Talk:Assyrian/Revision

message: I wonder also what could have been the role of learned Assyrians in the origins of the first public librairies of "our"  "Christian" era, which started to appear in many arab cities in the 9th century.  They were called "halls of Science" or dar al-'ilm and were more extensive and widespread than is usually known. Some of them had large staffs of translators. I wrote a bit more on these institutions in the history section of the Library article. AlainV 22:30, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  role of Assyrians in 9th century + Islamic public libraires

message: The figure of 3.5 million Assyrians in Iraq can hardly be right. I don't think it's coincidental that there's no source given, because the original figure probably referred to 3.5 million Assyrians worldwide. Other estimates for the worldwide Assyrian population I found on a casual google search are on that order (4 million, 3.4 million, etc). But that number of Assyrians in Iraq would practically outnumber the Kurds, which they assuredly do not. In any case, there hasn't been a really reliable census on the Assyrian/Chaldean/Aramaic people(s) in far too long (if ever), so numbers like this cry out for nuance. QuartierLatin1968 03:10, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll revise the entry to reflect the fact that no statistics are reliable. --Wetman 04:03, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Numbers 

message: Poking thru Orphaned pages, I found the short article Assyro-Chaldeans, which has a category link to Ethnic Groups. Any info there worth combining into this article, or should it be listed at Wikipedia:VFD? -- llywrch 21:31, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article needing merging 

message: Your detailed additions at Assyrian/Revision would be even better listing the references you've used. Could you add them to the revision? If you don't have publication dates I'll find them for you. Thanks.  --Wetman 20:37, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Recent additions by [[User:140.247.10.132]]

message: I have been thinking about this article.
To start with, some English usage: the policy is to prefer nouns to adjectives. Assyrian is an adjective in English, unless it is standing for Assyrian language. As this is an article about the Assyrian people, I suggest that it should be titled Assyrians, a noun, or Assyrian (people). I suggest that we take a lead from WikiProject Ethnic Groups Template.
The basic argument that has made this page difficult to produce is whether Assyrians living today are a continuation of the Assyrians of the Assyrian Empire. We should acknowledge that to raise this question is offensive to Assyrians. However, we cannot sidestep it, or agree entirely with one viewpoint or the other. It seems right that the discussion of ancient Assyria should be in the article Assyria, and that a discussion of modern Assyrians should be here. However, it is only fair to do slightly more than cross-link the two articles. I believe that the Assyria article should have a section about modern Assyria, the desire for an Assyrian homeland. It is also fair that we should make explicit the links between ancient and modern Assyrian cultures that are celebrated by many Assyrians: personal names (e.g. Sargon) and the importance of Nineveh. No one can either prove or disprove the connexion between the eras, and it might be a meaningless question (should the ethnicity of a person's ancestors from two thousand years, or more, past be the determining factor in that person's own ethnicity?).
The argument is further muddied by the politics surrounding Assyrian identity. Assyrian identity is sometimes imposed by Assyrians on all Aramaic-speaking Christians. Many western Aramaeans/Syriacs do not consider themselves to be Assyrian. The old Ottoman concepts of umta and millet are important here as they distinguish between an ethnic nation and a religious community.
It would be useful to have some constructive Assyrian comment here. Most Assyrian comment has been POV and vandalism, which helps neither the cause of Wikipedia or Assyria.
Gareth Hughes 15:06, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Towards a consensus