Syrians

Uncommon card · No. 129467

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...

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