Talk:Syriac language

message: Am I misreading it, or does the box header say "Puryaya"? - Mustafaa 23:56, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Gareth Hughes 19:51, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: misreading?

message: Total speakers: 404,000 fluent 
May I ask how did anybody got this figure? I find this very hard to believe.
:It's probably the sum of the reported figures in Ethnologue. --Gareth Hughes 13:16, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But those would be for modern Aramaic/Syriac languages, not for Old/Middle/Classical Syriac!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Linguistatlunch (talk • contribs) 21:59, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Number of speakers

message: I hope the new lead section helps a wee bit. I was starting to realise that the article wasn't at all clear on what is and what isn't Syriac. In its most restricted sense, Syriac is the local Eastern Aramaic dialect of Edessa and Osrhoene before the advent of Christianity. As that city became a major centre of Eastern-Aramaic-speaking Christianity, Syriac became the liturgical and classical language of Eastern Aramaic Christians, or Syriac Christians. Thus, Syriac is sometimes used to refer to all the different dialects of Eastern Aramaic spoken by Christians as well as the classical language that was originally local to Edessa. Thus, Turoyo and Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, an all the others, are Syriacs in one sense, but not in another. These languages traditionally refer to themselves as Suryaya, Suryoyo or Sureth: Syriac. Is that helpful? Gareth Hughes 16:27, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Different Syriacs 

message: I am using Firefox 1.0.2 (one of the most recent versions) and I can read the Syriac word of the language from left to right as follows: S W(or U) R Y Y (glottal stop).
But the article about Syriac alphabet claims "Syriac is written from right to left". Either this statemnet is wrong or letters are entered in wrong order or something is wrong with my browser. BTW Arabic is displayed fine (always in the right order)
: Just checked the other browsers. Mozilla displays characters in the same direction as FF, IE and Opera in the other direction. I guess Syriac script is too exotic to Mozilla and FF  developers and I'll have to report this problem to them
: Exactly, I was looking at this  and I couldn't understand why the language is written from right to left. I dont know how to write the language, but I was always told the langauge was written from left to right. Chaldean 06:32, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, have you got your left and right muddled up? Syriac is written from right to left. — Gareth Hughes 11:14, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Direction of writing 

message: Other sources say or imply that there is only one Middle Syriac (the liturgical language for the Church of the East, Syriac Orthodox Church, etc.), and not Eastern and Western branches. Could someone comment on this? Best, Xemxi 10:18, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The differences between these two varieties of Classical Syriac are mostly superficial: amounting to orthographic and phonemic variation. There are a few differences in vocabulary, but they are minor. Spelling variation also exists for some words that were borrowed late by Syriac: usually where West Syriac would have a Fthoḥo where East Syriac would have Zqāpā. I'll see if I can reword this. — Gareth Hughes 13:44, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Much appreciated.   Xemxi 18:18, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Middle (Classical/Literary) Syriac 

message: Not sure why no mention of this is in this article. It's probably the most significant modern point of interest about the language to most people who aren't syriac speakers, or syriac christians. ThuranX 06:59, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting, yes, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it 'most significant'. Non-Muslim media seemed to enjoy it, in rather puerile fashion, anyway. — Gareth Hughes 12:40, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Fine, nevermind. Wouldn't want to interfere with YOUR article. ThuranX 15:28, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My questioning of the significance of this book does not deserve such a rude answer. I did not question whether it should be included or not, but just wanted to flag up that saying 'most significant point of interest about the language' is off the mark. Why? Well, it's pretty speculative research that has received a mixed reception in academic circles. Also, there are a lot more interesting books about Syriac that one could read (and some that are aimed at the popular audience). I would expect someone to engage rationally in such a discussion, not to make a cheap snipe at my person. — Gareth Hughes 15:56, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[The Syro-Aramaic Reading Of The Qur'an]] 

message: /n/ is an alveolar nasal, not "dental". I would fix it myself, but it proved to be too complicated. — Zerida 19:57, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for noticing that. I've just moved it to the right column. It's not easy, is it? — Gareth Hughes 13:18, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Definitely not for less technically savvy people like me. Wonderful read though. — Zerida 19:16, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  /n/ 

message: Can someone render "Be Prepared", the Scout Motto, into Syriac? Thanks! Chris 04:36, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Syriac Scouting

message: Listening to this rendition was very touching. Musically reminiscent of medieval chants of the Catholic Church, what was most exciting is that any speaker of Modern Hebrew could easily indentify some of the words. For example: mal'chuto - His Kingdom! Tkeu 09:48, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Lord's Prayer 

message: Would some kind person who knows please add information to the Grammar section explaining how the direct object in Syriac is marked.  This is not just a problem on this page but several pages about langauges fail to include such basic information.  Yes the history of a language is important and you may question the need to include information on how to form the accusative case but for anyone who wants to actually begin to study the language, this is vital information that is not avaliable on the internet as of yet.  
The page on Aramaic also lacks this information.  I was able to find a scholar who states that (l) used as a prefix is the direct object marker in Aramaic but I do not know this to be true nor do I know that it also applies to Syriac.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.127.251.137 (talk) 03:14, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: All the major reference grammars of Syriac (citing from Brock, An Introduction to SyriacStudies: R. Duval, Grammaire syriaque (Paris, 1881) and (above all) T. Nöldeke, Kurzgefasste syrische Grammatik (Leipzig, 2nd ed. 1898; English translation by J.A. Crichton (London, 1904); but also (my addition Brockelmann and e.g. Thackston) have this information. L- (lamed) can be used to introduce the direct object, when it is 'definite'. E.g. _qabblāh (h)wā Yešūʾ l-eggartā_ "Jesus received the letter" (lit.: he received it was Jesus the letter), speaking about a specific, aforementioned letter, not 'a letter'. Simha (talk) 08:34, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Accusative

message: The beginning of the article clearly states that this one is about "Old" and "Literary" Syriac and not about the modern Christian Neo-Aramaic languages that sprung from it in one sense or another.  I have removed information relevant to the modern language(s) as it should be discussed elsewhere under the various Christian Neo-Aramaic varieties. (Taivo (talk) 11:44, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: "Modern Syriac"

message: Since ISO 639 calls the modern language "Syriac"  and the classic language "Classical Syriac"  users in Wikipedia introduce wrong links. Solution could be to move this article to "Classical Syriac" or "Classical Syriac language" if desired and make "Syriac language" an overview about the modern Syriac. "Syriac languages" could become an overview about all of them. TalkChat (talk) 21:40, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  rename to Classical Syriac 

message: Make a template so that we don't have to type out "other uses".96.53.149.117 (talk) 07:27, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hatnote 

message: I notice that there has been concern over the inclusion of a paragraph referenced with a nod to Bruno Poizat's little book. Classical Syriac has always referred to itself as ܠܫܢܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ. The adjectival ending ـܝܬ is used in Neo-Aramaic, hence ܣܘܪܬ. The link with various words for 'Assyria' is misleading. Please don't forget that in all varieties of Christian Aramaic it is spelt — ܐܬܘܪܝܐ — with a ܬ rather than a ܣ. It's fairly clear that the term ܣܘܪܝܝܐ/Syriac is derived from Greek. A term like 'Assurit' is a Neo-Aramaic ending stuck onto a Greco-English root; it lacks any historicity. It seems that Poizat is simply repeating things he's been told by speakers of Neo-Aramaic, rather than looked into the history of it. If you need proof, then look at any dictionary of classical Syriac. Robert Payne Smith's Thesaurus Syriacum is fairly hefty, drawing on a wide collections of late-antique and mediaeval Syriac manuscripts. It doesn't have an entry for 'Assurit'. I think that trumps Poizat easily. Also, the reference to the language being spoken by 'Assyrians' is controversial as a prominent proportion of speakers do not self-identify as Assyrian: just the facts, I'm afraid. — Gareth Hughes (talk) 12:01, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poizat reference 

message: Classical Syriac had the following set of distinguishable vowels:
* Close front unrounded vowel — /i/
* Close-mid front unrounded vowel — /e/
etc.
:Comment: it would be useful to provide one or two example-words after each vowel.
In eastern dialects there is more fluidity in the pronunciation of front vowels, with some speakers distinguishing five qualities of such vowels, and others only distinguishing three. 
:Comment: this is CLASSICAL Syriac - what do you mean by "speakers" ?!
Vowel length is generally not important: close vowels tend to be longer than open vowels.
:Comment: Please provide some source for this statement; among three readily-available handbooks, all which say they are describing the Eastern pronunciation, Takamitsu Muraoka's "Classical Syriac" recommends against transcribing short versus long i or u , and it can be seen that he treats o in the same way too. Thackston's "Introduction to Syriac" treats every i and u as long (which is also clear from his stress rules), but distinguishes between short and long o in his transcriptions. Nöldeke's "Compendious Syriac Grammar" transcribes short vs. long for all five cardinal vowels. - Your statement above does not fit in with any of this tradition, nor do you describe why you have decided to depart from the treatments in these standard texts.Jakob37 (talk) 01:31, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:BEBOLD .--Rafy talk 15:37, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  vowels 

message: At the bottom of this image used on Wikisource, there is a Syriac word that needs to be transcribed. Could someone who knows the language write down this word? Thanks. –abjiklamʙᴊıᴋʟaᴍ[ᴛ|ᴄ] 23:38, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: It says Mār(y) (ܡܪܝ), followed by an ellipsis (short for Mardáïád, evidently). --334a (talk) 03:37, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you. –abjiklamʙᴊıᴋʟaᴍ[ᴛ|ᴄ] 05:06, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request from Wikisource 

message: This map is still wrong. It uses "Syriac" instead of "Aramaic", which hasn't been standard academic usage at least for a century and a half. In particular, the Western Neo-Aramaic dialects (e.g. Ma'loula) are not normally referred to as "Syriac". --91.148.130.233 (talk) 20:27, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: You have a point here. I called it Syriac because this is how vernacular modern Aramaic is known natively called. I will change Syriac to Aramaic.--Kathovo talk 13:20, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  The new map 

message: Since when is there any evidence that Syriac originated in Assuristan? Seems to me like another attempt by Assyrian nationalists to Assyrianize everything and twist facts to make their side sound more believable.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by SuryanAntiochia (talk • contribs) 05:39, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origins? 

message: I know that there is a fairly well-known inscription in Palmyrene from the Wall area, by a Palmyran merchant who had married a princess of the Brigantes (if I remember correctly); but Syriac?  News to me if true ...
Djwilms (talk) 09:25, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Syriac in Roman Britain 

message: Its really sad that everything that have to do with Syriac is under heavy POV pushing. I came here to expand my knowledge and instead I saw some historic falsification. I changed the following texts :
*1- In the lead you have this : Having first appeared as a script in 1st century AD Assyria after being spoken there as an unwritten language for five centuries.[6] However, the source given is just a normal website by a nobody ! who admit that he is not a linguist or archaeologist : 
::Instead I added the earliest known info about Syriac using this source The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 13
*2- The funny sentence that Syriac is Akkadian infused ! using this source The Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Barwar However, the source DO NOT mention any of this in page 6 which was given as the place of the sentence. It just mention that some Akkadian and Sumerian agricultural loan words are used in the region in page 1035
*3- I deleted this from the lead : The Aramaic language at this point in history is called by linguists Middle Aramaic, but since most scribes of Christian manuscripts, who wrote in Middle Aramaic, lived in this region of Assyria, which had come to refer to both the historical Assyria as well as the Levant, this specific dialect of the Middle Aramaic has come to be known as Syriac.
::What the hell does it mean and where is the source ! I tried to look to no avail, anyway, since Syriac appeared in 6 AD in the region that was commonly referred to as Syria and the real name of the language in Syrian then stop thinking too much and provide a source.
*4- Old Aramaic (the language of Assyria/Athura/Assuristan, and the Neo-Assyrian kingdoms of Assur, Adiabene, Osroene and Hatra). WHAT THE ... Assur was a kingdom in the first century AD ??!!!!!! and old Aramaic was the language of the Aramaic tribes before the Assyrian conquest of the Levant , how did it became the language of Assyria ! who wrote this ? I fixed it.
*5-The origin section have been cleaned of un-scoured hopes and rewritten using actual sources by linguists The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook
Last thing, why trying to give false information to readers just to appease your "feelings", isn't there enough forums on the internet to express such a things ? leave Wikipedia for people who actually want knowledge not nationalistic propaganda. Any one who want to change and add a POV, should have a good reliable source for it.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 15:34, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Recent edits

message: The article reads:
:The Achaemenid Empire, which rose after the fall of the Assyrian Empire, also adopted Old Aramaic as its official language and Old Aramaic quickly became the lingua franca of the region. During the course of the third and fourth centuries AD, the inhabitants of the region began to embrace Christianity.
:Along with Latin and Greek, Syriac became one of "the three most important Christian languages . . . .
The article is speaking about Old Aramaic, then suddenly it moves to Syriac without transition.  Some explanation as to how & when Old Aramaic changed to Syriac.  Some transitional sentences are needed between the word Christianity. and "Along."  (PeacePeace (talk) 01:02, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: No better now. Still confusing and uninformative.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.162.148 (talk) 01:19, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some Transition is Needed between "Old Aramaic" & "Syriac" 

message: Are any of the following links useful?
* some Digital Texts (less reliable than printed or scanned books, but easier to access and with the possibility to seach in it)
* Syriac dictionary (might be less reliable, but I guess similar dictionaries are mentioned and used as sourced in wikipedia)
* Syriac Keyboard (for typing)
-00:37, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Useful external links? 

message: In the article I read: "As with some Semitic languages, Syriac has a set of three emphatic consonants." I wonder what the author wishes to point out.
Does s/he wish to point out the fact that the languages have in common the use of emphatic consonants (at all)? Then I would suggest replacing by: "Like some Semitic languages, Syriac too has emphatic consonants."
Does s/he wish to point out the exact number (three) of the emphatic consonants? Then I would suggest replacing by: "Like some other Semitic languages which have three emphatic consonants, Syriac too has three of them."
As the wording is now, it leaves opening for wondering what the author wishes to point out.Redav (talk) 02:28, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Whats needs pointing out: the fact of having emphatic consonants at all, or the fact that they are three in number? 

message: So you've been  the transcription of , leššānā, with lešānā, giving the reason in one of your edit summaries that it doesn't have two  letters in it. This is nonsensical reasoning, because in Syriac, like Hebrew and Arabic, geminate consonants are written with single letters. For instance there are several words in the article on the Syriac alphabet with single letters that are transcribed with geminate consonants:  ,  ,  . So it's certainly possible that  has a geminate.
I cited Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon as transliterating  with a double , , and you cited the "Sureth dictionary" as giving a single , because of its phonetic transcription li ' ša: na:. This website also transcribes   and   without geminate consonants.
So which is it and why? Your edit summaries have not been very informative, in fact rather patronizing, as if the people reverting your edits don't know what a romanization is and can't see what letters  is spelled with. This Introduction to Syriac, page xxiii, says that gemination was lost in West Syriac but kept in East Syriac, which could explain why one lexicon wouldn't indicate gemination: perhaps it's a West Syriac lexicon. But I don't know. — Eru·tuon 18:23, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: If I may chime in, Erutuon is correct: gemination was lost in Western Syriac; thus classical Edessan  is Western Syriac  (or ). The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon describes Classical Syriac as well as other ancient Aramaic dialects while Sureth dictionary is almost completely modern Eastern Syriac (which is slowly starting to lose gemination as well; e.g. Ancient Aramaic  is rendered as  and often spelled  in non-classical spelling conventions). Of course, none of this really matters because this article is written about Classical Syriac and we should use gemination in transliterations wherever they occur in this article. --334a (talk) 20:28, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Transliteration of Syriac word for "language" 

message: A discussion is taking place to address the redirect :Suryoyo language. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 December 10#Suryoyo language until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion.  𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 13:05, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Suryoyo language" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]] 

message: why doesn't the "see also" section include a link to the separate article on Syriac scripts?
100.15.127.199 (talk) 13:28, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  script 

message: Is it accurate to call this syriac-aramaic language for assyrian language? It seems very misleading for the viewers to read. As far as I know, only a tiny minority in iraq calls their syriac-aramaic language for assyrian. There exist no such term in the linguistic academic world. I myself am a student in linguistic and this alternative term does now show up at anytime. It only seems to exist in pages such as wikipedia, reddit, twitter and so on. 
Note: Im not trying to offend anyone, Im just pointing out an wrongdoing in the article. The term assyrian language is reserved for the akkadian language, not syriac-aramaic. 78.67.95.172 (talk) 16:30, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misleading information