Syriac (language)

Syriac
ܠܫܢܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ‎ Leššānā Suryāyā
Leššānā Suryāyā in written Syriac (Esṭrangelā script)
Pronunciation	lɛʃʃɑːnɑː surjɑːjɑː
Region	Upper Mesopotamia, Eastern Arabia
Era	Dramatically declined as a vernacular language after the 14th century
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Semitic Central Semitic Northwest Semitic Aramaic Eastern Aramaic Syriac
Writing system	Syriac abjad
Language codes
ISO 639-2	syc Classical Syriac
ISO 639-3	Classical Syriac
Glottolog	clas1252
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Syriac /ˈsɪri.æk/ (ܠܶܫܳܢܳܐ ܣܽܘܪܝܳܝܳܐ Leššānā Suryāyā), also known as Syriac Aramaic or Classical Syriac, is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that is the minority language of Syrian Christians in eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syria. It is also the liturgical language of several churches.

It was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent and Eastern Arabia. Having first appeared in the early first century AD in Edessa, classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from the 4th to the 8th centuries, the classical language of Edessa, preserved in a large body of Syriac literature. Indeed, Syriac literature comprises roughly 90% of the extant Aramaic literature.

Old Aramaic was adopted by the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC) when they conquered the various Aramean city-kingdoms to its west. The Achaemenid Empire, which rose after the fall of the Assyrian Empire, also adopted Old Aramaic as its official language and Old Aramaic quickly became the lingua franca of the region. During the course of the third and fourth centuries AD, the inhabitants of the region began to embrace Christianity.