Concept
Syrians
Overview
Syrians (Arabic: سوريون; Syriac: ܣܘܪܝܝܢ) are the native inhabitants of Syria, most of whom have Arabic in its Levantine dialect as a mother tongue. The cultural and linguistic heritage of Syria is a blend of both indigenous elements and the foreign cultures that have come to rule the land and its people over the course of thousands of years. By the seventh century, most of the inhabitants of the Levant spoke Aramaic. In the centuries after the Muslim conquest of the Levant in 634, Arabic gradually became the dominant language, but a minority of Syrians (particularly the Assyrians and Syriac-Arameans) retained Aramaic (Syriac), which is still spoken in its Eastern and Western dialects.
The national name "Syrian" was originally an Indo-European corruption of Assyrian and applied to Assyria in northern Mesopotamia, however by antiquity it was used to denote the inhabitants of the Levant. Following the Muslim conquest of the Levant, Arab identity gradually became dominant among many Syrians, and the ethnonym "Syrian" was used mainly by Christians in Levant, Mesopotamia and Anatolia who spoke Syriac. In the 19th century, the name "Syrian" was revived amongst the Arabic speakers of the Levant. Following the establishment of the Arab Kingdom of Syria in 1920, the name "Syrian" began to spread amongst its Arabic speaking inhabitants. The term gained more importance during the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon, becoming the accepted national name for the Arabic speakers of the Syrian Republic.
Most Arabic-speaking Syrians identify as Arabs and are described as such by virtue of their modern-day language and bonds to Arab culture and history. In terms of genetics, they are a blend of the various Semitic-speaking groups indigenous to the region. There is no contradiction between being an Arab and a Syrian since the Syrian Arab identity is multi-layered and being Syrian complements being Arab. In addition to denoting Syrian Arabs, the term "Syrian" also refer to all Syrian citizens, regardless of their ethnic background. In 2018, Syria had an estimated population of 19.5 million, which includes, aside from the aforementioned majority, Kurds, Assyrians, Turkmen, Armenians and others.
Even before the Syrian Civil War, there was a large Syrian diaspora that had emigrated to North America (United States and Canada), European Union member states (including Sweden, France, and Germany), South America (mainly in Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, and Chile), the West Indies, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Six million refugees of the Syrian Civil War also live outside Syria now, mostly in Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Germany as well as Sweden.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Syrians is discussed.
For Neptune himself is called the Breeder. And the race of Hellen sacrificed to Neptune as the first father, imagining, as likewise the Syrians did, that man rose from a liquid substance. And therefore they worship a fish as of the same production and breeding with themselves, in this matter being more happy in their philosophy than Anaximander; for he says that fish and men were not produced in the…
Plutarch, Complete Works of Plutarch — Volume 3
states what it is; names the idea; author linked in the graph
After that, from the Serbonian lake, in which the story goes that Typhon is concealed, from this point onwards the land is Egypt. Now the region which lies between the city of Ienysos on the one hand and Mount Casion and the Serbonian lake on the other, which is of no small extent but as much as a three days' journey, is grievously destitute of water. 6.
Herodotus, The History of Herodotus — Volume 1
states what it is; names the idea; opens on it
It was one of the masterpieces of Sthenis. And one told him, that it was the statue of Autolycus, the founder of the city. This Autolycus is reported to have been son to Deimachus, and one of those who, under Hercules, went on the expedition out of Thessaly against the Amazons; from whence in his return with Demoleon and Phlogius, he lost his vessel on a point of the Chersonesus, called Pedalium. He himself, with…
Plutarch, Plutarch
names the idea; author linked in the graph
Obj. 3: Further, the Philosopher says, _Metaph._ viii (Did. vii, 2), that the genus is taken from the matter, and difference from the form. But "rational," which is the difference constituting man, is taken from the intellectual soul; while he is called "animal" by reason of his having a body animated by a sensitive soul. Therefore the intellectual soul may be compared to the body animated by a sensitive soul, as…
Aquinas Thomas, Summa Theologica, Part I
states what it is; names the idea
His disciple Pythagoras greatly confirmed this opinion, who came into Italy in the reign of Tarquin the Proud; and all that country which is called Great Greece was occupied by his school, and he himself was held in high honor, and had the greatest authority; and the Pythagorean sect was for many ages after in such great credit, that all learning was believed to be confined to that name.
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Cicero's Tusculan Disputations Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth
states what it is
Related ideas
- First Crusade
- Turkey
- Germany
- Polis
- Herodotus
- Ancient Greek
- Lebanon
- Levant
- Christians
- Tacitus
- Mesopotamia
- Eastern Mediterranean
- Palestinians
- Ancient Near East
- Ptolemy
- Plutarch
- Classical antiquity
- Jews
- East Africa
- Semitic languages
- Shia Islam
- Sunni Islam
- Pliny the Elder
- Hellenistic period
Place in the tradition
Part of Romanian philosophy.