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Syriac
(redirected from Syriacs)

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Syriac (sēr`ēăk'), late dialect of Aramaic Aramaic , language belonging to the West Semitic subdivision of the Semitic subfamily of the Afroasiatic family of languages (see Afroasiatic languages). At some point during the second millenium B.C.
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, which is a West Semitic language (see Afroasiatic languages Afroasiatic languages , formerly Hamito-Semitic languages , family of languages spoken by more than 250 million people in N Africa; much of the Sahara; parts of E, central, and W Africa; and W Asia (especially the Arabian peninsula, Iraq, Syria,
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). The early Christians of Mesopotamia and Syria gave the Greek name Syriac to the Aramaic dialect they spoke when the term Aramaic acquired the meaning of "pagan" or "heathen." The oldest Syriac script, which dates back to the 1st cent. A.D., evolved from the Aramaic alphabet. Syriac began to yield to Arabic after the coming of Islam in the 7th cent. A.D. Today it survives as the tongue of a few thousand people in the Middle East. However, it is also used as a liturgical language of the Syrian Church.


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Assyriska and Syrianska were set up as social clubs in the early 1970s by Christian exiles from the Middle East, known as Assyrians or Syriacs.
The number of Syriac Christians in the southeast was once high; however, under pressure from government authorities and later under the impact of the war against the terrorist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), many Syriacs migrated to Istanbul, Western Europe, or North and South America.
The number of Syriac Christians in the southeast was once high; however, under pressure from government authorities and later under the impact of the war against the terrorist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), many Syriacs migrated to Istanbul, Western Europe, or North and South America.
 
 
 
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