About the origin of the Lebanese language (I)

This article was originally published in French by Ici Beyrouth on February 26, 2022. The original can be found here.

By Dr. Amine Jules Iskandar Syriac Maronite Union-Tur Levnon

The vast area from the Levant to Upper Mesopotamia was not always culturally and linguistically uniform. There was a time when people lived side by side, each rich in its traditions, religion and language. This cultural and linguistic diversity survives in our times only in certain local pockets and with minority groups on either side of the Turkish-Syrian and Turkish-Iraqi borders, as well as in Lebanon and some adjacent Syrian regions. It is the Christian religion that has been the vehicle that has ensured the survival of this rich heritage that dates back to the heyday of eastern Antiquity to this day. This linguistic treasure has reached us either as a living idiom or as a liturgical language, but also in the form of substrates and phrases within modern speech. To provide a concise overview, below follows background information and a simplified summary of four Syriac language forms to East and West.

Sureth (East Syriac)

In the east, the first of the spoken Syriac languages ​​is East Syriac or Sureth. The Syriac speakers of Sureth denominationally united with Rome are called Chaldeans, and Assyrians when they are not.

Where does Sureth come from, and why is it often called Assyrian? In the seventh and sixth centuries BC, the language of the Mesopotamians, during their Assyrian (736-609) and then Chaldean (605-539) Empires when they dominated the Middle East as far as the Levant, undergoes influence from the Aramean population they had subjugated. The Persians come to power after 539 BC. Instead of imposing their own language, which was completely foreign to the local populations, the Persians opted for Aramaic as it was already partially mastered by all. They make it the diplomatic and commercial language of their empire, and the Aramaic influence on the local languages increases significantly from Canaan to Upper Mesopotamia. In this process, a new form of Assyrian emerges but now in an Aramaic form. This language evolves constantly over time to give rise to the current spoken Sureth. It is spoken by the Assyro-Chaldean Christians in the East and the Diaspora.

Also Read: What Suryoye Need More Of: The Surayt-Aramaic Online Language Project

Turoyo (West Syriac)

The second spoken language is a form of West Syriac, called Turoyo because it relates to the region of Tur Abdin, in present-day southeast Turkey. While Sureth evolved from ancient Mesopotamian, Turoyo is seen as a Christian form of Aramaic. Its speakers define themselves quite often as Arameans. They too are divided into two Churches, one united with Rome (Syriac Catholic) and the other the Syriac Orthodox Church, known in the Middle Ages as Jacobite.

Surien (West Syriac from Canaan)

The third form is also part of West Syriac but is located further west. It is of particular interest to us here because it is the language spoken in the mountains of Lebanon. It is from Canaanite (Phoenician) which, like Sureth, was Aramaicized from the seventh and sixth centuries BC onwards under the Mesopotamian and then Persian empires. Some authors mention it in the medieval period. William of Tyre, a twelfth-century Latin bishop and chronicler, mentions the ‘Suriens’ descending from the mountains of Lebanon to help the Franks. Their Surien language is described in the thirteenth century by the Jacobite Syriac historian from the Tripoli school, the Maphrian Gregory Bar Hebraeus. He recounts that the letter ‘Qouf’ is pronounced by them as if it were a simple ‘A’. Qadisha thus gives the Adisha sound, without Qouf. As with Sureth and Turoyo, we also see the existence of two churches for this language: one recognizing papal primacy (the Syriac Maronite Church) and the other known as Roum or Greek. In the Middle Ages, there were also Jacobites in Lebanon.

Ktovonoyo (Liturgical Syriac)

A fourth form of Syriac is that known as “Edessan Aramaic” or “Christian Aramaic”. It asserts itself in the first and second centuries AD and establishes its own writing, based on the 22 characters of the Phoenician alphabet. Having become the literary form of the Syriac language, it is today known as Ktovonoyo or ‘the Written.’