Origins of Syriac

Syriac is a form of Aramaic, a language whose many dialects have been in continuous use since the 11th century BC. Originally the language of the Aramean people, Aramaic became the lingua franca of the Near East by the 6th century BC. It was the native tongue of the ancient Chaldeans, a second language to the Assyro-Babylonians, an official language of the Persian Achaemenians, and a common language of the Jews replacing Hebrew. Jesus and the Apostles spoke and preached in Aramaic.

Syriac is the Aramaic dialect of Edessa (present-day Urfa in southeast Turkey), a center of early intellectual activity. It became an important literary language around the 2nd and 3rd centuries. The earliest dated Syriac inscription is from AD 6, and the earliest parchment, a deed of sale, is from 243. The earliest dated manuscript was produced in November 411, probably the earliest dated manuscript in any language.

The oldest of the Syriac scripts, known as Estrangelo 'rounded', was fully developed by the 5th century. Later, two geographic scripts would derive from it: West Syriac, whose proper name is Serto, and East Syriac. The Syriac writing system lent its vocalization system to Hebrew and Arabic in the 7th century, before which Semitic languages were written using consonants only. At the time of Genghis Khan (12th century), the Mongolian script was derived from Syriac. [Beth Mardutho produced fonts of the Syriac scripts!]

The spread of Syriac was due to at least two factors: the spread of Christianity in the Semitic-speaking world, and commerce on the Silk Road, both activities sometimes combined. A testimony of this rather remarkable expansion is the bilingual Chinese and Syriac text from Sian in China. Today, a few million Christians in India of various denominations follow the Syriac tradition.

Within a few centuries from its origin, Syriac produced a wealth of literature in all sorts of fields, literary, philosophical, liturgical, scientific, historical, and linguistic, to name but a few.

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