Oftentimes referred to, in English, as “Assyrian”, “Syriac”, or “Neo-Aramaic”, the Assyrian language is one of the bonds that ties Assyrians together. Assyrians of today have maintained their language for millennia. The main institutions to preserve the Assyrian language were the Assyrian Churches – the Assyrian Orthodox (Jacobite), the Chaldean Catholic, and the Assyrian Church of the East. Assyrians proudly proclaim they speak the language of Christ, and, as a result of the churches insisting on liturgies in Aramaic instead of Arabic, Turkish, or Farsi, Assyrians retained a self-awareness of their distinct Assyrian identity.
An excerpt from Peter BetBasoo’s “Brief History of the Assyrians”:
“Assyrians have used two languages throughout their history: ancient Assyrian (Akkadian), and Modern Assyrian... Akkadian was written with the cuneiform writing system, on clay tablets, and was in use from the beginning to about 750 B.C. By 750 B.C., a new way of writing, on parchment, leather, or papyrus, was developed, and the people who brought this method of writing with them, the Arameans, would eventually see their language, Aramaic, supplant Ancient Assyrian because of the technological breakthrough in writing. Aramaic was made the second official language of the Assyrian empire in 752 B.C. Although Assyrians switched to Aramaic, it was not wholesale transplantation. The brand of Aramaic that Assyrians spoke was, and is, heavily infused with Akkadian words, so much so that scholars refer to it as ‘Assyrian Aramaic’”.
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