first text you citated comes from The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) that’s connected to the Assyrian Universal Alliance (AUA) it’s obvious that they mention Assyrian as the umbrella term since the organisation connected to them is Assyrian.
  • secondly the nameconflict does exist since the beginning of the 19th century and not since 1960. These groups didn’t see themselves as one nation in their ancestral homelands. An Asuri did not saw a Süryani as his folk.
  • Again this is not right. Several sources of Syriac Orthodox people speak of an Aramean nation before they migrated to the west.
  • As I stated before take Israel as example, both Arameans and Assyrians differ from eachother and you can choose to identify yourself as an Aramean or an Assyrian in Israel. They do not refer to these groups as the same group.
  • You are stating that these people are one nation that’ are divided over decades. They grew out of eachother, both have maintained an own identity, flag and (political) organizations. That’s exactly why you can’t merge these 2 groups into one article, I hope for your understanding.
    H0llande (talk) 13:26, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
    • First off, there are Maronites and Chaldean Catholics articles on English Wikipedia. Based on your definition, these articles would have to be removed, but they haven't for a good reason, and the same applies to the Aramean article, which should cover the present Arameans only. How come you didn't try to get consensus on the Maronites and Chaldean Catholic articles talk pages? Also Arameans have a multitude of independent organizations to represent the Aramean nation, including Assyrians. Thus making Assyrians a subgroup of the Arameans according to World Council of Arameans aka WCA, which can be read on various articles on their website. WCA works with organizations such as United Nations (UN) to represent the Aramean nation. I highly doubt a so called "Assyrian" subgroup of a few hundred people would be able to built such a strong network worldwide, even successfully getting ethnically recognized by a state such as Israel! That means there are probably thousands of people who identify as Arameans!
    • You basically admitted that the Assyrian identity and ideology is fabricated not too long ago, so it had to be "promoted" by "SOME Syriac Orthodox communities", while "MANY Syriac Orthodox individuals and groups have resisted the adoption of an Assyrian identity and ideology". Those Syriac- Orthodox "Assyrians" are now trying to forcely Assyrianize their fellow people, language, culture etc.. Therefore you can't talk about an Aramean subgroup, when an unified "Assyrian" nation didn't exist to begin with and most people resisted it. Some Israeli Maronites endorse an Aramean identity. Does it mean, we should remove the Maronite article and merge it with the Aramean article, while the majority disagree? To be clear, I am actually tired to reference over and over again (Just take a look at the Assyrian people talk page discussions), the Assyrian identity and ideology didn't exist within pre-nationalistic Syriac literature, but the Aramean identity does, whereupon the Aramean identity is based on and should be acknowledged.
    • It should be highlighted that the name debate is mainly within the Syriac-Orthodox community in Sweden. They used to be an ethnoreligious group, now devided into two seperate ethnic groups called Arameans and Assyrians with different sense of identity, culture, organizations,... . Syriac-Orthodox is not and has never been an ethnic group.
    • You are mixing Eastern Syriac with Western Syriac related topics, which has nothing to do with the Arameans. Again you stated that these people reject each other terms.
    • Even if they are the same ethnic group from different points of views, similar to the case of Bosnians, Serbians, Croatians, Bosniaks, Montenegrians etc or Germans, Swiss-Germans, Austrians, Bavarians etc, you are not in the position to decide who is who or being a subgroup based on your assumption, which is absolutely POV! You already gave Information that most Arameans-Syriacs reject the Assyrian term incl its ideology. This is what the current Assyrian people article is all about! By doing this your are emphasing Assyrian POV is right and twisting facts therefore violating Wikipedia's policy. If you believe Arameans are a subgroup of "Assyrians" then go ahead and show references, where 1. Arameans claim to be a subgroup of the Assyrians and 2. academic sources confirm it without any counter- academic sources. To me it seems like most people forgot what Wikipedia is all about by collecting high quality academic sources no matter if it is pro-contra and then creating the corresponding articles, if necessary, which would be the case of the Assyrian-Aramean dilemma. Why not removing Bavarians, Swabians, ... articles and merge them with the German people article??? At least those would be real subgroups of a German nation.
    • I also would like to point out with wrongfully blocking many users in the past, admins/Wikipedians who are not involved in this topic gave free pass for Assyrian POV driven articles edited by users such as Mugsalot or Shmayo. I suggest to take a look at Wikipedians with Assyrian background and compare the numbers of those who identify with being Aramean. They (Assyrian nationalists) have successfully infiltrated English Wikipedia. This has been the case for at least 5 years! Any new Wikipedian who wants to contribute to Wikipedia, wouldn't have the opportunity to built any credibility, while individuals such as Mugsalot or Shmayo have been here for many years and their behaviour tolerated. It is self-evident, admins would trust them more than a newbie who starts to contribute to Wikipedia according to their policy, but get reported by these individuals and blocked since they are not in line with those Wikipedians. Admins assume Mugsalot's editing to be "correct". I highly doubt any admin is doing any effort taking a closer look at this subject. In this case, Mugsalot reverted the article first despite trustworthy sources, just to meet his and others POV.
      --Optra2021 (talk) 07:37, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 25 August 2020

In the Sports section, please change "succesful" to "successful". Thank you! Jellysandwich0 (talk) 18:33, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

 Not done, however this page is no longer protected, so you may edit it directly. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:10, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 27 August 2020

In the Music and dance section, please remove one of the duplicate "the"s before davul - Thank you - Arjayay (talk) 11:29, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

 Not done, however this page is no longer protected, so you may edit it directly. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:10, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

I think the site should be protected as soon as possible, to prevent Vandalism, which is often coming over this site Drmartinbey (talk) 14:49, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

RFC on purpose of this article

Should this article only contain information relevant to the ancient people? Mugsalot (talk) 18:47, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

This article and History of the Aramean people should only contain information relevant to the ancient people, and all content about the modern people that identify by the label "Aramean" should be solely detailed on the Assyrian people article. I will first provide context for those who are not familiar with this subject.

As summarised by Gaunt (2011), "“Assyrian” is a designation of a Christian ethnic group living in central Kurdistan". Under the Ottoman Empire, "the Assyrians were not usually identified as an ethnic group but were rather categorised by religion". Gaunt distinguishes between "eastern Assyrians", consisting of adherents of the Chaldean Catholic Church and Church of the East (now split between the Ancient Church of the East and Assyrian Church of the East), and "western Assyrians", consisting of adherents of the adherents of the Syriac Orthodox Church and Syriac Catholic Church, and some Protestants. Discussing adherents of the Syriac Orthodox Church and Chaldean Catholic Church, for example, Numansen & Ossewaarde state, "these peoples originally spoke different Aramaic dialects and called themselves Syriac-Orthodox and Chaldean. The identifications, Syriac-Orthodox and Chaldean, were based on their membership in the Syriac-Orthodox church and the Chaldean Catholic church, which, in the Ottoman Empire, were both recognised as different milieux".

In modern times, the term "Assyrian" has come to denote "the supposed ethnic group represented by all the Syriac churches". In the United States, adherents of the aforementioned churches "managed to renegotiate their denominational conflicts and united behind the term “Assyrian”", and "only after World War II does it appear that the ethnic identification of Assyrian became controversial when applied to members of the Syrian Orthodox Church: the Syrian patriarch instituted a campaign in 1946 to eradicate its use". Subsequently, "many Syriac Orthodox individuals and groups have resisted the adoption of an Assyrian identity and ideology. As an alternative, some have developed an Aramean identity and ideology". "After migrating to Western Europe following another wave of persecution in Turkey, they began questioning their own identity constructs that had been shaped in the context of the Ottoman Empire. As migrants in Western Europe, most of the Syriac-Orthodox people reported that they identified and presented themselves as ‘Aramean’ or ‘Assyrian’, while the Chaldeans continued to define themselves as Chaldeans". In Sweden, "after a period of 'hegemonic use of the designation' Assyrian (Assyrier in Swedish) in the 1960s and 1970s, the Assyrian movement, particularly in the Swedish diaspora, was opposed by...the emergence of the Aramean (Syrianska in Swedish) movement".

A number of users have asserted, without evidence, that the people that identify as Aramean and Assyrian are separate from one another ethnically and thus should be treated separately. No single reliable source argues in favour of this position. On the one hand, Assyrian organisations, such as the Assyrian Universal Alliance, assert that Arameans are a "sub-identity" of the Assyrian people [29], and on the other hand, Aramean organisations, such as the Aram-Naharaim Organisation argue Arameans include Assyrians [30]. It is clear this simply a debate within this ethnic group over what to call themselves, and neither side argues the other is ethnically separate from them.

McClure states, "The uncertainty about the roots of the ethnic group, Assyrian, Aramean, other, or a combination thereof, has given rise to very acrimonious debates over the very names to be used in designating it...Its people have called themselves and been called by others Assyrians, Suryaye, Suraye, Suroye, Curyaye, Syriani, Aramaeans, Chaldeans, Assyro-Chaldeans, among other labels", and she herself uses Assyrian to refer to this ethnic group "since that is the term currently given greatest acceptance". One can also see "Assyrian" is the common label to refer to this ethnic group in academia.

With this in mind, I firmly believe the modern people that identify as Aramean should be included on the Assyrian people article, and this article should solely cover the ancient people by that name, as the current state of this article suggests they are separate, and that Aramean is the common name in English, contrary to the reality. Mugsalot (talk) 18:47, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't have opinions on this subject, but I assume the people of the Aramaic Wikipedia do. Have you considered asking them? They are at number 240 in the list of wikipedias. There could be other language wikipedias I'm unaware off, that might be helpfull in this discussion. Dutchy45 (talk) 08:32, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Oppose, I am not sure how many RFC discussions you want to open until to reach consensus to meet your own personal goal, without showing willingness to cooperate and finding solutions to solve this ongoing issue from a neutral point of view in the sense of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia, not from your own personal point of view or political driven edits by Assyrian nationalists. I am probably repeating myself: The current Assyrian people article is mixing ancient Assyrians, Assyrian nationalism, and Assyrian identity & ideology, rejected not only by people who identify as Arameans, but also by academia. Therefore the "Assyrian" terminology is highly disputed in academia, not commonly accepted as you stated, to describe the group as a WHOLE or various Syriac-Christian groups, which must be addressed on English Wikipedia, NOT SUPPORTED, in order to maintain its credibility. This explains the countless edit warrings on English Wikipedia, not only between Assyrians and Arameans, but also by outsiders like me who address this issue! A lot of editors specialised in Aramean-related topics were blocked by unfamiliar administrators, because of wrong accuses, mostly reported by a growing number of Assyrian POV editors. The current "Assyrian people" article's content, title and through numerous Assyrian POV editing on various Wikipedia articles by editors such as Mugsalot over the decade, created an illusion in line with Assyrian propaganda, e. g. that Arameans don’t exist or are an "Assyrian subgroup", they are not descendants of the ancient Arameans etc. in stark contrast to what other academic sources say, therefore misleading readers and hurting English Wikipedia's credibility. Most of these Assyrian POV written articles are either poorly referenced or only contain sources to support Assyrian POVs.

To unfamiliar users, please read the closed RFC-discussion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Arameans

“a careful reading of Parpola’s articles and the introduction to Assyrian Prophecies reveals arguments that are often circular and flawed, in which, by virtue of an enthusiastic presentation, what remains to be proved is transformed into evidence for a construction that resembles doctrine more than theory” - J.Cooper “Assyrian prophecies the Assyrian Tree and the Mesopotamian origins of Jewish monotheism, Greek philosophy, Christian theology, Gnosticism, and much more” in the Journal of the American Oriental Society 120:3 (2000) p430

The Church of the East and the Church of England: A History of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Assyrian Mission J. F. Coakley p366 "I refer here to the link created between the modern 'Assyrians' and the ancient Assyrians of Nineveh know to readers of the Old Testament. The link has proved irresistible to the imagination. In modern times, Syrian children have been named 'Sargon', 'Nebuchadnezzar'. etc.; the winged lions of Nineveh have appeared as national symbols; and, in short, the name is now inseprable from a whole bogus ethnology."

Dorothea Weltecke Religious Origins of Nations?: The Christian Communities of the Middle East Page:120 "But when he named those decendants of Shem who possess a script he says the following: 'These are the names of the people who have script among the descendants of Shem: Chaldeans, Oturoye [Assyrians], who are the Suryoye [Syriacs], Hebrew, Persians, Medes, Arabs'. A few pages before he said: 'These are the descendants pf Shem, Oturoye [Assyrians], Chaldeans, Lydians, Oromoye [Arameans], that is, Suryoye [Syriacs]'. Who are the Suryoye [Syriacs] to Michael: Assyrians or Arameans? While is painful for outspoken Arameans to be identified with the Assyrians, one has to bear in mind, that following Jacob of Edessa, Michael also supports the hypothesis that Assyrians are descendants of the Arameans. For Michael, Aramaic is the original language spoken not only in all of the ancient Near Eastern empires but by mankind in general, before the confusion of the languages after the building of the Tower of Babel took place. While Michael was not the first to hold this opinion, his position will be underlined here to highlight the difference betweenhis and modern viewpoints of Assyrians and Arameans."

S.P.Brock and J.F.Coakley, Syriac Heritage Encylopedic Dictionary p31:"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 Dorothea Weltecke)

S.P.Brock and J.F.Coakley, Syriac Heritage Encylopedic Dictionary p31:"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"

--Optra2021 (talk) 10:56, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

@Dutchy45: German Wikipedia's administrators did the best job and brought transparency to the whole controversial topic without favoring any position by creating independent and specific articles. No edit warrings over there with Assyrians POV editors claiming Arameans to be "Assyrians" and vice versa. They kept the credibility of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia in line with its policy; welcoming high-quality academic sources and Information, no matter if it is pro-contra Assyrian or pro-contra Aramean etc, accommodated into various articles. The current Assyrian people article and the whole situation on English Wikipedia heavily lacks neutrality, especially since the whole topic is related to a minority group or groups, most people aren't aware of or interested in.  

•ancient pre-Christian Arameans:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramäer_(Volk)

•modern Arameans (identity & ideology):

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramäer_(Gegenwart)

•ancient pre-Christian Assyrians:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrer

•modern Assyrians (identity & ideology):

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrer_(Gegenwart)

•common pre-nationalistic terminology called Syrian, Syriac, Suryoye, Suraye,... covering all groups (Arameans, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Maronites, Melkites,...) before the rise of various national movements similar to the Terms for Syriac Christians article:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suryoye

•Dutch Wikipedia:

•ancient + modern Arameans:

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arameeërs

•ancient + modern Assyrians:

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyriërs_(volk)

•Dutch Wikipedia has a whole article regarding the nameconflict (identity & ideology) between Assyrians, Arameans and Maronites, we currently see on English Wikipedia:

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naamconflict_Syrische_christenen

•French Wikipedia:

•ancient + modern Arameans:

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Araméens_(chrétiens_orientaux)

•ancient + modern Assyrians:

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyriens

Like I said before, me and many others are willing to find a solution from a neutral point of view to finally fix this situation for good. The current situation on English Wikipedia, however, and the behaviour of some of its administrators and "editors" are unacceptable.

--Optra2021 (talk) 10:56, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

@Optra2021:Looks like I wandered into a minefield with my first comment. I'm staying out of this 1. I hope it gets resolved correctly. Dutchy45 (talk) 15:22, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

• Support some kind of topic-separation improvement, without religio-politicizing it. I don't have the patience to wade through all this invective and counter-complaint, much less trawl through previous rounds of it here, but we obviously have a WP:COATRACK and WP:DISAMBIGUATION problem going on. Some combination of the solutions reached by the other-language Wikipedias detailed above should get the job done, though at this point I don't have a highly specific preference, other than I don't think the nl.wikipedia approach of having a separate article on the naming conflicts is necessary. Anyway, I believe this can be resolved by having more clearly distinct articles and using various disambiguation techniques, and that it should be resolved in such a way, regardless whether any accusations are true that someone or other has some ulterior motive behind some of their personal reasoning about it. There is an actual problem to address here, when it comes to clarity for readers, and we have pretty standardized ways of resolving such issues. Someone could be a tinfoil-hat-wearing believer in aliens conspiring with the government to abduct and mutilate cattle, and yet still be able to correctly point out that an article or set of articles is unnecessarily and confusingly commingling two distinct topics. So, let's just fix it and stop trying to make it personal.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:11, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: I agree there should be separation between the ancient peoples and the modern people, and that includes both Assyrians and Arameans, as there does seem to be consensus in academia that this is the case. However, it is abundantly clear from the evidence I set out that the modern "Arameans" and "Assyrians" are the same ethnic group, and that "Assyrian" is the common term to refer to the whole ethnic group in English. I would agree there is a WP:COATRACK with Assyrian people that prioritises Assyrian culture over that of those who identify as Aramean, and that would need to be remedied in the future, but only so long as there's acknowledgement that they're considered two sides of the same coin, so to speak.

I would thus propose something in line with the German Wikipedia solution whereby ancient Assyrian content is moved from Assyrian people to Assyria or Neo-Assyrian Empire, this article remains purely for the ancient Aramean people with a brief mention of the modern identity, and the Assyrian people article be used exclusively for the modern people, including all identities (Chaldean, Aramean, Assyrian). In regard to the Dutch name conflict article, we have the equivalent Terms for Syriac Christians, which ideally is merged with Assyrian people. Mugsalot (talk) 13:27, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Assyria or Neo-Assyrian Empire are geographical article titles, not a people. They don’t give hints about the ancient Assyrians. You are misleading readers by the current "Assyrian people" article title in believing the ancient Assyrians and modern "Assyrians" (incl the Arameans) are the same people, while ancient Arameans and modern Assyrians are not the same, thus supporting Assyrian POVs, which claims to be descendants of the ancient Assyrians. Like I said, the "Assyrian" terminology is disputed and controversial in academia. The reason being, the term "Assyrian" is connected to Assyrian identity, ancient Assyrians, ideology, nationalism, religious (See: Assyrian Church of the East, evident in articles such as Assyrian nationalism or Assyrian continuity. The current Assyrian people's article content contains all of these points, which are rejected, not only by people who identify as Arameans, but also by many scholars. This explains the reason for the ongoing edit warrings on English Wikipedia, because the articles are modeled after Assyrian propaganda for almost more than a decade! Even if they are regarded as the same people, it must be addressed from a neutral point of view that a consensus among academic sources about a generic term let it be Assyrian, Aramean or Chaldean similar to the situation of South-Slavic peoples (Serbians, Bosnians, Croatians,...) doesn't exist except for the pre-nationalistic Christian period, when these people referred themselves as Suryoye/Suraye. In Germany, Assyrians, Arameans and Chaldeans are commonly referred as "Aramäer" (English: Arameans) yet German Wikipedia and many other Wikipedia language sites recognized the issue, fixed it by creating specific and independent articles based on the clashed topics to maintain its neutrality and credibility to readers: USING THE CORRECT TERMS in the CORRESPONDING ARTICLES. The terms Assyrians, Arameans and Chaldean are all used on German Wikipedia even on the modern peoples then redirected to the corresponding articles. WIKICOMMONNAME would only apply, if the overall topic matches perfectly without being inconsistent. Muslims believe Jesus to be a prophet, not God, while Christians believe the opposite. Why not forcing both religions into a single article at the expense of one side? Start edit warrings on our own preference like Assyrian POV editors do. Removing and wrongfully label the suitable correct terms like Mugsalot suggest. This example explains the overall situation on English Wikipedia by forcing various OPPOSING topics into single articles.

--Optra2021 (talk) 17:23, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: Admin Future Perfect at Sunrise applied rules to the Assyrian people article a few years ago in order to get rid of the Assyrian POV contributions and by wrongfully "keeping" Arameans into the same article. It didn't work out. The Assyrian people article went back to its old POV-driven form. Mugsalot was also involved back then from what I can read on the talk page. It is nice to see Mugsalot is "concerned" about academic sources, references and neutrality, involving himself in edit warrings with user H0llande (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shamoun_Hanna_Haydo&action=history) yet didn't remove the Assyrian flag from the Assyrian people article, allegedly used by most people incl the Arameans without references, sources or surveys for such a bold claim.

Mugsalot changed and falsfied the original title from "Arameans and the Making of 'Assyrians'" to "Assyrians and the Making of 'Arameans'" written by Aramean politician Johny Messo. Another prove of Mugsalot's biased behavior. Johny Messo is head of World Council of Arameans (WCA). WCA represents the Aramean nation, and works with different organizations, e. g. United Nations (UN). Calling him an "Assyrian" redirected to the POV written Assyrian people article, while he wrote a book against the "Assyrian" terminology, clearly shows the ridiculous situation on English Wikipedia. On German Wikipedia, he would be called "Aramean", the correct terminology then redirected to the corresponding Arameans (present) article that focuses on the modern Arameans (identity, nationalism, ideology,... ).

See Mugsalot's editing: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Johny_Messo&diff=935120057&oldid=908926034

--Optra2021 (talk) 18:26, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

@Future Perfect at Sunrise: The post above, by Optra2021, was intended to ping you, but the link to you was broken, so I'm re-pinging since just fixing the link won't do that.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:46, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Repeating that I don't want to wade into the long-term interpersonal venting that's been going on here, I do agree that a people/ethnicity and a former geographic empire are not the same thing. We need to be clear in distinguishing such topics. However, even defining what is meant by "ethnicity", "ethnic group", "a people", etc., can be difficult, as these terms mean different things to different people in different contexts (I touch on this some at WP:Race and ethnicity, though the main thrust of that is avoidance of racialist thinking and labeling in bios). I think the short but generalized answer is to be as consistent in this with other articles as we can. There are many other complex cases (What is a "Jew"? What does "British" mean?) with answers that can vary by focus (cultural, genetic, political, historical, etc.).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:36, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

• Support separate articles for ancient and modern peoples. GPinkerton (talk) 17:56, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
  • @GPinkerton: In a similar approach to German Wikipedia, right? Separating ancient Assyrians and Arameans from modern Assyrians and Arameans. Renaming the current Assyrian people article into Assyrians (present), creating an Arameans (present) article, both articles focusing on each modern groups distinct identity, ideology, history, nationalism etc, while leaving Arameans and Assyrians solely to the ancient people. Pro-contra Assyrian or pro-contra Aramean academic sources will be finally accommodated from a neutral point of view into specific and independent articles without mixing topics or favoring any political idea, e. g. an Assyrian nation incl Arameans according to Assyrianism supporterd by sources A and B vs. an Aramean nation incl Assyrians according Arameanism supported by sources C and D. Using the correct terminologies according to the topic will be finally restored and end this ongoing problem on English Wikipedia like on German Wikipedia and many other language sites, e. g [Assyrians (present)|Assyrian] author Rosie Malek-Yonan or [Arameans (present)|Aramean]] politician Johny Messo. Though this will need a lot of work to get rid of the POV editings from the past. Administrative monitoring by a group of neutral admins and Wikipedians will be required. --Optra2021 (talk) 22:06, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

@Optra2021: You are not comparing like and like between modern Arameans/Assyrians and south Slavic peoples. The former is accepted as a single ethnic group by academia, as I have already demonstrated at the beginning of this RFC, and by sovereign states, most notably by the US ([31] note Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac), whilst the latter is recognised as only a linguistic group. It would be misleading to separate modern Arameans and Assyrians into two articles, when it is obvious they are the same ethnic group. If there are issues with the Assyrian people article favouring any particular identity, that can be resolved and does not require a separate article to remedy. I agree on removing ancient Assyrian history from the Assyrian people article, but there are already articles that content can be moved to.

I understand in Germany that "Aramean" is now the most common term to refer to this ethnic group, however, in English, it is still "Assyrian", as I have demonstrated, and thus all identities must be handled together under the common name "Assyrian". Mugsalot (talk) 22:43, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

"The former is accepted as a single ethnic group by academia" Academia is devided by calling this single group either "Assyrians" or "Arameans" as a GENERIC TERM similar to the term "Arab", which functions as a collective term for various Arabic-speaking groups such as Mhallami, Syrians, Lebanese etc.. These generic terms (Assyrians & Arameans) are highly disputed and controversial, because they suggest different theories of origin, since ancient Assyrians and Arameans used to be two distinctive nations unlike modern Assyrians and Arameans, especially Assyrians and Arameans within the Syriac-Orthodox community. Therefore, using the "Assyrian" terminology based on WIKICOMMONNAME would be wrong, because it favorises the pro-Assyrian generic term academic side and its controversial theory, while devaluet and disregard the contra-Assyrian, but pro-Aramean generic term academic side and its theory thus English Wikipedia is losing its credibility and neutrality as an encyclopedia, leading to numerous Assyrian POV editings or edit warrings on this platform. Dutch Wikipedias answer to the discrepancy among academia was simply by creating a "nameconflict" article similar to Terms for Syriac Christians. The current Assyrian people article is mixing Assyrian nationalism, ancient Assyrians, Assyrian identity, Assyrian ideology, pro-Assyrian academic sources in line with Assyrian propaganda. To include Aramean related topics (identity, nationalism, ideology,...) into an article titled as "Assyrian people", wouldn't be specified and misleading readers. This is why I gave the example with Muslims believing Jesus not to be god, while Christians believe the opposite. Conflicting topics shouldn't be dealt in a single article. While a generic-term obviously doesn't exist in academia due to disagreements among scholars, however, Assyrian and Aramean national movements exist hence specific and independent articles about the modern people.

--Optra2021 (talk) 00:24, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

If it's correct that "Assyrian" remains the WP:COMMONNAME in English for what de.wp calls "Arameans" as a current ethnic label, then it is not correct that 'all identities must be handled together under the common name "Assyrian"' if that assertion means commingle them into the same article. Rather, we have a case where WP:Disambiguation is required. There are plenty of comparable prior cases like this, e.g. "Albania[n]" has meant several different things in different eras and places, and they are not all directly connected with each other (it's just a naming coincidence), while some of them are direct historical continuities that involve a polity, an ethnicity/people, a specific area, a language, or whatever.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:36, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

@Optra2021: You have provided no evidence that academia is divided on a common term, I have shown you the evidence, you are just going to have to accept it. And that is not an invitation for you to copy and paste the same garbled evidence you continue to regurgitate, which has very clearly been misinterpreted for your own POV.

@SMcCandlish: I disagree. WP:Disambiguation would only apply to the separation of ancient and modern Assyrian and Aramean content as academia agrees they are only related by name. However, the modern "Assyrian" and "Aramean" identities are recognised as a single ethnic group as I have demonstrated earlier with the common name "Assyrian", and are directly connected to one another. No single academic, sovereign state, nor Assyrian/Aramean organisation separates these identities as Optra2021 advocates. Mugsalot (talk) 01:04, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

I think we're talking past each other. If the RS overwhelmingly demonstrate that Assyrian and Aramean in these specific contextual meanings are directly synonymous (like Irish and Hibernian), then yes they should be covered in the same article, but it will need disambiguation from all other uses of both terms. However, there is no Wikipedia principle that has anything to do with ethnic genetics. If these topics are distinct for any reason (cultural, linguistic, geographical, political, etc.), then they'll usually need to be separate articles that just make it clear that they are closely related and sometimes confused. Depending on how much information and complexity there is, sometimes there needs to be three articles (a general WP:SUMMARY, and WP:SPINOFFs that cover the two+ closely related groups separately. To pick a very broad example: Turkic peoples in general, versus Turkish people and Uyghurs. And note that Turk is a disambiguation page, because we also have to distinguish the Turkish-people ethnic group from citizens of Turkey, etc. While this example is about very large groups of people, the principles are the same (and would be the same if we were talking about elements of a novel, game, and film franchise, or about a group of horse breeds, or about whatever).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:37, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
 

Are you kidding me? How about stop reading sources that fit your POVs! You literally started the RFC-discussion with the same references that can be found on other threads to constantly underpin the same narrative, which obviously don't work anymore. Accept it!

Sebastian Brock, "An introduction to Syriac Studies", page 68:"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" On page 67 it says:"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'."

READ the description of the book!"...Some scholars have doubted or denied the continuity of the Assyrian people...and demonstrates the continuous existence of the Assyrian people..." https://www.google.de/search?q=george+v+yana&prmd=imnv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjaqfL-8svrAhWR_aQKHepiBAgQ_AUoAXoECBIQAQ&biw=412&bih=683&dpr=2.63#imgrc=GdiwOeOpmePSqM

"...the Aramean/Syriac people from the ancient times, through to the modern day." https://books.google.de/books?id=fVcsswEACAAJ&dq=arman+akopian+syriac+Arameans&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj0hOHj9svrAhWLzaQKHdIwDCIQ6AEwAHoECAQQAQ

Watch the interview "The Aramean [Syriac] identity by professor Arman Akopian" discussing the Syriac, Assyrian and Aramean terms, while he favors the Aramean term on YouTube thus in contrast to pro-Assyrian scholars such as Simon Parpola. A common name doesn't exist in academia due to disagreements and proves my statement, why WIKICOMMONNAME can't applied.--Optra2021 (talk) 02:46, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

In my opinion, as a lecturer in Oxford University the Arameans should keep their site, and gets equal rights in any page which is about Arameans. Pitifully, the User @Mugsalot isn’t accepting that, he don’t accept that Aramean people have the right to be accepted and mentioned in Wikipedia Pages. His reason is POV, but I think the biggest vandalism is coming from him, by discriminating the Arameans by unequal treatment.

An Administrator should check this case. Drmartinbey (talk) 06:13, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with "rights" of groups of people, and no page on here is "their site" (for any imaginable "they"). Nor does this discussion have anything whatsoever to do with any subject somehow not being "accepted and mentioned in Wikipedia". This is entirely about where to do so (under what page title(s), and whether or not mingled in with related but possibly encyclopedically distinct topics). Please actually pay at least a little attention to a discussion before jumping into it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:43, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: In plain terms, I think we agree ancient and modern should be separated from one another. In regard to the modern people, I would say that "Assyrians" and "Arameans" share enough similarities to constitute a single article together, including their geography, language, religion, and history. Any cultural differences between "Arameans" and "Assyrians" are better understood as regional differences within a single whole, similarly to southerners, northerners, Londoners etc in England, none of which have their own article.

@Optra2021: If you're going to contribute rubbish to this discussion you may as well just leave now. In a single stroke you have summarised your poor grasp of this discussion, and of academic discussion in general. You offer a YouTube video, a google search link to the blurb of a book, and the description of a book. Equally, you still struggle to understand Wikipedia formatting, and make a mess of this discussion.

@Drmartinbey: In my opinion, I don't think that you are a lecturer at Oxford University, on the basis of your poor English, your poor edits, and largely because you're not counted amongst their staff [32]. Mugsalot (talk) 10:25, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

You only gave Information about the people to be one ethnic group, referencing non-academic websites using the "Assyrian" term, but at the same time you claimed "Assyrian" to be the commonly ACCEPTED generic term in academia to describe these people as a whole ethnic group, ignoring S.Brocks quote I provided and other academics quotes e. g. by J.Cooper in another post, regarding the Assyrian terminology and its controversial theory behind it with modern Assyrians being descendants of the ancient Assyrians thus Sebastian Brock and other academic works such by Arman Akopian do not use the Assyrian terminology to describe the group as a whole, but as Arameans. The description of the book written by George V Yana perfectly reflects the dispute "Some scholars have doubted or denied the continuity... ." If you claim "Assyrian" terminology to be commonly accepted in academia with Sebastian Brock and other academics being a "minority" vs pro-Assyrian theory scholars using the "Assyrian" terminology, then you MUST at least provide evidences by giving trustworthy surveys regarding how many academics prefer the "Assyrian" terminology over the "Aramean" terminology in their works. Good luck! You obviously can't and aren't objective and neutral in the sense of Wikipedia, thus heavily relying on WIKICOMMONNAME. You are the one, who should leave the discussion then!

Also, claiming user @Drmartinbey: not to be a lecturer, because of his "poor" English according to you is absolutely racist and shouldn't be tolerated. You devalueted him! Judging by his name, he could be of German descent living and working in the UK. The page shows a multiracial stuff from all over the world working at the university. I highly doubt they all speak perfect native like English. Perhaps the website is not up-to-date or he works at the university only for a short period of time!? Who knows.--Optra2021 (talk) 12:20, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Outdenting again, since this another multi-party reply: @Mugsalot: This needs to be subject to further discussion among other editors (especially as to the second point, on treating modern Arameans and Assyrians together in the same article; we already routinely separate ancient and modern people/nation articles, e.g. Ancient Greece and Greek people). Unfortunately, this "RfC" is completely shot because of the text-wall invective of primarily two editors (WP:BLUDGEON). This should likely to re-opened as another RfC, with a studiously neutral question, a "Comments" subsection for !votes, and an "Extended discussion" subsection for longer arguments, at the bottom. Per WP:REFACTOR, any respondent can move blathery back-and-forth to the latter section. For my part, I'm skeptical the modern-people topics should be merged into one article, but "the jury is still out" on that, and the current discussion is too degraded to settle the question. You and Optra2021 have spent so much time yelling at each other that no one has the time to wade through this all. Optra2021 at least in theory has a good point: if the claim is that academic and similar high-quality sources treat the terms (in the modern context) as synonymous, then we need a bunch of those kinds of sources saying so. That cuts both ways; a claim that they're entirely distinct in one more ways also needs high-quality sourcing. (I have not yet pored in detail over the two competing sets of sources you've both been relying on).

On Drmartinbey, I have WP:MEATPUPPET or even WP:SOCKPUPPET concerns. The editor has only been here a few days, but headed directly for a particular party's userspace, and has done nothing on WP but edit (using insider WP jargon in their edit summaries, so not likely an actual new editor) in this discussion and at a small handful of articles all in a tight topical group. I remain skeptical. English-language skills aside, the failure to logically grasp even the basic points being made in this discussion, and instead mistaking it for an attempt to remove all information about a group from Wikipedia (which no one proposed or would have proposed), argues strongly against this being a subject-matter expert from a prestigious university. But even if he is, and the Oxford faculty list is outdated, that doesn't mean Bey automatically "wins" or that we take his word for it when claiming alleged facts (especially since Bey's primary purpose in this discussion has been personalized invective against another party). Regardless of intent, no editor is a source. This attempt at argument to authority (with Bey implying he is the authority) is fallacious. WP is not credentialist.

To all involved: You either have the sources to back up what you're claiming (and better sources than competing views) or you don't. If both sides have great sources, then we have a conflict between presumptively reliable sources, and our encyclopedic job is to neutrally document that conflict, not pick a side in it. That kind of scenario (which is where we actually seem to be stuck for now) would likely conclude with separate articles and disambiguation by default, since the idea that two differently named notable groups of people are distinct encyclopedia subjects is the less extraordinary claim, compared to the idea they are synonymous or so close to it that a split would be a WP:POVFORK.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:43, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Just want to add my two cents here, as I have been involved in these discussions here for over ten years now. Some bullets:

• I am not sure if it has been brought up (the sheer amount of text makes it somewhat difficult to navigate), but similar forks have been created throughout the year (separate ones though (called "Syriac people" or "Syriac-Aramean people"), not in this ancient people article), where the decision (per WP:POVFORK) has been to merge the article under a common name.
• I see that some editors in favor of a fork are arguing that these would be different nations, which is ridiculous. I get the fact that ancient Assyrians and Arameans were to separate groups, which however is not true for this modern people. Remember that both groups (or at least their major organizations) all agree that this is one and the same people. An example is the Syriac-Aramean federation in Sweden (note that Sweden and Germany is where most people identifying as Syriac-Aramean are found), who are including all church demonotions as Syriac-Aramean. This is not "Assyrian ideology". The fact that the Assyrian identity is the only one found among all church demonotions is something completely different. People are ignoring the fact that the (West-)Assyrian and Aramean "fractions" usually divides families, thus talking about regional differences is not correct either, it is on a much more granular level.
• Other editors argues that there should be "equal rights" and "topic separation improvement". I want to highlight that the article "Terms for Syriac Christians" do exist (earlier called "Assyrian/Syriac/Chaldean naming dispute"), elaborating on the different identities.
• German and Dutch Wikipedia are mentioned above. I do not see how that should be any "guidance" for how English Wikipedia should be structured. Also, why is Swedish Wikipedia not brought up in the same discussion? There is only one article for the modern group in Swedish Wikipedia, which could be one reason why edit warring has been close to non-existent over the past years. What is not highligthed correct in the discussion above regarding German Wikipedia is that a third article, this one, has been created due to the problem mentioned in the bullet just below. This articles is not corresponding to the Terms for Syriac Christians as mentioned by an editor above, but rather to battle the problem of two different articles. Take a look at the German article for the genocide. Good example of how awful the solution of two, or even three separate articles, is.
• @SMcCandlish: It might not be obvious to a Wikipedian new to the topic why this is a fork. But the complexity and difficulties that would arise with two different ethnic articles would be major and would lead to edit warring in all related articles. For example, this articles is currently referrring to Sootoro as an Aramean militia and Suroyo TV as an Aramean TV channel. But really nothing makes either more "Assyrian", "Syriac" or "Aramean". This apply to hundered of other articles related to the Syriac Orthodox group. This is definitely the biggest concern to me.
• Note that a modern "Aramean people" article would have content describing nothing else that the history of one part of the adherents of the Syriac Orthodox Church, where the people identifying as "West-Assyrian", "Syriac", and/or "Aramean" are found.
• Ridiculous claiming that there is not a corresponding ancient Assyrian people article. The content in Assyria is not much different to the type on content, earlier, found in Arameans.
• Syriacs, Chaldeans, and/or Arameans are and should not be treated as sub-groups in the Assyrian people article - but as alternative names, in an articles following WP:COMMONNAME.

Renaming the main article would in all cases be a better option than two separate ones. Shmayo (talk) 10:09, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for that detailed analysis. I agree with the principles outlined in it, as long as the sourcing overwhelmingly agrees. I'm not "anti-merge"; I regularly propose articles for merger. But I'm very aware of coatracking and PoV problems, especially in topics pertaining to the Middle East, and to ethnic groups (doubly so when these two categories intersect). E.g., I even had to seek administrative action about the Van cat article because of editwarring there over whether Turks, Kurds, or Armenians had a proper "cultural claim" to the cats. There is no end to what people will fight over. You echo my general concern when you say "the sheer amount of text makes it somewhat difficult to navigate". This is why I've suggested starting with a fresh, neutrally written RfC asking a very clear question and divided into a !voting section and an extended discussion section, with back-and-forth in the former being refactored into the latter.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:59, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: On "If both sides have great sources, then we have a conflict between presumptively reliable sources, and our encyclopedic job is to neutrally document that conflict, not pick a side in it.":

What sides are we talking about here? Which reliable sources mentioned above are supporting the idea of different nations? The sources advocating an Aramean name for the people are not doing that. Let us not forget that. Shmayo (talk) 10:55, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

I was writing in a generality sense; to answer that question is to wade through primarily two editors' back and forth and dig into the sources each prefers.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:59, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Just for your information that Drmartinbey was blocked on de.WP some days ago. It is a succession account of Suryoyutho, which was blocked because of permanent disrespect for NPOV. --Arabsalam (talk) 11:02, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Further proving that the statement "there is no edit warring" on German Wikipedia is bogus. These 1 2 are exactly the types of edits I am referring to in my text above. That will be the result of two separate articles. And not to forget that we open up for separate articles for Aramean genocide, Chaldean genocide, Aramean diaspora, etc. - which are obvious forks... Shmayo (talk) 11:28, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Procedurally, that's wrong. Sockpuppetry by banned users is not counted as editwarring/controversy/dispute, since their input has been rejected by the community as unconstructive.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:59, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Support title change If I remember correctly, the original title name was called "Assyrians/Chaldeans/Syriac people", but later on changed to "Assyrian people" based on WIKICOMMONNAME, and its content changed completely into Assyrian POVs. An "Assyrian/Aramean/Chaldean people" article title would be the best solution, also reflecting each modern groups identity and national movements equally from a neutral point of view, yet being of the same ethnic stock without arguing on a disputed generic-term in academia. Persons such as Johny Messo or Rosie Malek-Yonan should be still called Aramean or Assyrian in their articles as long as references about their identity are given, but redirected to the modern Assyrian/Aramean/Chaldean people article. The example with Johny Messo who wrote a book against the "Assyrian" terminology (identity, nationalism, ideology, etc), but still called an "Assyrian" on English Wikipedia and then redirected to an Assyrian POV written article demonstrated English Wikipedia's lack of neutrality and objectivity, which hopefully will be fixed.-Optra2021 (talk) 16:52, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

@Optra2021: If you would like to discuss the merits of changing the name of the Assyrian people article, I would suggest opening an WP:RM on that article's talk page, as this isn't the place for that. In the meantime, however, you do acknowledge that they're the same people, and that they can be handled in a single article, if done in a NPOV manner. I would suggest moving the modern content from this article to the Assyrian people article so to balance "Assyrian" and "Aramean" content there, and this article will go back to only detailing ancient history. Mugsalot (talk) 10:12, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

@Mugsalot: If the current "Assyrian people" article title changes into something like on Swedish Wikipedia and its overall content is written from a neutral point of view without favoring any academic sources, national idea etc, then the Arameans article can go back focusing on the ancient Arameans only. We wouldn't have to follow the German or Dutch approach by separating it into modern people articles. An "Assyrian/Aramean/Chaldean people" article title better reflects NPOVs and can accommodate Aramean related topics, sources etc using the Aramean terminology in such an article without confusing readers.--Optra2021 (talk) 18:21, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

As a technical note, we would not use slashes for this purpose, but en dashes, and they should probably be in alphabetical order: Aramean–Assyrian–Chaldean people. However, it is abnormal for a Wikipedia article title to include synonyms. We have WP:COMMONNAME policy for a reason. PS: This kind of issue may be what inspired nl.wikipedia to create an article on the naming dispute itself. I still don't think that's a good idea. That's much better as a section.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:59, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Maybe this explains, why German Wikipedia has multiple articles, instead of a single one. I am not sure for articles written about nations, but within automobile articles on Wikipedia, you mostly choose the title name based on the original model or car maker, not on WIKICOMMONNAME.

See differences between Opel Astra being the main article vs. Vauxhall Astra as an example. The content is not 100% the same:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opel_Astra

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vauxhall_Astra

The first generation Buick Encore was exactly the same as the first generation Opel Mokka, while Buick Encore was redirected to the Opel article. Now from the second generation onwards, the content differs thus creating a independent Buick Encore article.

Regarding the Aramean article, it would be possible to write briefly about the same content as the "Assyrian people" article in some sections, while the corresponding sections on the Assyrian people article are the main ones. But you can already tell from some editings on the Arameans article that it is neither 100% the same content nor follows 100% the same scheme as the Assyrian people article due to the discrepancy about the nameconflict and its belonging ideology, identity, academic sources etc..--Optra2021 (talk) 11:22, 6 September 2020 (UTC)