This is a very informative article.
George
http://www.aina.org/articles/frye.htm
----------
The following article was first published in the Journal of Near
Eastern Studies.
Assyria and Syria: Synonyms
Richard N. Frye, PhD., Harvard University
Dr. Frye lecturing for the Assyrian Academic Society and Mesopotamia
Museum in Chicago on April 24, 1999
Confusion has existed between the two similar words "Syria"
and "Assyria" throughout history almost down to our own day.l Several
years ago, an article appeared in this Journal of Near Eastern
Studies (Vol. 40 [1981]: 139-40), by John A. Tvedtnes, called "The
Origin of the Name 'Syria'," in which he rejected the long-accepted
statement of Herodotus (7.63) that the Greeks called Assyrians by the
name "Syrian" without initial a-. Tvedtnes proposed that the two
terms are completely different and that Syria is derived from Hurri,
an old Egyptian word for the Hurrians, which in Coptic would have
changed to *Suri. In this article, I suggest that this explanation is
most unlikely and that the statement by Herodotus is preferable. It
is conceivable, of course, that the Egyptians had a term for the
Hurrians which they confused with later Assyria/Syria, but both the
vocalization of the word "Syria" and the reconstructed Middle
Egyptian word *Suri present problems, while the identification of
Assyria with Syria does not.
To begin, the dropping of an initial a- is a widespread phenomenon in
many languages. Especially noteworthy is the loss of an initial a- in
Phoenician in some proper names in Anatolia in the first half of the
first millennium B.C. and in Old Iranian.2 Consequently, the
confusion of the two forms with and without initial a- presents no
problem.
Herodotus, as we have mentioned, having equated Syrian and Assyrian,
makes a statement which appears strange (7.72). In describing the
various peoples in the army of Xerxes and their costumes, he includes
the Syrians together with the Paphlagonians and other peoples of
Anatolia. He then adds that these Syrians are called Cappadocians by
the Persians, which needs an explanation. Some years ago many
cuneiform records of Assyrian trading colonies in Cappadocia dating
from the first part of the second millenium B.C. were found in the
excavations at a site called Kultepe.3 We may assume that the
descendants of these settlers and merchants were in sufficient number
to cause the Greeks to identify them as Syrians, whereas the Persians
were more interested in the various lands they had conquered than in
distinguishing their inhabitants ethnically or linguistically. The
Achaemenids divided their empire into satrapies, and they called the
people who lived in Cappadocia after the name of that land. Why did
the Greeks call the people who lived there Syrians? I believe it was
because they spoke the same language as the inhabitants of Syria and
Mesopotamia.
Recent research has shown that the Greeks first used the term
Syria/Assyria at the beginning of the 7th century B.C., and their
first contacts with the interior of the Near East were with the
people of Cilicia and Cappadocia, whom they called Syrians.4 At that
time, the whole area was under Assyrian control and the lingua franca
of the entire area was Aramaic. The spoken language of the Assyrian
court and bureaucracy was also Aramaic.5 Consequently, the Greeks
equated the political empire with the Aramaic speaking population
living in it, which was quite logical to the Greeks.
Dr. Frye lecturing for the AAS and Mesopotamia Museum
The reasons for the spread of the Aramaic language were not only the
expansion of the Aramaeans themselves into the Fertile Crescent, as
early as the second millennium B.C., but also the policies of
transfer of populations by the Assyrian state, especially in the 8th
century B.C. under Sargon II and Tiglath-Pileser III. Large numbers
of people were moved, and inhabitants of ancient Assyria (present-day
northern Iraq) were also settled all over the Fertile Crescent.6 The
spread of the use of Aramaic coincided with the political expansion
of the Assyrian Empire, with the consequent mixture of the political
term "Assyrian" and the linguistic term "Aramaic speaker".7 The use
of the term "Assyrian" for the Aramaic language and alphabet is even
found as late as the 6th century of our era when the rabbis of the
Talmudic period speak of their Aramaic (modern Hebrew) alphabet
as "Ashuri." The Hebrews used the word Aram for the present country
of Syria,8 but the Greeks only used for that land the designation
Syria, although, according to Strabo and other authors, they knew
that Aramaeans, or people speaking Aramaic dialects, lived all over
the 'Fertile Crescent,' as well as in Cappadocia and elsewhere. At
some point, however, the Greeks began to distinguish between
Syria=the Levant and Assyria=Mesopotamia, and Herodotus may represent
a turning point in this separation. After him, the separate
designations continued in use until the time of the Romans and to the
present in the West. The Romans made a Roman province of Syria with
its capital at Antioch under Pompey in 62 B.C. By Byzantine times,
the use of the word "Syrian" had expanded such that in writings of
western Europe before the Arab conX,uests the subjects of the entire
Byzantine Empire were, at times, called Syrians.
To the east of the Euphrates, however, different designations
prevailed, and there is some confusion in the use of terms. The
Aramaic language spoken and written all over the Fertile Crescent
came to be called Syriac in the West or Assyrian in the East, but
inasmuch as the dialect of Edessa west of the Euphrates formed the
basis of the Christian Classical Syriac language, only the
term "Syriac" came to be used in the West, rather than "Assyriac."
The latter, or rather different forms with prefixed a-, however, was
used by the people of the East, especially by the Armenians who had
an extensive written literature. For exarnple, we find in the history
of Agathangelos (56 century) the expression "the Asori language,"
which is Classical Syriac.lø According to Diodorus Siculus (Roman
History 9.23), after Alexander the Great, a satrap of Armenia called
Orontes sent a letter to the Macedonian general Eumenes which was
written in Syrian characters (Syriois). This was Aramaic, of course,
later called Syrian by the Romans and Assyrian by the Armenians. The
use of both terms, with and without a-. is found in writings of
authors living to the west of the Euphrates. In the 2nd century A.D.,
the satirist Lucian of Samosata reputedly wrote a book in Greek De
Syria Dea [The Syrian goddess], which has survived. It contains
interesting passages relevant to the usage of the terms "Syrian"
and "Assyrian."
Dr. Frye lecturing in Chicago
The author says (par. 1): "I who write (this) am Assyrian." Later
(par.11), he says, "he calls the people of Syria by the term
Assyrian," and (par. 15), "he came to Syria, but the people beyond
the Euphrates did not receive him" (cf. also pars. 23 and 59).
Macrobius, a writer of the 5th century and a pagan, wrote a book
called Saturnalia which recalled antiquity and themes of Virgil in
reaction against the Christian spirit of his day. In this book
(1.23.14-16), he speaks of the cult in which the Assyrii (i.e.,
Syrians) dedicated offerings to the sun in the village of Heliopolis
(modern Baalbek). This off-hand usage of Assyrian for Syrian by
Macrobius indicates that the two forms, with and without a-, were in
use, even for inhabitants of the baqaC Valley in modern Lebanon. The
Armenian author Moses of Chorene (perhaps 8th century) in his history
of the Armenians uses "Asori" and "Chaldaean" as synonyms, and he
uses "Asori" for the Syriac language.1l It is fascinating to observe
that the classical Armenian word for the present country of Syria is
AsorikC, and the ancient Parthian word for the Roman province of
Syria is "sswrys".l2 Perhaps the Armenian form is derived from the
Parthian. It seems clear that the general terms "Assyrian"
and "Syrian" were regarded as synonyms not only in early times but
late into the medieval period by at least some people in the East.
The Arab conquests brought a new term into the Near East, for the
Arabs called the land of present-day Syria al-Sham. In western
writings, however, the terms "Syria" and "Syriac language" continued
in use. What did the Neo-Syrian Aramaic-speaking Christians in the
Near East call themselves in the Middle Ages? Michael the Jacobite
patriarch of Antioch (1166-99) wrote that inhabitants of the land to
the west of the Euphrates River were properly called Syrians, and by
analogy, all those who speak the same language, which he calls
Aramaic (Srmy~), both east and west of the Euphrates to the bordeers
of Persia, are called Syrians.l3 He continues that the basis of the
Syriac language, i.e., Aramaic, is from Edessa (Urfa). Even more
interesting is his remark (vol. 1, p. 32) giving the names of peoples
who possessed writing, among them are SiwryS d hywn
swryyS, "Assyrians," i.e., "Syrians," by which presumably he means
the ancient Assyrians, whom he identifies with his contemporary
speakers of Syriac. This book by a learned native speaker shows the
continuous equating of the terms "Syrian" and "Assyrian" for many
Eastern Christians.
The Carmelites in Iran, much later in the 17th century, were also not
consistent in their usage of the terms "Syrian" and "Assyrian." We
find in their writings the terms "Jacobite Syrian," "Eastern
Assyrian," "Chaldaean," "Syrian," and ''Assyrian.''l4 One may say
that the words were used almost interchangeably, and the assertion by
some that the word "Assyrian" was a creation of Westerners in the
eighteenth or 19th century is surely incorrect.l5
The connection of the word "Assyrian" with the empires of ancient
Assyria, on the other hand, probably was emphasized by Western
missionaries and was then eagerly accepted by many eastern Neo-Syriac
speaking Christians. The discoveries of ancient Assyrian sites and
cuneiform records about the rulers of ancient Assyria stimulated
interest among local Christians who had only heard about Assyrian
kings from the Bible. This modern history of the usage of "Assyrian,"
however is not our concern here. The early historical record of the
usage of "Assyrian/Syrian" shows two facts clearly, first, confusion
in Western usage between Syria for the western part of the Fertile
Crescent, and Assyria for the ancient land east of the Euphrates,
and, second, the Eastern usage, which did not differentiate between
the two except under Western influence or for other external reasons.
The Easterners retained historical usage of their own until the
modern period. Archaeological discoveries of the end of the l9th
century together with the adoption of Western terms, particularly
from the period of post-World War I colonial mandates, when
terminology was fixed according to Western usage, changed the old
Eastern usage.
Dr. Frye's lecture audience
At the present, the term "Neo-Syriac" or "Neo-Aramaic" is used by
linguists for the language in its spoken form in dialects such as
those in Tur Abdm, Urmia, MalCula, or wherever the language may be
spoken. Some of those speakers of Neo-Syriac who live or lived in
present-day Iraq or Iran prefer to call themselves Assyrians to
distinguish themselves from the inhabitants of present-day Syria.
They are not wrong in this designation, or in claiming descent from
the ancient Assyrians, who had adopted the Aramaic, or the Syriac
language, as it was later called in Christian times, as their
everyday tongue. Just as modern Egyptians, although they speak
Arabic, claim to be descended from the ancient Egyptians, or some
inhabitants of Anatolia, although they speak Turkish, claim descent
from the Hittites or other ancient peoples of Asia Minor, so the
modern Assyrians, with more justification, since their language is a
Semitic tongue related to ancient Assyrian, claim descent from
ancient Assyrians; and history is more the record of what people
believe than the mere recording of events.
Note: later names for the land of present-day Syria, borrowed from
Greek or Latin, such as later Hebrew swryh are not cited here.
Endnotes
1 The origin of the name Assur/Aŝŝur, and the complicated relatio=
ns
between deity and town, not to mention the expansion of the term to
include a land area cannot be discussed here.
2 See P. Kretschmer, "Nochmals die Hypachaer und Alaksandus," Glotta
24 (1932): 218-19, a section entitled "Der Abfall des anlautenden A:
Kleinasiatischer Eigennamen." Many Iranian languages exhibit the same
phenomenon. See E. Herzfeld, The Persian Empire (Wiesbaden. 1968),
pp.306-7.
3 See Seton Lloyd. Early Anatolia (London. 1956), pp. l 12-26.
4 See the extensive study by P. R. Helms, "Greeks in the Neo-Assyrian
Levant and 'Assyria' in Early Greek Writers" (Ph.D. diss., University
of Pemnsylvania, 1980), esp. pp. 236-39, 280-94, and 304. The Greeks
got the name "Assyria/Syria," with -ss- for s-, from the
Cappadocians, while the Aramaeans called Assyria by the dialect name
AtCura, whence Old Persian Athura. The term "Chaldaean" comes from a
tribe of Aramaeans who settled mostly in southern Mesopotamia.
5 Beginning with the reign of Assurnasirpal in the 96 century B.C.,
and an ever accelerating pace until Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal in
the 76 century, more and more people in cities such as Nineveh and
Arbela spoke Aramaic. Even lower classes, except for peasants in out-
of-the-way villages, all over the area of modern northern Iraq, knew
little or no Assyrian but spoke Aramaic. Probably bilingualism was
more common as one went up the social ladder, with dialects of the
court, the army, etc. It should be noted that Esarhaddon's mother was
an Aramaean (as Hayim Tadmor pointed out to me). Even though the
Greeks used the form Syrian, they also knew the form Assyrian, and
this must have been confusing, as it was to the Romans as a glance at
the Thesaurus linguae latinae 1.940 shows.
6 See Oded Bustenay, Mass Deportations and Deportees in the Neo-
Assyrian Empire (Wiesbaden, 1979),pp.116-35.
7 As late as Pliny (6.30.117) we find: "The whole of Mesopotamia once
belonged to the Assyrians." It is difficult to determine how the
inhabitants of the Assyrian Empire were designated and
differentiated, whether as nise mat Assur, "the people of Assyria,"
or mare mat Assur, "natives of Assur," or simply the term
asibu, "inhabitant."
8 In the Bible, the Ararnaeans and their land Aram are usually
associated with the Syria of today, but in the title of Psalm 60, the
expression "Aram Naharaim" is found, meaning Mesopotamia. For the
Greeks, it is insufficient to refer to a letter of Themistocles where
Ararnaic is referred to as Assyria grammata; cf. C.
Nylander, "Assyria rrammata: Remarks on the 215t Letter of
Themistocles," OpusculaStheniensia 8 (1968): 122-36.
9 See J. Bury, ed., The Cambridge Medieval History, vol.2 (Cambridge,
1936), p.l56.
10 Agathangelos, History of the Armenians ed. Robert M. Thompson
(Albany, 1976), p. 375.
11 Moses KhorenatsCi, History of the Armenians, trans. Robert W.
Thompson (Cambridge, Mass., 1978), pp.67 and 94.
12 For Armenian, see any dictionary of Annenian and for ParFian, P.
Gignoux, Glossaire des inscriptions peh-levies et parthes (London,
1972), p. 47.
13 J. B. Chabot, ed. and tras., Chronique de Michel le syrien, vol.3
(Paris, 1905), text 524, trans.78.
14 H. Chick, ed. and trans., A Chronicle of the Carmelites in Persia,
2 vols. (London, 1939), p. 100, Jacobite Syrian; p. 107. George an
Assyrian (Nestorian); p. 198. Assyrians or Jacobites; p. 132, Eastern
Assyrians; and throughout Chaldaean.
15 See John Joseph, the Nestorians and Their Muslim Neighbors
(Prinston, 1961), p. ix, where he says the name Assyrian did not
appear before the 19th century, and p. 14, where he attributes the
emergence of this name to archaeological finds and Western
missionaries who brought the name to the local people. As we have
seen in this article, some people used the term Syrian and others
Assyrian before the 19th century.
http://www.aina.org/articles/frye.htm