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The Reality of the Title Assyrian
The English word “Assyrian” comes from classical Greek “Assurios” through Latin “Assyrius”; the Greeks borrowed it in the 8th century BC directly from the Assyrians, who at that time called themselves “Assurayeh,” originating from their capital city “Assur”. The
Aramaic word “Athourayeh” was likewise borrowed from Assyrian, but earlier, in the 12th century BC, when the later “Assurayeh” was pronounced “Athourayeh” [the sound (th) shifted to (s) in Assyrian about 1100 BC]; still earlier, about 2300-1600 BC, the word had been pronounced “Ashur” and “Ashourayeh”. The initial syllable in “Assurayeh” was frequently dropped in the Neo-Assyrian period (900-600 BC), so that “Assurayeh” also had a variant “Surayeh,” which the Greeks took over as "Surios" (the English equivalent being Syrian). There was originally no difference in meaning between Assurayeh/Surayeh and Assurios/Surios; both meant the same thing.
The Arabs borrowed their terms “Ashur/Ashuri” or “Assyria/Assyrian” from the Jews; their Suryan “Syrian” is a loanword from Greek “Surios.”1
The term Syrian is merely the shortened form and a Christian adaptation of the word “Assyrian”, which Assyrians may with equal right take to themselves as their most proper name; and that, originally, they are not from Syria proper as the term “Syrians” would suggest, but from Assyria.2 Many other historians attest to this fact like Herodotus. Professor Richard N. Frye of Harvard University says: It seems clear that the general terms “Assyrian” and “Syrian” were regarded as synonyms not only in early times but late into the medieval period by at least some people in the East.3
Therfore, singular “Suraya” is “Syrian” and is “Assyrian”. It worth mentioning that the eastern Syriac dialect title “Suraya,” and at times “Suryaya,” is pronounced “Suryoyo,” in the western Syriac dialect.
It is very common for Arabs to pronounce words which starts with certain letters like 'S', 'T', and others, and preceded by 'al' (the Arabic for 'the') in such a way that the 'L' in the 'al' is dropped when pronouncing the word. For example: The word ‘sam’ in Arabic means ‘poisonous,’ and ‘al-sam’ means ‘the poisonous’ accordingly... but when this word is pronounced, it does not sound like ‘al-sam’ rather ‘as-sam’. And there are hundreds of examples which can be listed to back up this very common way of pronounciation by the Arabs.
When the Arabs began their well known process of the Greek translations, they used the ancient Greek word ‘Syrian’ literally and used it to refer to a us. If we apply what we talked about above to this word, we would see that; ‘SYRIAN’, is the unknown, ‘the Syrian’ is a special person, which becomes ‘AL-SYRIAN’ in Arabic, or, again, as pronounced by the Arabs, ‘AS-SYRIAN’ although when pronouncing the word it sounds more like ‘AS-SIR-IAN’ or “AL-SIR-YAN”.
In summary, Assyrians were called “Athourayeh” and “Ashurayeh” (Assurayeh). With the dropping of the first syllable (A) we began to call ourselves “Surayeh”. The Greek came in contact with us and called us "Surios" or “Syrians”. The Arabs took this name and used it literally with a very minor change in the pronounciation, calling us “Sir-yan” meaning “Syrian” and “Assyrian”. It is worth mentioning that the Arabs through their more recent Arabic studies kept our original Semitic names “Ashouri” and “Athouri” and used them as they are. Therefore, all these names; Assyrian, Athourayeh, Ashourayeh, Surayeh, Syrian, Sir-yan, Suryaya and Suryoyo mean the same thing.
One final note, it is a well known fact that due to some religious disputes, misunderstandings, and circumstances, some of our people have, erroneously, used their church titles to relate to themselves ethnically; using terms like the Nestorians, Jacobites, Chaldeans, and many others.
References:
- Professor Simo Parpola, “Assyrians after Assyria”
- Wright, “Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages”
- Richard N. Frye, PhD., Harvard University, “Assyria and Syria: Synonyms”
Journal of Near Eastern Studies.
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