Talk:Assyrian people/Archive 12

Aramean people is correct
Stop calling our people Assyrian! We are not Assyrians we are Arameans if wikipedia continue this acceptation of the false name we will boycot every step made by WP.

'''It has been 'Assyrians' for thousands of years. 'Suryoyo' is same as Assyrian if that is what you are trying to refer to as 'Arameans'.''' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.90.5.246 (talk) 04:33, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Rewrite history
I think that the history section is a mess. I will dedicate the next month repairing it. This will probably result in removal on large poorly referenced parts concerning ancient pre-Christian "glories" and adding more info concerning the rise and fall of Syriac Christianity and the Ottoman era. The reason why I'm announcing this is because I will make use of alternative names such as Eastern and Western Syrians to designate Nestorians and Jacobites, the term "Assyrians" will not appear in the article until the rise of nationalism in the late 19th century. This will probably cause some dissatisfaction among some. I would much like it if those users state their opinions here instead of simply changing names in the article.--  R a f y  talk 21:18, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Brother and sister don´t forget we are all Arameans in genetic, these new names of Assyrian, Syriac, Chaldean, Phonecian, goes back to our patriarchs of Arameans. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.238.193.120 (talk) 18:26, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

How can we be only Arameans in genetics when in North Mesopotamia they were Assyrians and Mittanis ? Arameans is a new name for our people, our people in the Homeland don't say Oromoye/Aramaye so don't come here and say we're Arameans in genetic, no one in the homeland have hear of Arameans. To all Suryoyo speakers watch this and understand who you are :http://www.assyriatv.org/2012/01/20/forelasning-om-assyrisk-identitet/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.228.37.216 (talk) 21:06, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I disagree STRONGLY with removing the History section. Actually, it IS pretty accurate. It seems to rely on George Roux - Ancient Iraq a lot. But then that is a good and accurate book on Mesopotamia.

Also, Assyrian People regard the history of Assyria as part of their heritage, so it would be ridiculous not to have a section on that!

The name SYRIAN is KNOWN to be derived from ASSYRIAN originally, so it would be regressive to use that term, not to mention that NO ASSYRIAN/CHALDEAN/CHALDO-ASSYRIAN OR SYRIAC uses the term SYRIAN.

It has been PROVEN that Assyria existed until the 7th Century AD, and that Assyrian identity survived continually until the present day, all of that is WELL REFERENCED.

Finally, the article is NOT A RELIGIOUS ARTICLE, it concerns the Assyrian People, their History, Identity, Heritage, Culture, Self Designation as well as Religion(s). There is Already a seperate article dealing with Syriac Christianity, and others dealing with Names of Syriac Christians, and Arameanism etc. This page is designed to deal with ASSYRIANS, those designated by themselves and numerous Sholars, Ethnologists, Linguists, Historians, Assyriologists and Archaeologists as Assyrians. Personally, I cannot understand why Lebanese and Many Syrian Aramean Christian people are included in the article, as they are a related but seperate people, and should have their OWN pages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.106.116.120 (talk) 10:43, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

DISAGREE WITH RE WRITING HISTORY How can you remove the history of the Assyrian people? They are not just some religious group, they are an ethnic group and a nation with a Mesopotamian heritage. History of Assyria should go from origins right up to the present. Also, SYRIANS? Assyrians are not Syrians, they are Assyrians. Syria comes out of Assyria as a name, that is proven. Assyrian and Mesopotamian history are part of who the Assyrian people are, from Ancient Sumer and Akkad, through to Assyria and its Empire, through to Assyria as a ruled land under Persians, Greeks and Romans, through to the Assyrians after Assyria became dissolved by Arabs, and as a minority under Arabs, Ottomans, British and Iraq. There is already many pages about Eastern Christianity, this is about the Assyrian people and their whole history, heritage and identity, not just a group of Christian Churches! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.26.26.14 (talk) 11:19, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The problem is that the current form is mainly unreferenced and non-academic. Just look at the section bellow for an example.--  R a f y  talk 10:01, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Removal of Uncited Material
" However, the new Iraqi government now officially recognises Assyrians ethnic and cultural identity, listing them as Chaldo-Assyrians (Ironically something the "Western Media" often refuses to do). The idea of an Assyrian homeland has not been rejected, and the ban on the giving of Assyrian names, teaching the Assyrian language and on Assyrian schools has been lifted. Assyrians have formed armed militias in an around Assyrian towns, villages and districts.

Many of the Assyrians who have suffered violent attacks in predominantly Arab Muslim cities such as Baghdad, Nasiriyah and Basra have moved north to their traditional homeland and are now congregating there, boosting numbers (A number of the ethnically and linguistically related Mandeans are doing the same). There has also been some small scale resettlement over the border in south east Turkey. "

These last two paragraphs of the History section, subsection titled Iraq War & Islamist attacks were removed from the article because they are blatantly unsourced. Do not take it as a questioning of historical accuracy, just of article presentation and wikipedia standards of awesome. Beam 04:16, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The whole article needs revision imho. I will restore the section with proper referencing in the future.--  R a f y  talk 09:59, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Discussions with Fred parhad
Unfortunately, the sources where all of these claims are made are not reliable or made by professional historians in THIS field. Many of these sources are books produced by amateurs through the Vanity-Press industry, with no peer-review or editorial board oversight. There is only one, major, source for actual, documented, facts about the claims to a modern Assyrian existence and that is a book by Dr. John Joseph, retired professor, Emeritus, of Middle Eastern History at Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who earned a doctorate from Princeton University. Recently retired, Dr. Joseph was further recognized when a new International Studies building at Franklin and Marshall was named for him. He is an actual, published, author with Princeton University Press and Brill, a publisher in existence for four hundred years, someone the State Department goes to when seeking information about "Assyrians", "Chaldeans" and others who claim such titles. His research has shown that these ancient names were applied to Christian sects by European, and American, missionaries and government agents, starting with Roman Catholic missionaries in the 15th century and then by Protestants in the 19th. His book, "The Modern Assyrians of the Middle East", is well-referenced, citing professional and scholarly sources, such as other qualified historians as well as the missionary record, which are actual and themselves reliable and verifiable. On the other side we see anecdotes, personal memories and what was passed down by parents and priests passing as fact. Most of us are too polite to cast doubt on such claims, implying that people don't know who they are or are fabricating a glorious history for themselves...but Dr. Joseph, himself born in Iraq to a "Chaldean" family, approached the subject as a qualified historian, not a partisan with a political agenda of one day wresting what would amoung to a Christian enclave from Iraq, under the leadership of the West. One further note is that while some professionals, in other fields, such as Simo Parpola are presented as experts, they are not expert in THIS field, Dr Parpola is an Assyriologist expert in the history of the ancient Assyrians....Dr. Joseph would no more think of writing a book on ancient Assyrians than one would think Parpola would about modern Assyrians, who appeared suddenly in the 19th cenutury, a time and place, the Middle East, in which Dr. Joseph IS an expert... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fred parhad (talk • contribs) 16:42, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

I see above that George Roux has been cited as a reliable source for information about the existence of Assyrians in the modern era...here is Dr. Joseph on this very subject;

“Odishoo’s reading of Hagarism leads him to the conclusion that as late as the Parthian period, over 800 years after the fall of the Assyrian empire, ‘there survived a strong native (Assyrian) [sic] aristocracy peculiar to itself and very conscious of its past and proud of it’. To reinforce his hypothesis, Odisho cites historian of ancient Iraq Georges Roux, who notes that during the Parthian period geographical ‘Assyria’ was literally resurrected ‘ and that several of its cities’ were ‘inhabited again, and Ashur, rebuilt anew, became at least as large a city as it had been in the heyday of the Assyrian empire’.” p. 28

“According to Odisho, the resurrection and rebuilding of Assyria were done by the ‘strong native Assyrian aristocracy’ that he believes flourished under the benign rule of the Parthians. A more careful reading of Roux, however, would have shown that there is no mention of any Assyrian involvement in the reoccupation and reconstruction of the ‘towns and villages which had been lying in ruins for hundreds of years’. In the very next sentence following the above quotation, left out by Odisho, Roux writes that it must be emphasized that the ‘revived settlements had very little in common with their Assyrian or Babylonian precursors’; that the old Sumero-Akkadian civilization, which was ‘perpetuated by a few priests in a few temples’, was an ‘ossified’ civilization that simply could not withstand the profound ethnic, linguistic, religious and cultural changes that were introduced by successive waves of invaders in northern Mesopotamia…Persians ,Greeks, Arameans, pre-Islamic Arabs…’who could be neither kept at bay nor assimilated’. This massive influx of foreign peoples and ideas ‘had submerged what was left of the Sumero-Akkadian civilization.” pp 28-29

It was also Roux who explained in what sense the Assyrians "disappeared"..."They were a people who had forgotten their Akkadian mother tongue, and a nation which forgets its language forgets its past and loses its identity." p. 29

Born into an "Assyrian" family, I well remember my parents telling me what all of us must have heard..."do not forget your mother tongue, or you will forget who you are". Now, they meant we would forget we were "Assyrian"...except the actual language of the ancient Assyrians was Akkadian and not Aramaic...but our parents were right, forget Aramaic and we would forget our identity...and Roux was right as well...the actual Assyrians forgot their mother tongue and with it their identity. (Fred parhad (talk) 18:42, 22 April 2012 (UTC))

I am new here, which explains my enthusiasm. I agree that there is a crying need for valid source material when saying such things as, "It has been proven that..." Or, "Everyone knows that...", when no such proof has been presented. What we believe is true, or heard is true, or even would like to BE true is not the issue. As the administration says, this is not a blog or a message board where opinions are to be exchanged. But there is some urgency to the matter because of the political agenda admitted to by arch nationalists that their Assyrian identity requires a piece of Iraq be given to them because they are the indigenous people of Iraq. There have been real and tragic consequences to this attitude.

The national agenda does not allow for the idea that all the people of Iraq are descended from all the ancients, not just the Assyrians. Nationalists insist that to be an Assyrian one must be Christian and that anyone who leaves the Christian faith, especially by converting to Islam, is no longer an Assyrian. This lends credence to the opposition point of view that this is nothing more than a "national" disguise for what is clearly a Christian sect which knows it can't very well demand a country as a religious group and seeks to re-cast itself as a "nation"...with a political front of being Assyrian. If Muslims were allowed to be Assyrian, without practically having to convert to Christianity, there would be no basis to demand a separate country for Iraq would then be the country of all "Assyrians". Iraqis have always been proud of their ancestors...all of them.

In addition to insisting that only Christians can be Assyrian, nationalists must maintain that Islam and Muslims have persecuted, murdered and otherwise abused Christians just for what they are i.e for their religion alone and supposed ethnic identity. This has to be pursued else where's the crying need for a country of their own, a safe haven away from Muslim depredation? The trouble is that the historical record does not bear this out and neither does it support the claim that Muslims forcibly converted Christians, on pain of death. On the contrary, actual historians, most of them Christians, admit that it was among the Muslims that Christians and Jews found safety and success while Christians killed Jews and Muslims, and their own fellow-Christians, outright, when they weren't forcing them to convert to Christianity. There are literally thousands of such references in books written by well known historians.

It is true that nationalists have suffered, in Iraq, with many jailed and some hanged. But that was because of what they DID and not for what they claim they ARE. What to nationalists appears as "national work" is in reality sedition and, in time of war, treason, which is illegal everywhere and punished severely, as Native Americans discovered when they tried the same sort of work in the 1970s. Assyrian nationalists have not been PERsecuted, but PROsecuted...as they would have been in any country on earth.

These two claims; that only Christians are legitimate Assyrians and Islam has massacred them, cause a natural antipathy among Iraqis and their government. The tragedy is that the people making these accusations are living in peace and comfort in the West, while urging the few remaining Christians of Iraq to "stand up" and demand their rights! Which, understandably, they refuse to do...and this earns them the accusation that they are "traitors" to Assyria, when it is they who either refuse to leave or are stuck there, and it is the nationalists, abroad, paying the taxes for the weapons used to kill Iraqis, Christians included, as well destroy their "dear" homeland, who cast themselves as patriots and Assyrian nationalists. Had George Washington been that kind of patriot he would have moved to the Bahamas in 1776 and urged the Germans or French to get him a country.

Iraq certainly isn't fooled and senior government officials in America and elsewhere know where to go when they want real information and history, and everything tells them that there will never be any "Assyria" and that this agitation will not gain a separate territory either but only serve to make the lives of the few Christians left even more miserable because they remain suspected of secretly wishing for a victory by the Western Coalition.

As far as being the indigenous people of Iraq, the United Nations has defined "indigenous" to mean any people living continuously in one place for at least 400 years. By that count everyone in Iraq today is indigenous, including any Arabs, Qurds, Yezidis etc. In fact the Qurds are more indigenous to Iraq than are the Europeans to America, who only just barely qualified.

All modern nations were made by stealing someone else's indigenous lands...for in international law it is legitimate to take land and, if you can keep it, call it yours...at least that has been the case for most of our history and was certainly the case at the time of the Muslim Conquest and the conquest of America by Europeans or, for that matter, when the ancient Assyrians stole the lands of other people. Arabs committed no "crime" when they conquered Mesopotamia 1400 years ago and have nothing to apologize for today. It is highly unlikely that any Assyrian is going to "give back" the land he bought in Chicago or Melbourne to Native Americans of the Illini tribe or any Aborigines who come knocking...and yet is it really the case that nationalists expect people to leave their homes in Iraq on the basis of nationalist demands to being the rightful owners? Land is taken, it is hardly ever given. The only outcome of all of this has been to make life even more miserable for the remaining Christians of Iraq. As a practical matter, involving the lives of real people, these unsubstantiated claims and accusations need to be closely examined. This is not simply a matter of correct information but also of real-world consequences. (Fred parhad (talk) 21:08, 22 April 2012 (UTC))


 * John Joseph is an Arameanist who denies well accepted facts such as that the Name "Syria" comes from "Assyria". You might be more interested in the Assyrian continuity page.
 * Yes, as I said before the article does need modifications, but your claim that Muslims did not persecute Christians while Christians did so when they had the chance is simply baffling.--  R a f y  talk 22:10, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

I will be happy to cite sources. I am not saying that we Nestorians persecuted Muslims, we never had the chance, except, as again Joseph shows, when the Russians attacked Persia under Peter The Great in the 18th century and the Christians sided with the Russians and massacred countless Muslims..what I meant was that there is no evidence that the Arabs massacred the Christians JUST because they were Christians, in fact, and I will get you the sources, the Christians welcomed the Arabs because they saved them from being conquered by the Byzantines who would indeed have forced them to convert or else....if you recall Netorianism was a heresy to the Byzantines.

I've taken the liberty of bringing down a comment about Dr Joseph which I think goes to the heart of how people post their opinions or desires as fact...


 *    "John Joseph's works are full with errors and amateurism..."

..let me interrupt right at the beginning to point out that this exactly the problem..we are told that Joseph is an amateur whose works are filled with errors...with no citation, no opposing professional historian, or academic of equal standing...we don't know who the person is making this critique and we don't know his or her qualifications. Dr Joseph is a highly respected and accomplished professional in this particular field....to be credible in slamming him and his work, it would be nice to know on exactly what basis....to continue,


 *  "In his refutation of the continuation of the Assyrians on page 18 for instance, he claims that the term "Aturaye" was first used by "Nestorian" immigrants to the United States in the late 19th century. This is simply wrong since the name Athuraye and Athur has been continuously used for thousands of years,

...no, not in the late 19th century but around the 1920s, when this "we are Assyrians" business really took off....once again; there is no source, no citation, nothing. And on this bases we are supposed to disregard a man who has been a college professional for 30 years, had a building named after him by a grateful college and has been published by prestigious publishing houses all of whom subject manuscripts to peer-review and editorial scrutiny. This is simply not acceptable, or shouldn't be. Many of the sources used by nationalists are from "books" written, by what are truly amateurs, through the Vanity-press industry where you can get anything printed, not published, if you pay the fee..and these dubious "sources" are quoted as if they counted for anything....to continue.

...The particular citation, on page 18 regards the fact that magazines and newspapers in the United States, printed by and for the Nestorian community, changed their name from "Syrian" to "Assyrian", where it had not appeared before...why? ...In fact, in the spirit of what I am suggesting, here is the quote from that page;

“Daniel P. Wolk’s recent research shows that even the Urmiyah (in Iran, mine) Christians in America, in their own language, continued until after World War I to refer to themselves as Suryaye (Syrians, mine). In his reading of some of their major publications from 1907 to 1920, Wolk found that the first ethno-nationalist organization established in Urmiyah, Khuyada, Unity, was a Suryeta organization. Chicago’s newspaper "Mashk-hiddana Suryaya", Suryaya Herald, first published in 1915, changed to "Mashkhiddana Aturaya" only in 1920, when the nationalist discourse had come of age; the title in English was Assyrian American Herald, most probably because ‘Syrian’ in the United States stood for the more numerous Arab Christians from geographical Syria. See Wolk’s ‘The Emergence of Assyrian Ethnonationalism: Discourse Against the Hachaqogue (Theives of the Cross),’ paper presented at the Middle East Studies Association Conference (MESA), Chicago, December 6, 1998. For the growth of Assyrian nationalism quickened during the war years, and the presence of an Assyrian American delegation at the Peace Conference in Paris, see below, pp 156-157."

...If Dr Joseph is mistaken, please show how...and the status of those you rely upon, as in are they professors, historians etc....to continue;


 *  "this can be seen in another work of him when he tries to answer a paper attesting the continuation of the Assyrians by Richard N. Frye by claiming that when Michael the Syrian mentioned that "ܐܬܘܪܝܐ ܕܗܢܘܢ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ"[6] (it's hnwn not hywn by the way, another amateurish mistake) he meant the inhabitants of Mosul, but he forgets or ignores the fact that "ṯ/t" in Aramaic is a very popular cognate of the Akkadian "š" (šinā -> treyn, šalāš -> ṯalāṯ...) and the Aramaic/Syriac "Aṯur" is simply a cognate of the Akkadian "Ašur". Funny though that those who called themselves Aturaye (or Nestorians) didn't live in the city of Mosul itself but rather in an area stretching from Nisibis to Urmia."

...again, Richard Frye is a professor of and an expert, in fact THE expert, on early Persian history. His wife happens to be Assyrian, but his field of expertise, like Simo Parpola, is not this one. He is welcome to his opinions, but regardless of his standing in other fields, he remains an amateur, though a highly qualified one, though still a non-professional, in THIS field...Dr Joseph would no more think of passing judgements on ancient Persian history, as one would expect Frye not to on this topic. Dr Joseph answered this particular article years ago and I will get us a copy...to continue,


 *    Another shocking fact for you: The "Nestorians" of Hakkari and Urmia were not actually Nestorians and they never identified as such. They were taunted by this name by western Syrians (Jacobites), and it later come to be used by Europeans erroneously. The true creator of the Church of the East (its real name) was Babai the Great who was an opponent of Nestorian views"

..yes, of course...the Christians of Hakkari were another sect, but that changes nothing, and again, what are your sources? In answer to your claim that Assyrians always knew who they were, I'm sure you are aware that the Church of the East only added the word "Assyrian" to its name in 1976...why? Why then and why not well before?"

But, the accusations you've leveled against Dr Joseph are just that: accusations made by you with no sources other than those same accusations. I don't mean to be dismissive of your views, I just would like to be reassured that they are more than just your views. No doubt someone will now use what you have written as a "source I found on Wikipedia"...and that's exactly the problem. I will bring you sources for all claims I make on Joseph's behalf or on my own. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by

...this Fred Parhad, I neglected to sign my last post. I was impressed by the notice posted by the Administration at the top of the article on Assyrians...next to an orange exclamation sign is this; "This article needs attention from an expert on the subject". Clearly the Administration senses something is amiss, and it is. There is nothing wrong with the article as concerns the early history of the Assyrians, which is well known and documented by historians...however, the article slides into a confident description of modern Assyrians without establishing the evidence that there is such a thing...I mean serious, professional, historical evidence, not anecdotes and memories. It is, in many ways, a preposterous claim to make, especially when you couple it with what comes right after; that the "Assyrians" deserve to have a part of Iraq because they came first! If Greek showed up today claiming that he KNEW he was descended from the ancient Ionians and that his farmland was stolen by the attacking Dorians, and had been located right under where the Parthenon stands today, and he spoke Greek, and could dance Greek and ate food that was Greek...so, could they kindly hand over the Parthenon....we would expect such a person to be locked up, for his own safety if nothing else....at the least we'd get a good laugh out of it, but that's about all. (201.159.210.62 (talk) 00:44, 23 April 2012 (UTC))

...Let me respond to something else I missed in your comments,


 *  "John Joseph is an Armameaist who denies well accepted facts such as that the Name "Syria" comes from "Assyria". You might be more interested in the Assyrian Continuity page."

..once again, in the spirit of what I understand Wikipedia is about, I have to ask, "what are your sources"? How do you know he is an...I'm not sure what your spelling is supposed to be but I assume it has something to do with being an Arameanist? I think I understand what you're getting at....but, if the man's own words count for anything, he was born into a Chaldean family and he rejects all such ancient titles and would no more call himself an Aramean than an Assyrian or Chaldean...they are all false, according to him.

...you say "well accepted facts" regarding the derivation of Syria from Assyria...well accepted by whom? And just what facts are you referring to...would you mind very much listing them? I will give you the section in his book where he, and other experts in THAT field comment,


 *  The question is; Did Syria always mean Assyria?

...from the book;

"The “lost A” theory:

“Because the ‘Nestorians’ had always called themselves Syrians (Suraye), strenuous efforts were made by the more educated to prove that Suraye (Syrians) was simply a truncated form of Ashuraye (Assyrian) and that the two terms were synonymous. The initial letter A of ‘Assyrian’ it was explained, was ‘lost’ (tliqta in Syriac…it had dropped out); The lost ‘A’ was now retrieved but placed under a cancellation mark, meaning that it was originally there but was not pronounced. Thus Suraya was written ‘[A]suraya’, which, pronounced Ashuraya, also meant Assyrian.” P 19

This explanation was put forth by Assyrian nationalists to explain how it was that throughout the history of the Nestorian people they had never referred to themselves as Assyrians but rather Syrians which, as Joseph has shown, was itself the Greek version of ‘Arameans’. If anything, by their own usage, the Nestorians were descended from the ancient Arameans, not Chaldeans nor Assyrians.

“Heinrichs rightly calls the Lost-A hypothesis very ingenuous, facilitating the claim of the nationalists, but points out that in the Armenian language, the names for Syrian and Assyrian, although similar sounding, both have always retained and pronounced the initial A:Asoric/Asori for Syria/Syrian and Asorestan/Asorestans’i or Asorestanc’i for Assyria/Assyrian.” pp 19-20

The Armenians always used two distinct, though similar sounding, words for Syrians and Assyrians. Therefore, even if the Assyrians lost their initial “A”, others, contemporaries and neighbors of theirs, always knew they were not the same.

“Heinrichs, pp. 106-07, where he calls the hypothesis ‘simply naïve’. Armenian name Asori referred to the people of geographical Syria, the Arameans; it was the name of Arameans wherever they were found. The writer is grateful to the late Dr. Avedis K. Sanjian, Nareski Professor of Armenian Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, for confirming my reading of these terms in a letter dated October 10, 1994…In the late 16th century, Sharaf Khan al-Bidlisi referred to the Nestorians of Hakkari (in Anatolia, mine) as ‘Christian infidels called Ashuri’, a borrowing from the Armenian. See al-Bidlisi’s Sharafnameh (in Persian) (Cairo, n.d.), pp. 130-132.”

This refers to the fact that although the name for Syrians, in the Armenian language, “Ashori” sounds very like the nationalists own name for themselves, Ashuri, it was not, but rather always referred to the Syrians.

Back to the text;

“Moreover, even if ‘Syrian’ were derived from ‘Assyrian’ it does not mean that the people of and culture of geographical Syria are identical to those of geographical Assyria’.” p 20

It's obvious that New York was derived from (olde) York, but that does not make Englishmen out of modern-day New Yorkers. The name is derived from England, just as Syria may be derived from Assyria, but the people and culture are not.

A footnote;

“Heinrichs, pp. 102-103, 104, n. 9. Well known Semitic scholars are of the opinion that ‘Syrian’ and ‘Assyrian’ are of completely different origins even though it remains for future scholars to prove the correctness of this theory.”

In seeking to bolster their case that modern Nestorians “always knew” they were Assyrians, the nationalists misread ancient history as well, as Joseph points out;

“Herodotus is often erroneously cited by nationalists as having equated ‘Assyria’ with ‘Syria’, referring to his statement that the people whom the Greeks call Syrians are called Assyrians by others.” p 20.

This is a critical blow to their case because it confirms that the Nestorians never referred to themselves as Assyrians, not until after the discoveries of Assyrian ruins and cuneiform tablets starting in the 1840s. The nationalists' claim; that Syrian and Assyrian always meant the same thing, citing their own “lost A” theory mentioned earlier, plus their misreading of Herodotus was nothing more than a clever device to facilitate their claims.

Joseph goes on to point out;

“Herodotus himself, however. Always differentiated between the two terms. Randolph Helm’s researches show that Herodotus ‘conscientiously’ and ‘consistently’ distinguished the names Syria and Assyria and used them independently of each other.” p 21

This would mean that “Syrian” did not also include “Assyrian”, that they were different words for two different entities, hence the fact that Nestorians referred to themselves as Syrians meant they always knew themselves to be Syrians, not “Assyrians. Indeed this writer, also born into an “Assyrian” family, recalls the only word used by us to refer to our community was always Syrian (Suraye), not Assyrian (Aturaye).

“To Herodotus, writes Helm, ‘Syrians were the inhabitants of the coastal Levant, including North Syria, Phoenicia, and Philistia’; he never{emphasis Helm’s} uses the name ‘Syria’ to apply to Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia is always called ‘Assyria’…[and it’s] inhabitants ‘Assyrians’. The clear distinction made by Herodotus, comments Helm, was ‘lost upon Classical authors, some of whom interpreted [Herodotus’] Histories VII.63 as a mandate to refer to Phoenicians, Jews, and any other Levantines as ‘Assyrians’.” p 21

A footnote;

“See Helm’s ‘Herodotus Histories VII.63 and the Geographical Connotations of the Toponym ‘Assyria’ in the Achaemenid Period’ (paper presented at the 190th meeting of the American Oriental Society, at San Francisco, April 1980). See also his ‘Greeks’ in the Neo-Assyrian Levant and ‘Assyria’ in Early Greek Writers’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1980), pp 27-41; see also Herodotus’ Histories, I.105 and II.106. The late Arnold J. Toynbee, has also clarified that the Syrioi ‘are the people whom Herodotus includes in his Fifth Taxation District’ which includes ‘ the whole of Phoenicia and the so-called Philistine, Syria, together with Cyprus.’ The Syrioi, emphasizes Toynbee, are ‘not the people of an Assyria which contains Babylon and which is the ninth district in his list.’ p 21

...any comments...any source-based refutation?

..I know we are not supposed to discuss ourselves but on the chance that some might be thinking, "he must be a Jew, or an Arab, or a Turk, or a Qurd, or a Muslim, let me say that I too was born in Iraq to an "Assyrian" family, raised with all the same stories, who still speaks the language of the Arameans, not Assyrians...my grandfather together with Dr. Freydoun Aturaya drafted the Assyrian Manifesto, and fought with Agha Poutrous against the Turks, his neighbors, and for the British, who were attacking HIS country...my maternal great-uncle was personal bodyguard to Agha Poutous and followed him into exile in France. As I say, I am well familiar with all of the "proof" our community has to offer...but, I grew up, I read other books and learned a little more...I am also in the embarrassing position of not believing any of it, except the most logical part, which is that ALL the people of Iraq, regardless of religion or when they got there, are descended from ALL the people who ever inhabited that blessed land, including the Arabs who, like other desert-dwelling conquerors before them, added their genius to what they found waiting for them and created yet another great empire, the Great Islamic Empire which then took the culture of Mesopotamia across Africa to Spain and eventually influenced all Europe, from where explorers eventually took our culture to the New World and beyond. It is a glorious history, like none other, and it didn't stop when the Arabs came but only grew stronger and more influential.

...what makes my predicament particularly odd is that I spent the last 25 years making Assyrian sculpture and created the first Assyrian public monument in over 2500 years, installed in San Francisco in 1988..with my name on it...and now I know what I know. But, even though there is the usual erroneous history of our people on the base, the monument is a tribute to the ancient Assyrians who have been badly mauled in the historical record, until recently. So, I know all the arguments, all the propaganda, know it well, but no longer buy any of it. I am concerned that the last few Christians remaining in Iraq are going to be wiped out thanks to nationalist agenda. (201.159.210.62 (talk) 01:14, 23 April 2012 (UTC))

Thank You (201.159.210.62 (talk) 01:14, 23 April 2012 (UTC))

201.159.210.62 (talk) 00:33, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I see above that Richard Frye is listed as an Assyriologist when he is a noted expert on Persian history...also, Dr Parpola is being used as a source for modern Assyrian claims. Parpola is an expert in ancient Assyrian history, he has no professional standing in the history of modern day Assyrians. To cite Assyriologists as relevant sources for modern day Assyrians is like citing an historian of Medieval Italian history as an expert on the French in, World War II....why would one do such a thing? Also, no evidence at all exists, or is produced here for the claim that Assyrians have "always existed"...none. It is merely taken for granted. And when the Assyriologists are cited, it is by saying "Parpola shows that...", without actually showing where and when Parpola said whatever he is supposed to have said, and WHAT he said, in his own words.

I find it interesting, and disturbing, that the one, accepted expert on THIS subject, and one who comes from our own community no less, is tossed aside as an "amateur", one who is mistaken, even "silly", when his peers in HIS field and his employer and the State Department hold him in such great esteem. Instead people here are quoting, well, let's be blunt about it, white people, Euros and Americans, to whom great deference is being shown. How many accredited historians, who are published authors, does our community have? I know of no others besides Dr. Joseph. And this is how we treat our own? Why, because we don't like what he says? Because the man bothered to get an actual education in this field? You know, trained historians are mentored as they work their way through this rigorous field. They do not simply read those books which agree with their prejudices, or what their grandparents told them, or their priests. In fact, a scholar is not supposed to HAVE his own point of view...he doesn't search for what supports his pet notions but for the best, and most complete information on the topic at hand, letting the chips fall where they may. He, or she, reads all sorts of material which may go against his own prejudices, may even tell him his own country was wrong, or acted illegally...to bolster HIS case is not the reason he gets a doctorate. In fact, if Joseph is mistaken, where are the historians from OUR community who've been studying this topic, as academics and scholars all these years that we claim there were ALWAYS Assyrians, to set him right? As it is this community has managed to produce ONE Assyriologist and he just recently graduated...why were there none before, from this community?

The historical record is clear; we have always called ourselves Suraye (Syrians) not Aturaye, not until the modern era that is. By "we" I mean the "Assyrians" of Iraq and Iran. I have posted above the source for this statement, and even posted the quotes from a published book, and not from the Vanity-Press industry either, but a book published by two prestigious publishers; Princeton University Press, and Brill Publishers. Does that mean anything here? Or are they dismissed because the book they published, at THEIR expense, displeases us in its estimate of our claims? Is that to be the criterion? If your research and published works, all reviewed by experts in the field, don't coincide with what I was taught, as a child, by my community, you don't count and might also be a fool to boot. Dr. Joseph is referred to above as an "amateur"....he is? What is the definition of the word, as it is used here? This is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a resting place for personal prejudice...at the very least one would expect a better use and understanding of English-language words.

I think our community is so used to giving its opinions, on everything, without bothering to actually know much, and finding nothing wrong in that, that we assume everybody does the same thing....you have your opinion and Einstein has his...he is welcome to his and you are welcome to yours, except the topic at hand is particle physics, and only ONE of you has studied the field....your two opinions are not "the same"...you are not "entitled" to PRESENT your opinion alongside Einstein's...and I doubt very much you would want it there...but in this case, in the issue of Assyrians always existing, we feel our opinion is as good as Dr Joseph's...and if we don't like his "opinions", we'll go hunting for anyone who DOES like our opinions, and put him down as an EXPERT, regardless of what his actual expertise is. Dr Joseph is not writing his opinions in his books...he is stating the best known, and knowable FACTS about this subject matter...everyone ELSE is stating opinions and doing it as if they WERE facts. It turns out that those calling Joseph an amateur are the amateurs, and I don't mean that slightingly but as a statement of fact.

As they say, you are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. This is the problem, that I see, with this page. I see lots of opinions, all of them well known to our community. But I see precious little facts, as the real world understand facts. Dr Joseph wasn't given his doctorate, he earned it after years of rigorous study. He wasn't hired by his college for his opinions about Modern Middle East history and his publishers certainly didn't spend the money, time or place their names on his books because of his opinions. None of them much cared WHAT his opinions were, they were only interested in his standing, as a professional and accredited historian. And he has earned great respect after thirty years of teaching as an instructor and author. How many people from our "Assyrian" community do we have, in America OR Europe, who've had a building named after them on a major college campus, or anywhere else? How many? Is that something to dismiss? Why do we belittle the man and his achievements when people all around us recognize the value of his work and the man himself? Why, because we don't LIKE what he writes? Do you go looking for the auto mechanic who tells you what you LIKE to hear about your transmission...or the best expert you can find? And why treat "your" history with any less regard?

You can read all the medical books you want, even set up a surgery in your basement and operate on the neighborhood kids, if you want to...after all, you've READ the books, you KNOW how to cut out an appendix...but you lay a hand on anyone, and you go to prison. History is being mangled right in front of us, and no one cares. And the one expert, on THIS field, is treated as if HE was the Witch Doctor.

As Dr Joseph says in the preface to the second edition, and I quote, and I bring the actual source...

"...a partisan history of their people (meaning us)...'is paid little respect and eventually is undermined by trained historians'."

Is that what we can't forgive him for? For being a "trained historian"? For causing our cherished beliefs, faith and opinions to be, "paid little respect"...and then become "undermined"? I repeat, Joseph is not a propagandist, he is not a champion of our cause, he has no political agenda and he has no cause, except history as she is writ. Just because he disagrees with OUR political agenda, doesn't mean he must have one too. He is an historian writing the best history available on THIS subject, and recognized as such by the kinds of professionals and peers who DO have the respect of the knowledgeable world. It shouldn't matter what we "like" or dislike, but only what can be reliably known. (Fred parhad (talk) 09:36, 23 April 2012 (UTC))

Why Challenge “Assyrians?”

Syriacs and Chaldeans don't demand a little Assyria of their own. They don't tell outright falsehoods about Muslim “massacres” of Christians just for their religion. I don't know who exactly Syriacs are or Suryoyos or Turyoyos for that matter, but I do know that Chaldeans have always acted the part of loyal citizens of Iraq who have mingled with the dominant population of Muslims and been highly successful in Iraq. A success they translated into even more success in America. It is only Assyrians who have a nationalist movement and this is what has to be exposed and stopped before it does any more damage.

The few remaining Christians in Iraq don't need to be further abused by being prodded by Assyrian nationalists, safely removed from danger, calling them traitors if they don't immediately stand before the Iraqi Parliament and “demand our rights”, after making sure they ran away themselves. You'd think the nationalists WANT every last Christian chased out of Iraq or worse. Assyrians were furious with Chaldeans for “betraying” them when they withdrew from the Assyrio/Chaldo/Syrio umbrella name at the time of the last U.S. Census. The idea had been to increase their numbers in order to speak with one, powerful voice. Too late the Chaldeans realized that this meant joining their voice to the demands for a little Assyria and the rest of it, which they have never agreed to.

Why burst the Assyrian bubble? Why tell them and the and the world the truth behind these claims? Why not let them tell their children these fanciful stories, or entertain their co-workers round the water-cooler with tales of Ashurbanipal and how he is their grandfather etc? So you stick a feather in your head and tell people you are descended from Geronimo, so what? Well, the truth matters for serious things...and making demands for “our” country to be returned to us is a serious matter,  will require real proof, reliable evidence, not anecdotes and “my grandmother told me that......”, and even then it won't do any good, just ask Native Americans, with treaties still in their hands, whose claims are from 400 years ago, not 3000,what good demanding their indigenous rights did them...and we're talking about democratic, liberty-loving America...you want this to get something for us in Iraq? Now? Now after they've been ravaged by Christians...they're going to “give” oil-rich lands to yet another tribe of Christians....really? I think not.

Especially where lives are at stake, as in Iraq, where Muslim neighbors are fully aware of what is being said on the internet about how they have persecuted said Assyrians and how America is doing a great thing in ruining Iraq because maybe from those ruins will be born their ASSYRIA. It doesn't take any more than that to make the loyalty of Iraqi Christians suspect, and therefore open them to targeted retaliation. You may dance Apache, with a feather in your hair and even speak a few words of Apache and even eat Apache, but when the Federal Government hands out royalty checks for land and mineral rights and casino earnings, you won't get any with just your feather. For important things you WILL need important evidence and official documents...and Assyrians have none. I'll guess that when they entered the United States they didn't write down “Assyria” for country of origin, because they knew enough to know that wouldn't get them in.

These claims have caused real harm and danger for the Christian minority of Iraq and it doesn't matter that the nationalist movement hasn't the numbers for a baseball team let alone the organizational ability to plan a picnic,..in the world of collective punishment, prevalent everywhere, all suffer for the actions and words of a few. These are the very good reasons to blow this we-are-assyrians nonsense out of the water....the rest can remain Apaches, Chaldeans and Syriacs if it makes them feel better. (Fred parhad (talk) 16:59, 24 April 2012 (UTC))

...I hadn´t read the entire comments on this page until now. It is truly mind boggling how such partisan statements have been made here as if they were fact. This is preceisely what people hold against Wikipedia. I would urge the editor here to remove ALL uncited and unsourced material, and that would include any sources that refer to other books, by the usual suspects, or any but credible sources by professional writers and historians on THIS field...not by engineers or linguists or Assyriologists, Persian scholars, auto mechanics or chefs. The topic is "Assyrians"....and the section that I am most concerned with is the one which claims there are any alive to day.

...I ask again, what professional, historical evidence do you have for these claims? Wigram does not count...if this was a question about the American Civil War and a Talk page had comments on there by the "Sons Of The South" claiming that "it is proven that Lincoln hated the South and the war was a pretext for a vendetta", you would have to cite sources and they would have to be recognized by valid historians..not Southern Baptist ministers, or Fried Fish business owners, or school teachers. It happens that the question of modern Assyrian existence has limited interest among scholars but, there is ONE and the fact that Rafy dismissed him as an amateur throws a very unflatering light on the integrity and thoroughness of this site and the information here.

I have sent letters of complaint to everyone I can think of and am hoping to hear that at least we can debate the issue. I am surprised that Rafy, after making one or two comments indicating that Joseph was wrong etc., has not seen fit to respond again, inspite of the number of posts. My usual experiance in these cases is that once challenged, modern Assyrians all of a sudden have no "time to waste" in further discussion. It seems this site was occupied early by nationalist partisans who´ve manged to fool the administration and now have a near-lock on editing their articles regarding modern assyrians...that is too bad and speaks volumes. (201.161.53.6 (talk) 22:42, 24 April 2012 (UTC))
 * Please read Sock puppetry.--  R a f y  talk 22:48, 24 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Wow you're really into this... I haven't actually read all what you've written but I see where you're going there.
 * First of all my criticism was of John Joseph's poor command of Classical Syriac, I may not have an academic degree in Syriac but I've studied it since I was 10 so I can safely claim that my knowledge of it is superior to his, especially when he cannot recognise a Yod from a Nun. Another flaw in his views is his claim that the Syrians never associated themselves with the ancient Assyrians before the coming of the European. Just take a look at local legends and hagiographies that very often feature "Assyrian kings" whom conversion to Christianity was followed by the mass conversion of their peoples, i.e. the Syrians. (read Mar Behnam, Mar Qardagh, etc)
 * I still can't understand why are you dismissive of a renowned expert on Persian history (Freye)? He did after all discuss the role of Christianity in Persia, which was almost exclusively a Syrian phenomenon, in lengthy details in many of his works. Parpola is THE expert of ancient Assyrian history, his views on the continuity of ancient Assyrians are very relevant to the subject. Another supportive voice comes from Semitists such as Geoffrey Khan who showed that Assyrian Akkadian is still preserved in some NENA dialects. (BTW if you're Assyrian as you claim you should be able to understand this one as well)
 * My understanding is that the Assyria/Syria connection have been definitely confirmed the last decade after the discovery of the Çineköy inscription. I lately come across an article in a discussion forum by Amir Harrak, a well published expert of Syriac studies, he also mentioned that this connection is confirmed beyond any doubt.
 * I suggest again that you create a criticism section in the Assyrian continuity article instead of spamming this discussion with irrelevant stuff. And please keep your political and religious views for yourself, Wikipedia is not the place to discuss them.--  R a f y  talk 22:45, 24 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Wow you're really into this...

...that's an odd observation from the person who edits this page. Should I say the same of you?


 *  I haven't actually read all what you've written but I see where you're going there.
 * First of all my criticism was of John Joseph's poor command of Classical Syriac,

...you called him an amateur. I have studied English at least a smuch as you have studied Syriac, and I know what the word amateur means. It means someone who has not professional standing in a field, And by professional is meant not something “you study a lot” but something you studied under supervision of recognized experts in the field, which Dr. Josph has done and you, as far as you've indicated, have not. Not even in Syriac, which you admit you “studied a lot”, but by yourself and perhaps with others, but not as a professional. I would have thought that here, of all places, professional standing would matter. I assure you no one can write for a real encyclopedia filling it with things “he has studied a lot”. It takes considerably more than that.

..also you have done what all enlightened amateurs do; you have selected those “mistakes” you can identify, and ignored the core of the matter, which is that there are no lineal descendants of the Assyrians, or Chaldeans anywhere and haven't been for centuries. That is at the heart of his research and so far you haven't addressed that.


 *  I may not have an academic degree in Syriac but I've studied it since I was 10 so I can safely claim that my knowledge of it is superior to his, especially when he cannot recognise a Yod from a Nun. 

...I'm afraid you couldn't do that anywhere but here. You haven't done the research he's done either, you haven't been mentored by recognized experts in that field, you haven't earned an advanced degree, or any degree that you have shared with us, and yet you seem perfectly comfortable calling those who have, amateurs and setting aside their research as if your study of Syriac also gave you the knowledge to refuts what btwo prestigious publishing houses have seen fit to publish, under their imprint. Does that count for nothing here? Only that you say you have found a Yod and a Nun done wrong, you say.

Another flaw in his views is his claim that the Syrians never associated themselves with the ancient Assyrians before the coming of the European. Just take a look at local legends and hagiographies that very often feature "Assyrian kings" whom conversion to Christianity was followed by the mass conversion of their peoples, i.e. the Syrians. (read Mar Behnam, Mar Qardagh, etc)

...no you didn't read much. Dr Joseph deals with people who claim to be descended from ancient heroes, it's common in the middle eeast..and he dealt specifically with Mar Qardagh, and he also quoted Cook and Cromne whose book “Haggarism” is misquoted by nationalists...plus which he included a letter sent to him by Patricia Cook in which she explains quite clearly that Qradagh is a LEGEND, a myth...you can't seriously be putting up legends against scholarly research...can you? Here is the quote, perhaps you will read it this time and tell me what you think....

In a footnote;

“…See also Hagarism, p. 190, n. 71, where, in accordance with their methodology, authors Crone and Cook accept Qardaghs’s descendance from Assyrian kings as a believed fact by HIS (emphasis mine) contemporaries, making Hagarism a favorite source book of the modern Assyrian writers. In a letter to the author, dated June 11, 1997, Patricia Crone wrote that she and Cook ‘do not argue that the Nestorians of pre-Islamic Iraq saw themselves as Assyrians or that this is what they called themselves. They called themselves Suryane (Syrians, mine), which had no greater connotation of Assyrian in their usage than it did in anyone else's…We take it for granted that they got the modern Assyrian label from the West and proceeded to reinvent themselves…Of course the Nestorians were Arameans (Syrian/Suryane, mine).” p 27

..and here is Dr Joseph on the Mar Qardagh and all such legends...

“It is not surprising that ‘in the land of the Assyrians’ one encounters an occasional legend that traces the ancestry of an individual or group to an ancient hero. This writer has heard Persians on the streets of Kermanshah begging and claiming that they were the lineal descendants of Imam Husayn, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, who lived over 1,300 years before them. Michael G. Morony speaks of villagers of Aramaic descent who, assimilated with the Persians, claimed to be of Royal Persian descent, ‘form Kisra, son of Qubadh’. The story of Mar Qardagh, himself a semi-legendary figure, is such a legend; it traces the ancestry of his father to the family of Nimrud and that of his mother to the family of Sennacherib (705-681), a geneology that harks back over a thousand years.” p 27

...as far as legends of noble descent....

“It is not surprising that ‘in the land of the Assyrians’ one encounters an occasional legend that traces the ancestry of an individual or group to an ancient hero. This writer has heard Persians on the streets of Kermanshah begging and claiming that they were the lineal descendants of Imam Husayn, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, who lived over 1,300 years before them. Michael G. Morony speaks of villagers of Aramaic descent who, assimilated with the Persians, claimed to be of Royal Persian descent, ‘form Kisra, son of Qubadh’. The story of Mar Qardagh, himself a semi-legendary figure, is such a legend; it traces the ancestry of his father to the family of Nimrud and that of his mother to the family of Sennacherib (705-681), a geneology that harks back over a thousand years.” p 27

...I hope you read these and comment further.


 * I still can't understand why are you dismissive of a renowned expert on Persian history (Freye)?

..you ask me that after you dismiss a man with an advanced degree and published books on THIS subject? Frye has his field of expertise, and it is not modern Assyrian existence, or even ancient Assyria. You cannot lift what pleases you from wherever...if you had studied for an advanced degree you would know that. It is a rigorous process, with mentors over your shoulder all the way, and you don't just read what you like, or what agrees with your beliefs, you study ALL SIDES of an issue, all reseacrh...I wouldn't think of disputing with Frye in his area of expertise...I wonder why you find it so easy to dismiss Dr Joseph without even reading him.


 *  He did after all discuss the role of Christianity in Persia, which was almost exclusively a Syrian phenomenon, in lengthy details in many of his works. 

..I thought we were to keep religion out of this? But, very well..what has that got to do with anything? Who is discussing Christianity? The topic is modern Assyrian existence, but since you brought it up...can a Muslim be an Assyrian too?

Parpola is THE expert of ancient Assyrian history,

...he is one of them, hardly the best in the field, but let that go, I have no argument with his expertise.


 *  his views on the continuity of ancient Assyrians are very relevant to the subject.

...they may be, but they are his “views”, not his area of expertise. It is a hobby with him, it is a pet project. I met him at Assyrian conventions where he was brought, expenses paid, to seek donations for his Melammu project...again, he has no standing at all in the field of modern Middle Eastern history with a specialty in the existence of modern Assyrians, as has Dr Joseph. You would not present an expert on the American Civil War to give factual views on the Franco Prussian War...he may have all the interest in the world, but his writings and opinions remain just that: his opinion and not accepted fact.


 *  Another supportive voice comes from Semitists such as Geoffrey Khan who showed that Assyrian Akkadian is still preserved in some NENA dialects

ia

...again, these people have no professional standing in this subject. We are not discussing semantics...this page asserts that Assyrians still survive, with no proof whatsoever from historians at all all, a question of history. The purpose of Wikipedia is not to “seek support”, it is to give factual knowledge....Dr Joseph has produced factual knowledge, why will you not admit it?

..I find it surious that you bring an expert in ancient Persia, an expert in ancient Assyria, a semanticist but refuse to discuss or even acknowledge the achievements of the one, actual, published historian on THIS subject...except to find minor faults, which change nothing about his major research.

..as long as we are introducing “support, let me give you some from his book...

…Also in the 18th century, the British historian Edward Gibbon, aware of the confusion of names, wrote that the Nestorians, ‘Under the name of Chaldeans or Assyrians, are confounded with the most learned or the most powerful nation in Eastern antiquity.” p 23

..surely you've heard of Edward Gibbon...what do you say to his comment? He wrote the classic “Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire”, among other works and is rightly recognized as a scholar in his field. At least he is an historian...

. (BTW if you're Assyrian as you claim you should be able to understand this one as well)

...as I claim? As I claim? Don't tell me that you're going to imply I must be an “enemy” for holding such views?


 * My understanding is that the Assyria/Syria connection have been definitely confirmed the last decade after the discovery of the Çineköy inscription. I lately come across an article in a discussion forum by Amir Harrak, a well published expert of Syriac studies, he also mentioned that this connection is confirmed beyond any doubt.

...that is also not relevant, and this inscription has yet to be studied by people without partisan views, but it changes nothing. And still no consideration of Dr Joseph book...but an inscription and a Yod?


 * I suggest again that you create a criticism section in the Assyrian continuity article instead of spamming this discussion with irrelevant stuff. And please keep your political and religious views for yourself, Wikipedia is not the place to discuss them.

...that is exactly my complaint about this article, the end of it at least. The Christian religion is ALL OVER the place...as far as political views, I don't see any in Dr Joseph's book or in the quotes I have shown here. I did not come here to discuss my views, but to share Dr Joseph's research and writing...and I thought that was the whole point: to bring recognized sources, the best available...and I have...and yet you refuse to do any more but find two errors and give me non-professional, in this field, "opinions"..

..I would appreciate your comments, not on my comments, but on the substance of the totality of Dr Joseph's work...and I would appreciate it if you would cite your sources, tell us their standing in the field, and provide some excerpts, or summary. I am not giving you my opinion...I am giving you a recognized historian's research and conclusions. I think before dismissing him you need to find some professionals of equal standing who show him to be mistaken, don't you? (Fred parhad (talk) 03:43, 25 April 2012 (UTC))


 * First of all, you don't have to be an expert in Syriac to know that HNWN (ܗܢܘܢ) and not HYWN (ܗܝܘܢ) is the correct form. The sentence appears to have been copied by John Joseph from a paper by Frye who cited it as an evidence that Syrian and Assyrian were once used as synonyms. One would assume that John Joseph, being an expert on "Assyrian history", would command a basic level of Syriac to realise that that was the wrong spelling. This was by the way a quote from Michael the Syrian in response to some Greeks who offended the Jacobites by saying that the Syrian never had a kingdom or a king. Michael the Syrian replied that the Syrians did have honourable kings because the Assyrians are Syrians ")TWRY) DHNWN SWRYY)". Again John Joseph's response that Michael meant by ")TWRY)" (aturaye) the "inhabitants of Mosul" doesn't make much sense... Why would he say that "the Syrians who are the same as the inhabitants of Mosul had many honorable kings"?
 * I have only mentioned Mar Behnam and Qardagh as a proof that the were Syrians claiming descending from the Assyrians way back in the early Christian centuries and not as historical "Assyrian" figures. This is in a response to claims that the notion of Assyrian continuity appeared suddenly in the late 19th century. Having said that, one cannot deny that the modern adoption of the name "Assyrians" was heavily influenced by western missionaries and explorers who were active in the region.
 * Frye and Parpola are as experts as John Joseph, if not more. If you disagree with this contest it at the RS noticeboard.
 * Geoffrey Khan is a Cambridge scholar of Semitics, The study of the history, languages, and cultures of the Semitic peoples, and not semantics. As you may know the Assyrians are Semites, so I don't think you would hold any objections on his expertise.
 * The Çineköy inscription have been translated and studied by more than a scholar. You can find some conclusions here.
 * Regarding you question on whether there are Muslim Assyrians. The answer is NO. Assyrians are a Christian nation by definition. Those who choose another religion, especially Islam, are usually shunned by their community and usually end up losing their Assyrian identity as they integrate with the Arab, Kurdish, or any other local Muslim community. You will similarly not find any Muslim Armenians, Copts, Jews, etc... The reason behind this is that those people managed to preserve their ancient identity through their religion. Again an Assyrian like you should be aware of this fact.--  R a f y  talk 08:14, 25 April 2012 (UTC)


 * First of all, you don't have to be an expert in Syriac to know that HNWN (ܗܢܘܢ) and not HYWN (ܗܝܘܢ) is the correct form.[http://www.syriacstudiesdic.com/words.php

….apparently you don't even have to be an historian to write history.

?searchbox=%DC%97%DC%A2%DC%98%DC%A2&option=1] The sentence appears to have been copied by John Joseph from a paper by Frye who cited it as an evidence that Syrian and Assyrian were once used as synonyms. One would assume that John Joseph, being an expert on "Assyrian history", would command a basic level of Syriac to realise that that was the wrong spelling. This was by the way a quote from Michael the Syrian in response to some Greeks who offended the Jacobites by saying that the Syrian never had a kingdom or a king. Michael the Syrian replied that the Syrians did have honourable kings because the Assyrians are Syrians ")TWRY) DHNWN SWRYY)". Again John Joseph's response that Michael meant by ")TWRY)" (aturaye) the "inhabitants of Mosul" doesn't make much sense... Why would he say that "the Syrians who are the same as the inhabitants of Mosul had many honorable kings"?

..for the tenth time, even if Syrian were derived from Assyrian, it would not mean that the two were one or had any connection, besides a similar sounding name. New York is obviously based on olde York, in England...but that doesn't make Englishmen out of New Yorkers. The people of Moscow, Idaho are NOT Russians.

...I don't understand why you only discuss his book to find the faults that you find....is the entire book filled with nothing but mistakes? This is the difference between an amateur and a professional; one of them has to tackle all sides of an issue, the other just deals with what pleases him and lets the rest go. There is much, much more in his book than the few instances you choose to find fault with...I would point out again that this article on Assyrians carries a note at the top that it is in need of an EXPERT...what do you call and expert, Mar Qardagh? Who would you accept? Who is the perfect historian for you? Since you ignore Edward Gibbon, who would you approve of?
 * I have only mentioned Mar Behnam and Qardagh as a proof that the were Syrians claiming descending from the Assyrians way back in the early Christian centuries and not as historical "Assyrian" figures. This is in a response to claims that the notion of Assyrian continuity appeared suddenly in the late 19th century.

...this is not evidence of their existence, only that people have at times identified themselves with ancient heroes. Making claims is just that, making claims...it proves nothing beyond that. Dr Joseph is dealing with actual, scholarly history and not with what people claimed. If his book was a history of CLAIMS, refering to Mar Qardagh would make sense, but it is not about claims, it is about the veracity OF those claims. You again neglected to address the issues raised by Cook and Crone, two other highly respected writers on this subject. It seems to me you simply reject all who do not agree with you. Imagine if the Britannica had done that...imagine its reputation in the world today.


 *  Having said that, one cannot deny that the modern adoption of the name "Assyrians" was heavily influenced by western missionaries and explorers who were active in the region.

..Not “influenced, it was their idea...as the quotes I gave you from Joseph's book show...they show the missionaries arguing about why they should use an invented name for these people, and he shows how it was invented...have you read any of the book?

...But, at least you concede that much, but that is not enough. What about the rest of the book? It is the one, actually published and not merely printed book on THIS topic, it has the very name in its title. Go to any encyclopedia, any university library and see if you find any source, being used by students of history and professors of history that agrees with you.


 * Frye and Parpola are as experts as John Joseph, if not more.

...where is the evidence for such a statement...or is it enough to state your beliefs as fact? How, are they expert and even MORE expert...based on what?..your approval because they approve of your beliefs? Is that the criterion? I am determined to find out if this is Wikipedia's official policy; that what the editors determine is true and valid, is true and valid. They say not, but your example doesn't give much confidence.


 *  If you disagree with this contest it at the RS noticeboard.
 * Geoffrey Khan is a Cambridge scholar of Semitics, The study of the history, languages, and cultures of the Semitic peoples, and not semantics. As you may know the Assyrians are Semites, so I don't think you would hold any objections on his expertise.

....I thought you misspelled again, sorry. He is not an historian, the subject is the HISTORY of Assyrians...would you accept Joseph on a field outside his expertise....? Since you won't accept him In his field. Is the man just a worthless academician to you...might as well not been born, or bothered to study, or write...what fools his publishers were, they should have just checked with Wikipedia...and what was the faculty of his college thinking in naming a building in his honor? Or even giving him a job. How silly of them all. ....II
 * The Çineköy inscription have been translated and studied by more than a scholar. You can find some conclusions here.

...I will and get back to you.


 * Regarding your question on whether there are Muslim Assyrians. The answer is NO. Assyrians are a Christian nation by definition.

...whose definition...its own? Is this like claiming to be Assyrian? Because you define yourself that way, you are?


 *  Those who choose another religion, especially Islam, are usually shunned by their community and usually end up losing their Assyrian identity as they integrate with the Arab, Kurdish, or any other local Muslim community. 

...do Americans who stop being Christian stop being Americans? This identity you say you lose when you stop being Christian, what is it but a Christian identity? Is that all there is to being Assyrian...being Christian? This is preposterous and shows exactly what your critics allege; that this nothing but a Christian sect seeking to glorify itself.

You will similarly not find any Muslim Armenians, Copts, Jews, etc... The reason behind this is that those people managed to preserve their ancient identity through their religion. Again an Assyrian like you should be aware of this fact.

..the Christian religion was never the religion of the ancient Assyrians...so, if your assertion is correct, then the ancient Assyrians stopped “being Assyrian” when they lost their religion of Ashur which was an Assyrian religion. Adopting the Christian religion would, as you say, have cost them their true Assyrian identity..no?

..if you can be Assyrian, even though you give up the religion of the Assyrians, then why can't you be Assyrian if you give up the religion of Christianity?


 *  ...Are we talking of a “race”, an “ethnicity”, a “nation”, or a religion? Jew and Copt are themselves religious designations...you will not find a Christian Jew either.  But you will find Muslims and Jews and Buddhists in the country of Armenia.  And there are Muslim Israelis.  And, if an Armenian leaves the Christian faith, he will still be an Armenian, just look at his passport or birth certificate...his nationality won't change with his religion.  This is your problem; you have defined Assyrian as Christian or rather, you have taken on a “national” name to cover your Christian sect.  All you people have done is add “Assyrian” to your Christian sect, like the COE only added “Assyrian” to its name in 1976.  You have defined, as “Assyrian culture”,  what is in reality Christian culture. 

...I see that you are not going to discuss Dr Joseph book AS a book. You are only going to find faults, where you think you've found them, and leave the rest alone. I say again that this is precisely what the amateur does. I expected better than that from Wikipedia and will not stop bombarding the administration with notices that you are violating the very core principle expressed by them; you are not using the best source material available but instead ranging far and wide to find whatever pleases the personal views you already hold...which is exactly what a professional editor would NOT do. (Fred parhad (talk) 10:03, 25 April 2012 (UTC))

Where did Syria Come From..

This is what Joseph's book has to say on the question of the derivation...

“The designations Syria and Syrian were derived from Greek usage long before Christianity. When the Greeks became better acquainted with the Near East, especially after Alexander the Great overthrew the Achaemenian empire in the 4th century B.C., they restricted the name Syria to the lands west of the Euphrates. During the 3rd century B.C., when the Hebrew Bible was translated by Jewish scholars into the Greek Septuagint for the use of the Hellenized Jews of Alexandria, the terms for ‘Aramean’ and ‘Aramaic’ in the Hebrew Bible, were translated into ‘Syrian’ and ‘the Syrian tongue’ respectively.”

A footnote appears;

“The Authorized Version of the Bible continued to use the same terms that the Septuagint had adopted. In 1970, the New English Bible, published by Oxford and Cambridge University presses, and translated by biblical scholars drawn from various British universities, went back to the original Hebrew terms, using Aram and Arameans for Syria and Syrians respectively.” p. 9

..it would seem then, according to the fools at Oxford and Cambridge, that "Syria" was not derived from Assyria at all, but from Aram. I don't understand why you and all the writers here on this subject haven't contacted Oxford and Cambridge to enlighten them, the way I'm trying to do with the administration here.

Returning to the text;

"In Palestine itself, according to Noldeke, the Jews and later the Christians there referred to their dialect of Aramaic as Syriac; in Babylon, both Greeks and Persians called the Arameans Syrians.” p. 10

A footnote;

See T. Noldeke, “Semitic Languages”, in Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed. P. 625). The second-century B.C. Greek historian Posidonius, a native of Syria, noted that ‘the people we [Greeks] call Syrians were called by the Syrians themselves Arameans….for the people in Syria are Arameans’.” (See J.G. Kidd, ‘Posidonius’ (Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries, 1988), vol. 2, pt. 2, pp. 955-956.)” p.10

...any comments? (Fred parhad (talk) 10:09, 25 April 2012 (UTC))


 * I assumed that you being an Assyrian, as you claim, would understand the definition of who is an Assyrian. But fine, I will try to give you a short introduction:
 * "Assyrians are people who are sometimes known as Chaldeans, Syrians, Syriacs, etc. are a CHRISTIAN ethnoreligious group. It's mainly composed of the churches that follow the Syriac Christian tradition with the exclusion of the Maronite and the Syrians of India."
 * The Assyrian are divided into two groupings based on their Syriac Christian tradition: Eastern, which includes the Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Ancient Church of the East, and a number of small protestant and Eastern Orthodox groups. And a Western group that includes the Syriac Orthodox and Catholic Churches. As you see there is no place where a Muslim or a Buddhist Assyrian would fit. You can call it a "Christian sect" but the same also applies to the Armenians, Jews, Serbs, Croats who are also defined by their "sect".
 * I see that you are confusing ethnicity with nationality. One can be an Armenian citizen of ethnic Armenian descent, this is how 98% of the citizens of Armenia define themselves. But there are also Yazidi Armenians, Russian Armenians, etc... The same applies to America, Americans are not an ethnic group therefore you have Italian Americans, Armenian Americans, Russian Americans and so forth...


 * How can the root SWRY be derived from )RM? These were two different toponyms of the same territory, they are synonymous but have totally different etymologies.
 * Just to clarify one think... I would never call myself "Assyrian" (ܐܬܘܪܝܐ) in my native tongue, just as the rest of the Christians of Nineveh I prefer "Syrian"/"Syriac" (ܣܘܪܝܐ/ܣܘܪܝܝܐ}}) in Syriac. However, I am convinced that both names are synonymous and that's why I prefer to call myself "Assyrian" in European languages since it's more popularised in the west.--  R a f y  talk 21:43, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

...according to Joseph, and here I am using cited material,

“Tatian not only did not claim to be an Assyrian, but scholars point out that he was not even born in the lands east of the Euphrates. Tatian (Greek Tatianos), writes Millar, no more came from geographical Assyria than did that other ‘Assyrian’ with a Latin name, Lucian (Greek Lucianos) of Samasota. Millar explains simply that the terms Assyria and Assyrians were common terms then for geographical Syria and its inhabitants. See his Rome and the East, pp 227, 454-455, 460. Consult also Asmussen, op. cit., p 927; Encyclopedia of the Early Church (New York 1992), under ‘Tatian’; Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, Hagarism (Cambridge, 1977), p. 197, n. 163.” p 27

As early as the days of Tatian, the names Assyria and Syria were common terms for geographical Syria and its people...and, as stated by Joseph, Classical writers went on to call all the people of the Levant, including Jews and Phoenicians, Assyrians. This predates the tablet recently found. Even before that tablet was discovered, well before, people at that time, in that region, were using "Assyrian" to mean people who had nothing to do with Assyria proper. It was a MISTAKE....there was a confusion in nsmes, as there still is. However, the word "Syrian" came from "Aram", obviously, because that was the land of the Arameans, and was used by the Jews of Alexandria in their translation from the Aramaic, not the "Assyrian" but from the Aramaic, of Aram and the Arameans...but that has been changed back now...there is no longer mention of a "Syria" in the new Bible put out by the fools at Oxford and Cambridge, they have gone back, not to "Assyria", but to "Aram...Syrians are from Aram, not from Assyria. They are not "the same".  By the 8th century there was still confusion about the names...like Mar Qardgah was confused about his ancestry.  There is a chance now to clear up the confusion, rather than foster it.  (201.159.194.63 (talk) 11:56, 25 April 2012 (UTC))

One last point. Why trace yourselves back to the Assyrians and stop there? If the Assyrians had traced themselves back, as you have done, where would they have wound up? Why stop at the Assyrians...why not go all the way back and just admit that you are descended from Black Africans? Or do you also have your own Dr Leakeys? (Fred parhad (talk) 13:49, 25 April 2012 (UTC))

Just What Need Was Wikipedia Designed to Meet?

...you can access the Britannica, or many other established encyclopedias which aren't staffed by volunteers but by paid professionals, online and for free....you can get almost any article about anything through search engines...so who needed Wikipedia?

I'm finding out...Wikipedia is a place for volunteers, as they proudly admit themselves, for amateurs who always wanted to have a say...and it IS a message board and blog with the difference that it attempts to present itself as something more...

Only on Wikipedia will you get information about the existence of modern Assyrians. In other real sources you'll learn that there are people CALLING themselves Assyrians, which is true, there are...but only on Wikipedia will you be presented with "evidence"...evidence Harvard and Oxford and Cambridge and Princeton just couldn't find and don't teach. In fact, nobody does BUT Wikipedia.

At the very least, to be credible, if that counts for anything, an "Assyrian" should not have been put in charge as an editor...someone neutral would have been far better. How else to explain that everyone's book is listed and discussed BUT Dr. Joseph's...and why? Is he lacking in credentials?...no. But the editor here has found what he identifies as "mistakes", mistakes he claims to know based on his studies since he was ten....that and a yod and a nun...and that's it. The book and its author are dismissed without even a mention of all the other research and sources and citations....this is what Wikipedia is really for; to present unfounded, mix-and-match personal prejudices as something more than that. No wonder. (Fred parhad (talk) 14:36, 25 April 2012 (UTC))

One last point and I'll leave you to write history...what does it tell you when major encyclopedias and history books do not mention the existence of modern Assyrians...and that to get such "information" you have to come to a place edited by volunteers and all of them amateurs? Do you see where I'm coming from now? (Fred parhad (talk) 18:12, 25 April 2012 (UTC))


 * Hounestly I'm not sure what you'redemanding here. First you write some 100KB in support of a book who denies continuity, then you go on an anti-Christian rant. Sometimes you demand the article be rewritten to conform to John Joseph's view.

..I do not want it rewritten, I want the part about the existence of Assyrians today to be replaced by something credible, something written by a recognized scholar in THIS field, not in ancient Persian or Assyrian history, or in semantics or Semitics or linguistics...does that not make sense to you? Do experts in ancient Aztec history write on modern American history? What is so revolutionary to you, or this place, in using books by people whose field this is, professional field...you know, make their living at it? Parpola and Frye made their livings elsewhere, on other topics...neither of them could have or would have been hired by a university to teach classes in modern Middle Eastern history...why do you suppose that is?


 *  And now you claim that there is no such thing as modern Assyrians. I will do you a favour and post a number of links that might help you. This will be my final discussion with you:

...I never claimed otherwise, but it wasn't my idea, it happens to come as the result of serious and specific research recognized by everyone but you and this place. And you still have refused to discuss a single issue raised in Dr Joseph's book. I say again that this kind of behavior would not be tolerated at any serious academic establishment...where an amateur gets to dismiss a professionals work...I think if Frye and Parpola changed their views 180 degrees, you would to.


 * 1) Articles for deletion. If you think there is no such ethnic group and the article should be deleted.

..have done that already...also I'm looking for contacts who know the owners here.


 * 1) Requested moves. If you think the current name is errondous and a different more fitting name should be used.
 * 2) Reliable sources/Noticeboard. If you disagree with the sources given.
 * 3) Assyrian continuity. For the third time... You are welcomed to help improve that page by adding a criticism section. If you disagree with some references there take them to the noticeboard.--  R a f y  talk 21:45, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

...my understanding is that everyone registered can edit...you have managed to "protect" your Assyrian page, but I can still edit the comments here....but fear not, I'll post my article and let it stand. But I have to end by pointing out that Wikipedia really shouldn't tolerate such biased and partisan views to dominate any subject. You really aren't an editor at all, you're a gate-keeper with the ability to keep people out whose views rankle you. Who ever heard of a volunteer professional? Except here. Would you trust a volunteer surgeon who'd been studying medicine books since he was ten...or would you then demand an accredited professional in YOUR condition...or take a pharmacists views?


 * Please take a look at WP:PA, you problem is with this article and not a personal one with me, so try to please keep it civil on and off-wikipedia.
 * No one owns any page here, anyone can edit given that he follows the proper regulations. If you wish to delete this page just follow these three easy steps and contact me and I will put the tag on top of this page for you. you may put you rationale in support of your arguments in the deletion page then.--  R a f y  talk 12:36, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm picking up broad hints that I don't belong here, or that I am "spamming" and therefore am liable to have "my" observations removed. I would like to remind the tyrants of the world that the rules here state that all UNSOURCED materials or ORIGINAL research will be removed. I have used only cited material from well recognized sources, though I can see they are unwelcome sources...but that is not what the rules say. Being popular, with lots of gooey consensus to boot, is not required for editing or for commenting ON those articles, for removing articles, yes, but not for editing. My sources are, Dr John Joseph, a professor of Middle Eastern history with real and actual published works to his credit, among other credits, who was also born into this community and well aware of all the erroneous beliefs about their "Assyrian" identity held by this admittedly Christian sect. Also, as per Dr. Joseph's showing, I have also cited Edward Gibbon as a source, you may have heard of him, as well as Arthur J. Toynbee and Herodotus as well as other scholars and authors such as Patricia Crone and Michael Cook and several others...and I can get more. So long as I cite these sources, and why wouldn't I since I am not here to give MY views, but theirs, I can't see any valid grounds for removing THEIR writings, or me, their humble messenger. (201.159.195.197 (talk) 16:44, 26 April 2012 (UTC))(201.159.195.197 (talk) 16:58, 26 April 2012 (UTC))

From Dr. Joseph's book:

“The use of these terms, Arameans, Syrians, Nestorians, Chaldeans and Assyrians in reference to the same Christian minority, depending on the user's preferred term, has continued to cause confusion.” p. 1

..this is how a Christian sect assures itself that it has "always known we are Assyrians"...wherever they read, in the historical record, the word "Aramean", they say, "that's US, that's Assyrians!. When next they read "Syrians", the say, "That's us too!, that's Assyrians!"...and when they read  "Nestorians" anywhere they say, "That's also us, that's Assyrians!"...."Look! We've ALWAYS been here!!!" And yet, they are the same Christian sect, after the advent of Christianity, but with different names for itself... before that they were merely survivors along with many other ethnic types and none of them "pure", of their empire who were swallowed up and mixed and matched into the Persian Empire and then the Islamic Empire and now into the American Empire.

..No one has proposed, or shown any proof that the ancient Assyrians were purely, ethnically, Assyrian. The idea is highly unlikely since the ancients had none of the bigoted racist views so prevalent among the moderns, about mixing with others. The idea that "Assyrians", because they were Christians, only mixed with other Assyrians, when it is meant they only married within their Christian faith (as you can see they kick out, from "Assyria", anyone who dares marry a Muslim), neither takes into account all the mixing they were doing before, when they still had their empire, or after, but before Christianity, when, for 600 years, they were as happily mixing with everybody else who moved through such as Medes, Babylonians, pre-Islamic Arabs, Greeks and Islamic Arabs, as they ever did...there was never a "pure" Assyrian anyway...never.

..The idea that there is any sort of Assyrian marker gene is absurd. You only get such a notion if you assume that all the people who now say they are "Assyrian" are really Assyrian...but that has not been proven, only alleged. In no school of Assyriology do they have a course on the modern existence of Assyrians. This is a notion something you have to get elsewhere, and therein lies the rub, when presenting assyriologists as somehow expert on this topic...or our parents.

...What Dr Joseph has shown is that we have sects of Christians SAYING they are the descendants of the Assyrians, and then geneticists ACCEPTING them at their word, and conducting studies "proving" something about modern Assyrian connection to old East Christian sects and calling THAT "genetic proof that Assyrians do exist". But none of that is valid unless and until it is proven that these modern Assyrians are connected in any way to the ancients...until then the conclusions drawn are about Christian genes and not Assyrian ones. Genetics knows no religion...you don't change genes by turning to Muhammad, or Buddha, as the wikieditor here claims. That is a deliberate muddling of science, the kind of thing amateurs are expected to do, but not professionals like Dr Joseph. (Fred parhad (talk) 18:45, 26 April 2012 (UTC))

To quote the editor here...

"then you go on an anti-Christian rant". I do? Show me where. I thought one had to cite sources, verifiable sources at that...where did I rant against Christianity?

But then, seeing as how you called a noted professional an "amateur", when you are the admitted amateur here, and since the language in use here is not Syriac but English, I looked up "rant", just to be sure we're speaking the same language.


 * rant
 * verb \ˈrant\
 * Definition of RANT
 * intransitive verb
 * 1: to talk in a noisy, excited, or declamatory manner
 * 2: to scold vehemently
 * transitive verb
 * to utter in a bombastic declamatory fashion

...which comments of mine were "noisy, excited, bombastic, scolding or vehement", about CHRISTIANITY? Did I say anything about Christian doctrine, or beliefs? Did I criticize the RELIGION in any way? Did I scold Jesus? What I said was that a Christian sect has proclaimed itself the sole, lineal, direct descendants of the ancient Assyrians and, I might have added, none of whom, meaning ancient Assyrians, ever heard of Christianity. Is that not true? Are you not a Christian sect? Do you not say that only Christians, and especially East Christians, can be Assyrians? Did I say anything that you don't say, as far as Christianity goes?

Where's the "anti-Christian rant"?

..it would appear then that you had no source or citation for your accusation. You should remove it, but not for my sake. To me it is just more evidence that any criticism of the notion that you are an Assyrian, is really seen as an attack on your Christianity, proving that they really are one and the same..and therefore invalid, as a historical fact. Assyrians were NEVER Christians. It is you Christians who now say that Assyrians can ONLY be Christians. Really? According to whom, besides yourselves? ..I think your page proves that you have been on an "Assyrian" rant and don't appreciate it being pointed out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fred parhad (talk • contribs) 19:18, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Dr Joseph on the derivation of "Syria":

Dr Joseph's research and sources have shown that the word “Syria” is not derived from “Assyria" at all, but rather the two were confounded with each other much later. Syria derives from Aram, the land of the Arameans known today as modern-day Syria.  One indication of the correctness of this view is that in 1970 British biblical scholars, sponsored by Oxford and Cambridge universities released a new edition of the Bible in which the words “Syrian and “Syria” were rendered back to their original Aramean and Aram.  Had there been any doubt about the true derivation, the words would have been changed to “Assyria” and “Assyrian”, which they were not, hence several scholars know that Syria did not derive from Assyria.

Also, the Bible itself uses the two words independently of each other. There is no hint in the Bible that Aram/Syria is also Assyria.

To quote Dr. Joseph;

“The designations Syria and Syrian were derived from Greek usage long before Christianity. When the Greeks became better acquainted with the Near East, especially after Alexander the Great overthrew the Achaemenian empire in the 4th century B.C., they restricted the name Syria to the lands west of the Euphrates. During the 3rd century B.C., when the Hebrew Bible was translated by Jewish scholars into the Greek Septuagint for the use of the Hellenized Jews of Alexandria, the terms for ‘Aramean’ and ‘Aramaic’ in the Hebrew Bible, were translated into ‘Syrian’ and ‘the Syrian tongue’ respectively.”

Thus we see that “Syria” came from Aram and not Assyria. And Aram/Syria referred to the lands west of the Euphrates and not any part of what is known as Assyria proper, then or now.

...The Turkey-tablet which has caused so much hope to burn in “Assyrian” hearts, dates from the 8th century, long after “Syria” was derived from Assyria (and after the Muslim Conquest)...this was a time well into the Christian era when the confusion in names had already existed for centuries, as per Dr Joseph's reasearch. This tablet merely confirms the confusion, not the derivation of Syria from Assyria. I can say that with confidence because those who tout its discovery as having "settled for all time" the controversy of derivation, have not known about, or bothered to address, the numerous evidence that Syria derived from Aram and neither terms were used to mean Assyria "as well"...or "in place of"...or were "the same as...".

Also from Dr. Joseph;

“The Authorized Version of the Bible continued to use the same terms that the Septuagint had adopted. In 1970, the New English Bible, published by Oxford and Cambridge University presses, and translated by biblical scholars drawn from various British universities, went back to the original Hebrew terms, using Aram and Arameans for Syria and Syrians respectively.”

...”back to the original Hebrew terms”. Were the Hebrews then mistaken? No scholar has said so. Aram/Syria did NOT refer to Assyria. It had nothing to DO with Assyria but with the lands west of the Euphrates...known as the lands of the Arameans, modern-day Syria, not Iraq.

Returning to the text;

“In Palestine itself, according to Noldeke, the Jews and later the Christians there referred to their dialect of Aramaic as Syriac; in Babylon, both Greeks and Persians called the Arameans Syrians.”

...this editor and all other nationalists are the ones calling the Aramaic language “Assyrian”. It was not. Akkadian was the language of the Assyrians...it is the language all the cuneiform tablets are written in, not Aramaic. People back then knew Aramaic stood for Syriac...that Aram was Syria and not Assyria, not the “same “ at all but quite distinct and separate.

“Both Greeks and Persians”, their immediate neighbors and conquerors, called the Arameans “Syrians”, not Assyrians.

A footnote;

See T. Noldeke, “Semitic Languages”, in Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed. P. 625). The second-century B.C. Greek historian Posidonius, a native of Syria, noted that ‘the people we [Greeks] call Syrians were called by the Syrians themselves Arameans….for the people in Syria are Arameans’.” (See J.G. Kidd, ‘Posidonius’ (Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries, 1988), vol. 2, pt. 2, pp. 955-956.)” pp. 9-10.

A Greek historian of the 2nd century B.C., in Syria, not Assyria, writes that the Syrians themselves called themselves Arameans, not Assyrians “too”.

And, not to put too fine a point on it;

“Herodotus himself, however, always differentiated between the two terms. Randolph Helm’s researches show that Herodotus ‘conscientiously’ and ‘consistently’ distinguished the names Syria and Assyria and used them independently of each other.” p 21

Herodotus, among others, knew way back then, that Syria and Assyria were independent of each other. They were most definitely not the same entity with two, different, names.

And then there is this, also from Joseph;

“Tatian not only did not claim to be an Assyrian, but scholars point out that he was not even born in the lands east of the Euphrates. Tatian (Greek Tatianos), writes Millar, no more came from geographical Assyria than did that other ‘Assyrian’ with a Latin name, Lucian (Greek Lucianos) of Samasota. Millar explains simply that the terms Assyria and Assyrians were common terms then for geographical Syria and its inhabitants. See his Rome and the East, pp 227, 454-455, 460. Consult also Asmussen, op. cit., p 927; Encyclopedia of the Early Church (New York 1992), under ‘Tatian’; Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, Hagarism (Cambridge, 1977), p. 197, n. 163.” p 27

...”Millar explains simply that the terms Assyria and Assyrians were common terms then for geographical Syria and its inhabitants.”

...I can well believe that this view is not shared by the editor here, but until he finds an accredited historian, in THIS field, who shares his disdain, he is merely stating a personal preference, that's all.

A footnote;

“See Helm’s ‘Herodotus Histories VII.63 and the Geographical Connotations of the Toponym ‘Assyria’ in the Achaemenid Period’ (paper presented at the 190th meeting of the American Oriental Society, at San Francisco, April 1980). See also his ‘Greeks’ in the Neo-Assyrian Levant and ‘Assyria’ in Early Greek Writers’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1980), pp 27-41; see also Herodotus’ Histories, I.105 and II.106. The late Arnold J. Toynbee, has also clarified that the Syrioi ‘are the people whom Herodotus includes in his Fifth Taxation District’ which includes ‘ the whole of Phoenicia and the so-called Philistine, Syria, together with Cyprus.’ The Syrioi, emphasizes Toynbee, are ‘not the people of an Assyria which contains Babylon and which is the ninth district in his list.’ p 21

...according to Toynbee, a somewhat well-known non-volunteer, the “Syrioi”  people include the people of Phoenicia, the “so-called” Philistines, together with those of Cyprus and Syria...but NOT Assyria. Toynbee “emphasizes” that these Syrioi people are NOT “the people of an Assyria”...that is in the Ninth Taxation District, not the Fifth Taxation District.

...clearly “Assyrians” use baffled history and borrowed expertise, from other fields, as well as total ignorance of what these sources are really saying, as well as what actual experts say, in order to create a derivation for themselves from an ancient heroic group.

And it turns out Wikipedia is the perfect place for them since, having attracted like-minded and befuddled people who agree with them, they have tacked together a “consensus”, which seems to be the operating mechanism here for establishing “truth”. I wonder if Wikipedia realizes that this sort of “proof” for qualifying as truth would have kept us in the Dark Ages, a time when there was vast consensus that the sun revolved around a flat earth? It was by bucking consensus, not seeking it, that we have managed to advance. I urge the administration to allow real “truth-seeking”, which comes by reasoned questioning, especially with actual sources, over an agreement among partisans, all volunteers no less.

One further point, to settle the unquiet about a fellow "Assyrian" being so determined to discover the actual truth in these claims (after all, why WOULDN'T I want to be a hero too?). Let me point out that on this very Wikipedia, under "Ashurbanipal" can be seen a photo of the monument to that magnificent Assyrian king I built and which was installed in San Francisco in 1988. It must be galling, I know, for "Assyrians" to discover that yet another one of them, went and got educated on the subject and is determined to share the actual truth behind this bogus identity. People should not want to dress themselves in borrowed finery but rather attain their own successes in life...which, I grant, is hard to do as a volunteer, in life. (Fred parhad (talk) 21:36, 26 April 2012 (UTC))

"Tricks of the Trade"

As an example of shoddy practices I would like to point this out...I lifted this from the article on "Assyrians".

"Distinctively Akkadian language names are attested into the Sassanid period (224 AD to 651 AD), before they were generally but not wholly replaced by Christian names."

...where are they "attested" to? or is it just claimed that they are "attested to"...somewhere?

..I clicked on the words "Akkadian language"...and "Sassanian", as they were highlined in blue and presumably would supply a list of these "attested to" names. But all I got was some information about the Akkadian language and then some about the Sassanians...but nothing showing actual Akkadian names which are "attested to", which the article claims were used during the Sassanian period. The article did not deliver what it implied was a fact...no Akkadian names appeared. The entire article, or those parts dealing with "evidence" that Assyrians always existed, to the present day, is shot through with such trickery. I repeat, if the article is claiming that Akkadian, and therefore REAL Assyrian names were in use even centuries later during the time of the Sassanian Empire, then why not list those names...why imply it and then leave it at that? (Fred parhad (talk) 23:19, 26 April 2012 (UTC))

More Uncited Material (that there is so much isn't my fault...don't shoot the messenger)

"From 538 BC, Assyria, (which remained a political and named entity)...

..it did? Where is the citation for this absurd statement? I see none.

was under Persian Achaemenid, Macedonian, Seleucid, Parthian Arascid, Roman and Sassanid rule for seven centuries undergoing Christianization during this time.

...under all those empires, it remained a "political entity"? It did? Where are the citations?...where are the sources?...where is the evidence? And please, stop with your pro-Christian rants...okay?

..these, and others like them, are statements made by admitted amateurs....how can this statement be verified, since that is Wikipedia's own criterion? Where is the citation for this statement?


 *  Assyria flourished during the Achaemenid period (from 539-323 BC),

..it did? Which historian says that? Give names and references. Dr Joseph has done so, and shown the exact opposite, that what remained was an "ossified" civilization which could neither assimilate nor fight off the influence of all these vital conquerors and their Sumero-Akkadian culture was submerged and eventually replaced.....where is the citation for your statement, which flied in the face of expert testimony? I have provided citations for Dr Joseph's writing on this matter...where are yours?


 *  becoming a major source of manpower for the Achaemenid armies

...who said that? I mean besides you. Which historian and in which field...and where was it said...tell us so we can VERIFY it, please.


 *  and a breadbasket for the empire,

...that would remain true, so long as the irrigation systems were maintained,,,,,however, when Xenophon marched through there, 200 years after the fall of Nineveh, he mentions no "Assyrians" present but only Medes...and the old cities of Assyria had been reduced to dust and rubble, as per Roux, another non-volunteer. So, we need some clarification and sources for these claims which only exist on Wikipedia.....please?


 *  disproving the Biblical assertion that Assyria was both depopulated and devastated.[35][36]

...please keep religion out of the discussion, like you said. If Assyria wasn't depopulated, then why didn't Xenophon see any Assyrians, but only Medes? The way at that time was to completely burn a conquered city to the ground, especially one belonging to a people so hated as the Assyrians were...Ashurbanipal's library bears the marks of a devastating fire, which cooked the clay tablets for our benefit...the Assyrians themselves devastated Babylon...so much so that they also rebuilt it anew..and you want us to believe that when the Babylonians and Medes finally got their hands on Assyria...they left it UNdevastated? Your sources please...I have provided sources to show that the area WAS devastated and nothing remotely resembling an "Assyria" survived...where are yours?


 *  Assyrians are also attested as having important administrative posts within the empire.

..they are? Where and by whom are these statements made, besides by you? I have given citations to show that there were no Assyrians in any important posts, but a few priests here and there carrying on the worship of Ashur...it is true that the cities were eventually rebuilt, but there was NO Assyrian "hand", no Assyrian "aristocracy"...no Assyrian influence whatsoever except in art and architecture, according to Crone and Cook...and Roux...and W.W. Tarn. Do you have any citations, by relevant scholars to back up YOUR claims?

..I presented evidence, provided by Dr Joseph, of course, that Odisho "left out" a very important sentence from what he lifted from Roux. Roux went on to explain, and Odisho left out, that while the cities were rebuilt, there was NOTHING "Assyrian" about them. Now, why do you suppose Odisho did that? I can give those citations again, should you want to VERIFY them...as Wikipedia claims must be standard practice...what are your standards? (Fred parhad (talk) 16:23, 27 April 2012 (UTC))

About That Tablet in Turkey

...this new tablet discovered that has everyone convinced they are assyrians...what does it say except name an "Assyrian" King...but in what way was he Assyrian? Was he a direct descendant of Ashurbanipal? How could that be proven? By the 8th century AD there was nothing left written in Akkadian...so how "Assyrian" was this king...or his people? Nothing was known of the actual histry of the ancient Assyrians...at least nothing has been found so far in Aramaic, telling of that history, beside in the Bible...the only record BY Assyrians exists in Akkadian cuneiform...so how "assyrian" were they even then?

The British finally had to import a King from Hannover, in Germany, in the 18th century because they ran out of English kings of the blood royal...today's Windsor family is really the Saxe-Gotha-Coburg-something-else of Germany....not English in any way...but, they became the "Kings and Queens" of ENGLAND.

If someone was making the same argument about King George III being an "English" king say in 1000 years when all records were lost, except for a tablet found declaring that "The English King George III...." Would that justify us in claiming he was an English King, of direct lineal descent from King Alfred? He would indeed be a King OF England...but was HE English? We wouldn't know....

Likewise with the "Assyrian" king mentioned in this tablet....he was king of AN Assyria....but what kind of Assyria and what kind of "Assyrian? We don't know and can't know.

By the 9th century people still knew that the land between the rivers had been Assyria, once. So to be born in Assyria, would make you Assyrian, in a way, but not lineally descended from any actual Assyrian...if you had moved with your pregnant wife from Germany to "Assyria" and had your baby there, he or she wouldn't be ethncically Assyrian. (Fred parhad (talk) 01:29, 1 May 2012 (UTC))

Edit request on 24 April 2012
I would like to call your attention to a blatant violation of your rules regarding unsourced material or using Wikipedia as a place for original research and unfounded, self-serving claims. Towards the end of the otherwise accurate article titled “Assyrians”, there is a segue to a completely unsourced, unreferenced and totally unproven assertion that there exist today direct, lineal descendants of the ancient Assyrians. Compounding this gross error is the assertion by the editor there, a person who also believes HE is a descendant of the ancient Assyrians, that the book I used in my refutation of these absurd claims was written by an “amateur” who is “mistaken”, without anything to back that statement up, coming as it did, from one who is the actual amateur here.

The book in question, which your editor said is by an amateur and not to be taken seriously, is written by John Joseph, who graduated with a doctorate from Princeton University, a recently retired professor, Emeritus, at Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, after thirty years teaching modern Middle Eastern History titled, “The Modern Assyrians of the Middle East: Encounters with Western Christian Missions, Archaelogists,& Colonoal Powers.”  This book was first published by Princeton University Press in 1961, revised and published in 1999 by Brill Publishers, a publishing house out of the Netherlands which has been in the business for four hundred years. In addition Dr. Joseph was honored recently when a new International Studies building, paid for by a previous student of his , built on the campus of Franklin and Marshall was named after him. That a man so well recognized, qualified and honored by his peers and college should be dismissed as an amateur by your editor is absurd and casts doubt on the professionalism of your fine encyclopedia and, among the knowledgeable, raises questions about the oversight you provide as well as the trustworthiness of other articles and sections.

It is true that this is an esoteric subject little known outside the community who likes to think of itself as descended from heroes of the past, or the few professional historians and scholars familiar with the field. Dr. Joseph's research shows clearly and with reliable sources that these people are mistaken and, because he was born into a family and community which called itself “Chaldean” Dr. Joseph is vilified for having burst this bubble by actually bothering to get an education on the subject.

In addition I contacted Brill Publishers and have their written permission to quote from the book in question. I will be hapy to do so for your benefit.

To help you form your own opinion on this matter I challenge you to find, in any other print encyclopedia, or recognized historical source a single reference to the existence of modern-day Assyrians, as an historical fact, and not simply something they believe. Just one. You will find none. In fact if you check with the Library of Congress you will find Dr. Joseph's book on this very subject and not a single one on the other side. There do exist books, one is listed printed by X-Libris a pay-to-print jobber, through the Vanity-Press industry written by self-proclaimed “Assyrian” historians, not a one of them with a degree in history or, in the vast majority of cases, or any other, but you know what those are worth as anyone can have anything printed by paying their fee. I too was born into a family that believed itself to be “Assyrian”, but I grew up, got an education and learned better.

I urge you to insist that the rules you have set are followed, if not by all your contributors then at least by the editors who represent you.

Thank You

Fred Parhad

I assumed that you being an Assyrian, as you claim, would understand the definition of who is an Assyrian. But fine, I will try to give you a short introduction:

..."you" will give me an introduction? Just who are you, and what is your standing? Have an historian give me a definition and we might get somewhere. Dr. Joseph has a definition. Dr. Joseph was born into this same community with all the usual beliefs and legends you cling to, but Dr. Joseph went out and got himself a real education on the subject. I thought on Wikipedia you have to cite reliable sources. I don't even know your educational level, any books written, any scholars who accept you as a peer. I know you've been studying Syriac since you were ten, but you're going to "teach" me? Is that how it works here? Let's hear Joseph's definition, at least before yours.

“The people who today call themselves Assyrians are, strictly speaking, members of a cultural and religious group, molded together into a minority by ties of a common language and, until the nineteenth century, a common church membership which, until the birth of the modern nation-state in the Middle East, was the strongest tie among people.” p 32

...now, why don't you bring a citation from someone who has a doctorate in Middle Eastern history, who has been a professor for thirty years, Emeritus, who is a published author with a real and actual publisher and not X-Libris or any other vanity-press outfit, and, though this is optional, has been honored by having a college building named after him, and who is called upon by the State Department as an expert in THIS field. And please, do not bring an expert on ancient Persian history, ancient Assyrian history, a Semeticist, Semanticist or linguist....lets stick to THIS field and those who could get a job teaching in THIS field.


 * "Assyrians are people who are sometimes known as Chaldeans, Syrians, Syriacs, etc. are a CHRISTIAN ethnoreligious group. It's mainly composed of the churches that follow the Syriac Christian tradition with the exclusion of the Maronite and the Syrians of India."

..that is a tautology right there, at the opening. The very thing in question; the existence of modern "Assyrians", is what you start off accepting as fact. It has yet to be proven, I mean by real proof, that there ARE modern Assyrians...and yet you start out with your "definition" by telling me .."Assyrians are...." when the whole issue is that there ARE no Assyrians. Let's settle the main question before you start telling me what Assyrians are divided into.

Where do you get these "definitions" from...aina...ankawa...and just what are they?..Would an American like to hear the assessment of the American Civil War by the Sons of the South? Or of Catholics by Protestants? Where did you get this definition from, if not your priests. What historian gave you this definition? Or, like myself, did you get it from your grandparents? Cite me the source where you found this.


 * The Assyrian are divided into two groupings based on their Syriac Christian tradition:

...Divided by whom, if not themselves, which is where they got this "definition" as well.


 *  Eastern, which includes the Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Ancient Church of the East, and a number of small protestant and Eastern Orthodox groups.

...I know all this. But it exists nowhere else except in our community. Everything you state about the division of our churches is just that: the division of our churches. That is not the issue...you can point to a time in history when this occured, it is NOT in question. What is alo not in question is the time and place when we began calling ourselves Chaldeans and Assyrians...THAT is the issue. I don't need to hear our myths over again...I know them well. As I mentioned, my grandfather was Dr Baba Parhad, if you know about Assyrian "history" and nationalism you know who he is and who Dr Freyfoun Aturyaya was. I grew up with this stuff, so did Dr Joseph, the difference is that he went out and got an education in the subject while you remained with the myths and legends that please our community so. Give me an HISTORIAN of equal standing, not a Wikieditor to give me his Wikihistory on Wikiassyrians...please.


 *  And a Western group that includes the Syriac Orthodox and Catholic Churches.

...oh, for the love of all that makes sense. You are so embedded and embroiled in these legends and myths you can't even understand where actual historians fir in. It's as if you were told you belong to a branch of the Rockefeller family of billionaires and the thought turned your head and left it there.


 *  As you see there is no place where a Muslim or a Buddhist Assyrian would fit.

...if I defined American as "only Christians", which the KKK certainly does, no Jew would fit in to America. This is only one of your problems...you have defined Assyrian as someone who HAS to be Christian..that is YOUR doing. What happenes to a CHRISTian who leaved CHRISTianity? Can he claim to still be a CHRISTian? Of course not. What happens to an ASHURian who leaved Ashur for CHRISTianity? Can he still claim to be an ASHURian...of course not. If you're going to give yourself a dispensation to remain ASHURian while leaving ASHUR, why can't an ASHURian leave Ashur for Muhammad?

..there is no reason in the world why a Muslim or a Buddhist or an atheist can't be Assyrian. You have the only "nation" where one loses his nationality by changing his religion. Even an Israeli can remain so if he leaves Judaism. You have defined yourselves as exactly what you are: a religious sect with a national front.


 *  You can call it a "Christian sect" but the same also applies to the Armenians, Jews, Serbs, Croats who are also defined by their "sect".

...yes but they have a COUNTRY where you can have a NATIONALITY and that nationality is not dependent on religion. You don't have a country, you never had a country, you never will have a country...you are a handful of Christian sects giving yourselves airs as being descended from ancient heroes, based on nothing more than your wish that you are, who have tried in the past to use this, admittedly Christian status of yours to get a Christian enclave for yourselves. Naturally you don't "like" Dr Joseph's works...not because of his research, accuracy and conclusions, but because he shows you all for what you have tried to be. All you've managed to do to refute him is nit pick at the edges, which is strange coming from someone who has no professional at all, that I can tell. I know you don't mean to, but this kind of thing is what makes the vast majority of people scoff when someone uses Wikipedia as a serious reference. Your cavalier treatment of the books of one of the recognized experts of this field should be an embarrassment to Wikipedia...especially when you couple that with your wide-ranging search for ANYBODY who seems to show Joseph wrong, without ONCE showing just where he is wrong, except as I say, to nitpick.
 * I see that you are confusing ethnicity with nationality.

...I am!?

One can be an Armenian citizen of ethnic Armenian descent, this is how 98% of the citizens of Armenia define themselves. But there are also Yazidi Armenians, Russian Armenians, etc... The same applies to America, Americans are not an ethnic group therefore you have Italian Americans, Armenian Americans, Russian Americans and so forth...

...and since you have no country, no nation and no nationality to hand to anyone, and a self-definiton as "Only Christians can be Assyrians", you get to set the rules. We are not talking about how people "define themselves", that is precisely the problem where so many ten-year-old experts exist. People can define themselves any way they like. It is when OTHER people accept their efinitions of themselves that they are allowed to cross borders and taken seriously. So far the only people who define YOU as Assyrian, all have the same delusions, for no one else does. No one else, that is, who has any knowledge of the actual field. Dr Joseph knows all of the usual arguments and "proofs", it's you, the "editor" here who knows nothing of his, and finds nothing wrong with making proclamations just the same.

...and, where are your citations and sources for all that you just gave me? I don't mean YOU as a source, or any other self-serving person or agency. You can imagine what kind of heat Joseph has taken for bothering to study this subject...but bring any expert, who has real standing, and not just someone born into the same myths, and have him or her enlighten us.

..I'll say it again; Wikipedia is the only encyclopedia where you'll find this kind of stuff. The Britannica admits there are Christians today who CALL themselves Assyrians....but that is a mere statement of fact about what people call THEMSELVES...the Britannica does not go on to give us myths and legends and unsubstantiated "facts" about these Assyrians, as Wikipedia does. That should tell you something all by itself. (Fred parhad (talk) 13:49, 26 April 2012 (UTC))

Professor Khan....

Well, he's no historian, that's for sure. He's not much with the language either but bravo to him for trying. The Aramaic language, and he calls it that, is not the language of the Assyrians, it's the language of the Arameans. To call it "Assyrian" is wrong, as a matter of history. It's a language they ADOPTED, but a language they failed to translate their Assyrian history INTO...that's the reason you won't find the Epic of Gilgamesh written in Aramaic...it was written in the language of the Assyrians, which was Akkadian and not Aramaic.

The Assyrian language was lost to history till the Euros dug the tablets out of the ground...until then modern "Assyrians" knew nothing about their "ancestors" except what was written in the bible, and it wasn't very much....these "Assyrians" had to wait for George Smith to decipher "their" language for them, because they didn't know it, or "their" history, written in that language. Aramaic is no more the language of the Assyrians than Gaul is the language of the French.

And this is the basis for Roux's comment that the Assyrians "disappeared" from history...and the editor here must know what Roux is talking about because all of us heard our parents say, "Don't forget your language (through they meant the Aramaic we speak now) or else you'll forget your IDENTITY...and that held true for the ancient Assyrians as well...they forgot their mother tongue of Akkadian and soon forgot their Assyrian identity and in THAT sense, disappeared.

Khan is making the same mistake Rassam did, Rassam himself was there when Layard and he dug out the cuneiform tablets, written in Akkadian not Aramaic...yet he insisted that "the Assyrians always spoke Aramaic", even though he had the evidence right before his eyes that they did NOT "always speak Aramaic", for the greater part of their history they spoke Akkadian, which was indeed the Assyrian language, Aramaic became the language of the Christian Church, the language Jesus spoke, and that has gone to everyone's head and is one of the ways Nestorians and other Eastern Christian sects have tried to push the idea that they are Assyrians...because they speak the language of the Arameans...makes a whole lot of sense...

A German is going to adopt French, and forget his mother tongue of German, and then he's going to forget German history because he failed to translate German history books into French...and then a thousand years later he's going to tell me he is GERMAN...why? because he speaks FRENCH!

..you have any other "experts" you want to toss our way? (Fred parhad (talk) 11:10, 27 April 2012 (UTC))

..And Rafy Goes On....to quote;

My position is that the modern Assyrians are closely related to the ancient ones,

...ah, who are you again? Are you the same one who called Frye an Assyriologist when he isn't?


 *  the mythical part lies in the association of modern nationalist sentements with the glory of the ancient empire and its kings.

..I see THAT is the myth...but not your claimed descent from that empire.


 * John Joseph's works are full with errors and amateurism.

...by my count you produced two which, is accurate, are rather minor and change nothing...you had nothing to say about all the sources he used, all the other historians like Edward Gibbon and Arnold Toynbee....of Richard Helms or even Herodotus...you just found two mistakes and the rest is all foolishness...except YOUR writing will never see the light of day through any publisher, unless you pay him to print them, and your views will never appear in any university curriculum, so I have to ask you; exactly of what value are YOUR views...and how dare you match your opinions with the FACTS in Dr Joseph's works?


 *  In his refutation of the continuation of the Assyrians on page 18 for instance, he claims that the term "Aturaye" was first used by "Nestorian" immigrants to the United States in the late 19th century. This is simply wrong since the name Athuraye and Athur has been continuously used for thousands of years,

..it has? Where are your CITATIONS for this completely bogus claim? I tell you what, when Wikipedia insists that all encyclopedic content be verifiable AND asked for reliable sources AND asks that you provide citations, its policy helps me give you the lie; because we can all be sure that if you HAD such citations....you'd rush to put them down...but you don't. Your game here is to give citations for what NO ONE REFUTES, and which actually exist...and then in between and around those cited sources, make the kinds of statements you just made WITHOUT citations and hope everyone will come away thinking ALL were cited. This is the game of propagandists, not editors, not real ones anywa. I ask you again; what citations do you have, what recognized sources, for your claim that the name Aturaye was "continuous use for thousands of years"...anything?


 *  this can be seen in another work of him when he tries to answer a paper attesting the continuation of the Assyrians by Richard N. Frye by claiming that when Michael the Syrian mentioned that "ܐܬܘܪܝܐ ܕܗܢܘܢ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ" (it's hnwn not hywn by the way, another amateurish mistake) he meant the inhabitants of Mosul, but he forgets or ignores the fact that "ṯ/t" in Aramaic is a very popular cognate of the Akkadian "š" (šinā -> treyn, šalāš -> ṯalāṯ...) and the Aramaic/Syriac "Aṯur" is simply a cognate of the Akkadian "Ašur". Funny though that those who called themselves Aturaye (or Nestorians) didn't live in the city of Mosul itself but rather in an area stretching from Nisibis to Urmia.
 * Another shocking fact for you: The "Nestorians" of Hakkari and Urmia were not actually Nestorians and they never identified as such. They were taunted by this name by western Syrians (Jacobites), and it later come to be used by Europeans erroneously. The true creator of the Church of the East (its real name) was Babai the Great who was an opponent of Nestorian views.

...here's a bigger shock for you...the Christians of Iraq NEVER called themselves "Aturaye" until AFTER the 1840s and the discovery of those ruins...we all know we called ourselves Suyrai or Suraye, Syrians...which was Greek version of Arameans, and not Assyrians...and Dr Joseph has the sources and cites them, which you do not.


 * I could also go on for hours on how modern Assyrian settlements in Nineveh are surrounded by ancient Assyrian ruins,

...these modern settlements are NOT Assyrian...as they weren't when Layard dug up the ruins and decided for himself that these Christians and only Christians MUST be the descendents of the ancients...with no other proof than that they were living ABOVE the ruins. That is tantamount to me snapping a photo of myself standing in front of a Masserati and sending it home, to my village, with the hope that my villagers will believe that I own that car! Living OVER something doesn't make you related what is UNDER you...or around you. This is the kind of "evidence" you want grown ups to buy?


 *  and how ancient Assyrian names such as Sargon, Sinharib and Shammiram have been continuously used for the last 2,000 years.--<span style="font-size

...I already asked the editors here, when they aren't "researching Assyria" to remove this line of yours...this is the second time this statement has appeared without any citation or list of said names...at least this time you've bothered to list the names...now show the citation which shows them in use "for thousands of years"...where is it? These ancient names appeared AFTER the villagers became convinced that they really might be what the Euros were calling them...though at the very time, Anglican missionaries working in that region complained about INVENTING this Assyrian name for people who had NEVER used it before...because they didn't know a thing about Assyrians or being Assyrian, other than what appeared in the bible, which was hardly complimentary...you simply must stop making things up as you go along....you have simply decided that whenever certain words appear, they really mean Assyrian...how simple for you. Give us the citations which prove that these names existed in use for thousands of years...go on. (Fred parhad (talk) 14:20, 27 April 2012 (UTC))

Request to remove Uncited Material
(inserted heading here. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 10:24, 21 May 2012 (UTC))

I can see my first request had way too much information for any volunteer to be able to deal with, after all, you people have to spend some time gainfully employed. So, I will stick to a much narrower request to remove particular uncited material, one sentence to be exact. Either that or provide the citation. As per your own rules, "all encyclopedic content must be verifiable"...that's just what I tried to do with a statement, in a subsection of the article titled "Names". The section begins with this line...

"Distinctively Akkadian language names are attested into the Sassanid period (224 AD to 651 AD), before they were generally but not wholly replaced by Christian names."

...the words "Akkadian language" and "Sassanian" are highlighted in blue so I clicked on them knowing there is no such evidence but here at Wikipedia. Under "Akkadian language" I found information about the Akkadian language, but no list of the names "attested to"...clicking onto "Sassanian", and hoping that maybe there I might find these "attested to" names, I found only a general history of the Sassanian period, but still no "attested to" names. These were the only words bluelined, and neither gives the Akkadian names that were supposedly in use during the Sassanian Empire. Since there is no citation where these "attested to" names can be found, one can only conclude that they are not attested to anywhere, or if they are, the writer of this article failed to cite just where, for they certainly don't appear in what he or she wrote. is this specific enough to at least get you to verify my comments? (201.159.195.197 (talk) 01:01, 27 April 2012 (UTC))

Fred parhad (talk) 16:39, 24 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. --Tyrannus Mundi (talk) 15:05, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

...Tyrannus Mundi (what an unfortunate name), you want a "consensus"? Among whom? Of what value is a consensus among people who don't know what they're talking about? This site has placed an Assyrian Nationalist in control who will permit nothing that doesn't support Assyrian Nationalist goals. He is an admitted amateur, like the rest of you (and how this is supposed to be a plus I can't figure out) who sees nothing wrong with ignoring scholarly work, recognized as such by major university libraries, real publishers and not the vanity-press; an expert called upon by the U.S. State Department whenever there is a call to understand what these "Assyrians" are talking about, in favor of "articles" written by people accomplished and licensed in OTHER fields, if any, none of whom could get a paying job teaching THIS subject. You would have demanded a consensus of amateurs before deciding Galileo had it right, except in this case we have actual books by actual historians and published academics telling us that there are NO modern day Assyrians except those who THINK they are and WISH they were. Evidence exists which, if allowed to appear, would show just why they are mistaken and how it all started, when and where and by whom. A consensus among scholars has validity...among partisans it only has partisan validity, which is to say, none at all... outside their own over-heated circle. And that's what you have here. (201.159.195.197 (talk) 16:20, 26 April 2012 (UTC))

I'm picking up broad hints that I don't belong here, or that I am "spamming" and therefore am liable to have "my" observations removed. I would like to remind the tyrants of the world that the rules here state that all UNSOURCED materials or ORIGINAL research will be removed. I have used only cited material from well recognized sources, though I can see they are unwelcome sources...but that is not what the rules say. Being popular, with lots of gooey consensus to boot, is not required for editing or for commenting ON those articles, for removing articles, yes, but not for editing. My sources are, Dr John Joseph, a professor of Middle Eastern history with real and actual published works to his credit, among other credits, who was also born into this community and well aware of all the erroneous beliefs about their "Assyrian" identity held by this admittedly Christian sect. Also, as per Dr. Joseph's showing, I have also cited Edward Gibbon as a source, you may have heard of him, as well as Arthur J. Toynbee and Herodotus as well as other scholars and authors such as Patricia Crone and Michael Cook and several others...and I can get more. So long as I cite these sources, and why wouldn't I since I am not here to give MY views, but theirs, I can't see any valid grounds for removing THEIR writings, or me, their humble messenger. (201.159.195.197 (talk) 16:44, 26 April 2012 (UTC))

"Tricks of the Trade"
(inserted heading here. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 10:24, 21 May 2012 (UTC))

As an example of shoddy practices I would like to point this out...I lifted this from the article on "Assyrians".

"Distinctively Akkadian language names are attested into the Sassanid period (224 AD to 651 AD), before they were generally but not wholly replaced by Christian names."

...where are they "attested" to? or is it just claimed that they are "attested to"...somewhere?

..I clicked on the words "Akkadian language"...and "Sassanian", as they were highlined in blue and presumably would supply a list of these "attested to" names. But all I got was some information about the Akkadian language and then some about the Sassanians...but nothing showing actual Akkadian names which are 'attested to", which the article claims were used during the Sassanian period. The article did not deliver what it implied was a fact...no Akkadian names were be used?  The entire article, or those parts dealing with "evidence" that Assyrians always existed, to the present day, is shot through with such trickery.  I repeat, if the article is claiming that Akkadian, and therefore REAL Assyrian names were in use even centuries later during the time of the Sassanian Empire, then why not list those names...why imply it and then leave it at that? (Fred parhad (talk) 23:15, 26 April 2012 (UTC))

take a look at this page 16, you will find the names and the Date: http://www.nineveh.com/parpola_eng.pdf ASSYRIAN IDENTITY IN ANCIENT TIMES AND TODAY Simo Parpola, Helsinki — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.228.37.216 (talk) 22:38, 4 May 2012 (UTC)