Last edited by Fred Aprim on May-15-2001 at 10:31 PM (CT) We do realize without any doubts that the French missionaries had a lot of impact on the Assyrians' publications during the latter parts of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Nationality, to us, was in its early developments during the latter parts of 19th century, where most of the work of the Catholics like Mar Toma Audo, Alphonse Mangana, Mar Eugene Manna, Mar Addai Scher, and others was done. At that time, and because of that influence, the religious term Chaldeenne was given extra weight, just as the Nestorian religious term was, in the absence of the national title. I will not dwell on this issue any longer, but here is the reality, not fiction, of what Mar Toma Audo, for example, wrote in his grammer book and dictionary.
1. In his grammer book, published in 1911, in the Lazaristes press in Urmia, the title in Syriac was: "Jram-ma-teeqeh d' lishana Swadaya". He DID NOT say "lishana chaldaya"!!
2. In his dictionary, published in 1897, in Mosul, the title in Syriac was: "Seemata d' lishana Suryaya". He DID NOT say "lishana chaldaya"!! These writers mentioned the term Chaldeenne, as the French titles indicated in their work, where applicable, because the French needed to read a term which was more popular to them than "Suryayeh" for example. What was more convenient than the chaldeenne title, the title similar to that of those early astronomical people and which the Pope applied on our Assyrian Catholics in Diyar Bakir in 1681 and in the Mosul plain in 1830. There is no doubt at all that what was meant in reality, as the Syriac original term indicated, was the known then "Suryayeh" people and the "Soorith" langauge, which these writers knew from their fathers and grandfathers. This point can be proven very easily if we read Mar Toma Audo's preface in his dictionary. He wrote:
"We frankly state that the "Omta Suryeta" deserve the pride of priority over all the known people of old times in the invention of the art of writing and passing it on to other nations."
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