r/assyrian • u/Free_Dragonfruit_728 • 1d ago
Link Assyrian Christians and Their Language Need International Support
Assyrian Christians and Their Language Need International Support
Jun 18, 2026
Although the Middle East existed for centuries as a majority-Christian region, many now commonly call it “the Muslim world.” Its Christian past, as well as its indigenous non-Muslim communities, are often ignored.
One such community is the Assyrians, also known as Syriacs.
Ancient Mesopotamia was home to a number of different groups of peoples and civilizations. However, historical evidence demonstrates that Assyrians are indigenous to the land with a long and glorious history in the region. With a calendar dating back to 6,776 years, Assyrians contributed greatly to a region which is often referred to as Cradle of Civilization. From agricultural innovation, trade and commerce, record keeping, literature, governance, and military organization, Assyrians played a monumental role in the development of the world civilization.
The Assyrian Empire was a dominant ancient Mesopotamian civilization that expanded from its heartland in present-day Iraq to unite most of the Middle East. The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the largest and most powerful Assyrian state. It lasted from 911 BC to 609 BC. For 300 years, Assyrian kings ruled the largest empire the world had yet known.
For more than two millennia, Assyrians have been a people without a state. This began with the fall of the empire and sack of Nineveh in 612 BCE.
Assyrians are also one of the first nations to embrace the Christian faith. According to the Assyrian Church of the East, within a generation following the death of Jesus, Apostle Thomas, Saint Bartholomew and Saint Addai converted the Assyrian people to Christianity.
To this day, Assyrians continue speaking a version of Aramaic, the language of Jesus. “Aramaic was a broader family of languages,” said Dr. Nicholas Al-Jeloo, a prominent expert of Assyrian and Middle East history. “Jesus spoke Galilean Aramaic and Assyrians speak Assyrian Aramaic.”
The Aramaic language has immense historical and religious significance. It became the official language of the Assyrian Empire (722 BC), as well as the subsequent Babylonian and Achaemenid Empires (539–331 BC). These administrations adopted it as the language of governance and official communication.
Dr. Efrem Yildiz, a full Professor at the Department of Philology of the University of Salamanca in Spain, told the Ideological Defense Institute (IDI):
“Aramaic is a linguistic branch within the Semitic family that developed into a variety of linguistic forms spoken by various peoples in different regions. Although the Assyrian language belongs to the Aramaic branch and retains its grammatical structure in this language and is largely rooted in the Aramaic linguistic tradition, its ethnolinguistic identity is fundamentally Assyrian.”
The contiguous territory that forms the traditional Assyrian homeland includes parts of southern and south-eastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syria. For at least four thousand years, this land has been known as Assyria.
Yet today, it is majority-Muslim. Assyrians experience threats to their existence within their indigenous homeland because their population has decreased as a result of centuries-long persecution at the hands of Islam.
This began with the Islamic conquests of the Middle East.
Following the seventh century Arabic and later Ottoman invasions of the Middle East, the Assyrians (as well as other non-Muslims) were reduced to persecuted communities. For centuries, Islamic supremacists have placed a target on indigenous peoples due to their religious beliefs and ethnic identities. Muslim rulers turned them into dhimmis, second-class subjects of Islamic empires who were obliged to pay a poll tax called jizya to be able to remain Christians or Jewish.
Hannibal Travis, a Professor of Law at Florida International University College of Law, noted in his article “Native Christians Massacred: The Ottoman Genocide of the Assyrians during World War I”:
“With the Arab conquests of Mesopotamia and neighboring Persia and Syria, as well as Armenia, Egypt, and the Levant, the Eastern Christian peoples fell to a subordinate status. Arab officials decreed the destruction of many churches, the cessation of Christian religious services, the deportation of Christians from the land, the expropriation of their property, and the executions of those who resisted.
“For more than a thousand years before Mesopotamia and Persia fell under Turkish domination, Turks had begun infiltrating Mesopotamia from Central Asia, as nomads and imported slaves. The Seljuk Turks seized power from the Baghdad caliphs in the eleventh century, only to be overthrown by the murderous Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan, Hulagu Khan, and Timur the Lame.
These forces massacred thousands of people and destroyed many ancient cities, claiming countless Assyrian churches and [lives of the] faithful and driving the Assyrian community into the nearly inhospitable Hakkari mountains.”
During the sixteenth century, the Ottoman Turks re-conquered Mesopotamia. They retained control until World War I. This era was defined by violent territorial conflicts with Safavid Persia and distinct periods of semi-autonomous governance by Georgian Mamluks.
Historians record that the first massacre of Assyrians in modern times occurred in the 1840s in northern Mesopotamia. Professor Travis writes:
“The Ottoman Turks allowed the Assyrians to be massacred by the Kurdish chieftain Badr Khan Bey, who summoned the surrounding Muslim population to a ‘Holy War,’ killing 10,000 Assyrians, enslaving many women and children, and ravaging villages. Turkish soldiers and their Kurdish allies murdered the Christians of half a dozen Mesopotamian Christian villages; the surviving women and children were kidnapped and enslaved. Slavery was a common fate of Ottoman Christians in the nineteenth century.”
The Christian persecution in the Ottoman Empire culminated in the Assyrian, Armenian and Greek Genocides of 1914-23. Professor Joseph Yacoub writes in his book “Year of the Sword: The Assyrian Christian Genocide, A History”:
“The advent of the First World War gave the Young Turks and the Ottoman government the opportunity to exterminate the Assyrians in a series of massacres and atrocities inflicted on a people whose culture dates back millennia and whose language, Aramaic, was spoken by Jesus. Systematic killings, looting, rape, kidnapping and deportations destroyed countless communities and created a vast refugee diaspora. As many as 300,000 Assyro-Chaldean-Syriac people were murdered and a larger number forced into exile.
“The ‘Year of the Sword’ (Seyfo) in 1915 was preceded over millennia by other attacks on the Assyrians and has been mirrored by recent events, not least the abuses committed by Islamic State.”
Professor Travis adds:
“The evidence is overwhelming that Turks and their Kurdish allies massacred tens, and more likely hundreds, of thousands of Assyrians in order to exterminate the Christian population; raped and enslaved hundreds, and more likely thousands, of Assyrian women in a systematic fashion; and deported the Assyrians en masse from their ancestral lands under conditions that led to famine and widespread death.”
Even following the genocide, the persecution against Assyrians did not end in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. It was followed by the 1923-24 massacres in Hakkari, Turkey, the 1933 Simele massacre in Iraq, the Islamic Revolution of Iran that severely restricted freedoms for Assyrians and other Christians, the emergence and growth of al-Qaeda since 2004, and the 2014 genocide committed by the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria and Iraq.
The Simele massacre and the earlier Armenian and Assyrian Genocides in Ottoman Turkey were direct inspirations for lawyer Raphael Lemkin when he coined the term “genocide” and advocated for its recognition in international law.
The Current State of Assyrians Within and Beyond the Middle East
According to a May 2026 report by the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO), the Assyrian communities in Iraq and Syria continue to face violence, displacement, and political marginalization which threaten their survival in their ancestral homeland. The organization called for the protection of Assyrian rights, land, cultural heritage, and meaningful political inclusion.
Global Assyrian populations are currently estimated to range between 3 million and 5 million worldwide. In the diaspora, the Assyrian community continues to learn its native language—particularly through their churches. Yet, some public schools have also been founded. Australia’s Assyrian schools, St. Hurmizd Assyrian Primary School and St. Narsai Assyrian Christian College, for instance, are located in Western Sydney and successfully help Assyrian students thrive.
According to a 2017 report by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC):
“In the 15 years since St. Hurmizd was founded, the Assyrian primary school in Western Sydney has grown from a cohort of 85 students, to more than 700.
“As the only school in the Western world offering Assyrian faith and language classes, it’s perhaps no wonder St. Hurmizd’s has expanded at such a fast pace.”
Turkey 🇹🇷
In Turkey, Assyrians are denied rights to receive an education in their mother tongue. They are denied cultural autonomy and the establishment of their own communal schools. This has been the case since 1928, although the Treaty of Lausanne (1923)—the final treaty that concluded World War I and addressed several issues, including the rights of religious minorities in Turkey—requires protection of their rights as a non-Muslim community. However, the educational rights of Assyrians/Syriacs have never been implemented, even though they are a non-Muslim minority of the country.
Yet, Assyrians are one of Turkey’s indigenous peoples. Tur Abdin, an ancient region in southeastern Turkey, means “Mountain of the Servants of God” in the Aramaic language. It is the historic, spiritual heartland of the Assyrian people in Turkey. According to a report in the Assyria Post:
“Tur Abdin, one of the regions of Assyria most severely affected by genocide, persecution, and emigration, still boasts fifteen villages inhabited exclusively by Assyrians. Many of the other Assyrian villages in the region have a strong Assyrian presence but have been settled partly by Kurdish settlers. A number of villages, however, have been completely taken over by Kurdish settlers to the region.”
The last Assyrian/Syriac school in the city of Mardin in Tur Abdin closed in 1928, leaving the community without formal education in its mother tongue for decades.
That changed in 2014 following a legal battle. Some activists of the Assyrian community applied to Turkey’s Ministry of National Education in 2012 for permission and support to open a Syriac kindergarten in Istanbul. When their application was rejected, they began a legal struggle and were finally able to open the Mor Efrem kindergarten without any economic support from the government.
Unfortunately, there is still not an Assyrian/Syriac elementary school in Turkey where the graduates of Mor Efrem could enroll. The officials of the Virgin Mary Ancient Syriac Church Foundation in the Beyoglu district of Istanbul stated in 2017 that it was impossible for them to open an elementary school without governmental support.
Nine years later, the Mor Efrem Kindergarten remains the only school in Turkey where the community’s native language is formally taught.
Speaking to Mezopotamya Agency on February 20, Evgil Türker, President of the Syriac Associations Federation (SÜDEF) based in Midyat, said that “There is no other school.” Ahead of International Mother Language Day on February 21, Türker described the language’s decline as both rapid and deeply concerning.
“Syriac [Aramaic] once spread across Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and almost all of Turkey,” he said. “It influenced many other languages and made important contributions to Arabic. But today it faces a serious danger.”
As governments in the Middle East have severely restricted or even ended the institutional use of the language of Assyrians/Syriacs, Arabic has eventually become dominant across much of the region.
“In Syria, Lebanon, Iraq—even in some parts of Turkey—our language was replaced by Arabic,” Türker said. “Today, I would say that 80 percent of Syriacs from Syria speak Arabic as their mother tongue.”
Emigration has further accelerated the decline. Beginning in the 1980s, large numbers of Syriacs/Assyrians were forced to leave southeast Turkey as a result of the war between the Turkish army and the Kurdish PKK. Many emigrated to Europe. As communities shrank in Tur Abdin, so did the everyday use of the language.
“In the Botan region, Syriac/Assyrian was once the strongest spoken language,” Türker said. “In Midyat, even Kurdish families who had lived there for 150 or 200 years spoke Syriac. It was the dominant language in the market, in the streets, and in schools.”
Today, he said, that reality has reversed. “Our children speak Turkish among themselves. When I started school in 1972, I did not know a single word of Turkish.”
Under the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, certain educational rights of non-Muslim minorities were recognized, but Assyrians/Syriacs have not been able to exercise these rights. Hence, they maintain that these protections should also apply to their community.
“If we are citizens, if we have this right, and if Lausanne is considered one of the most important agreements, then the state must uphold it. It must finance our schools,” Türker said. “If the Ministry of National Education has a budget, there should be a budget for these [Assyrian/Syriac] schools, as well.”
Türker called on church foundations, civil society organizations and Assyrian/Syriac institutions abroad to work together:
“It should be one of our primary tasks. Otherwise, there is a serious danger even in the places where our people use Syriac extensively… We need to build a school in Midyat. We need to create such a school and ensure that our children are educated in their own mother tongue. Otherwise, we will disappear.”
He also called on local governments to revive earlier initiatives promoting multilingualism. In 2014 and 2015, some municipalities in southeastern Turkey adopted a “multilingual municipality” model reflecting the region’s linguistic diversity, including Syriac/Assyrian, Turkish, Kurdish, and Arabic. Those efforts stalled in subsequent years amid political changes and the appointment of state trustees in place of elected mayors.
One hopeful development was the 2025 initiative led by Adem Coşkun, an expert on the history of the Assyrian/Syriac people and president of the Tur Abdin Institute. Coskun launched the first Syriac language class in the history of the Turkish Republic in March of 2025 in the town of Midyat. He taught Syriac to 29 students over the three-month course. In an interview with the newspaper Agos, Coskun said: “The Syriac people must preserve their mother tongue.”
Syria 🇸🇾
Since the 1920s in Syria, constitutions have exclusively recognized Arabic as the official language. While widely preserved in liturgical and cultural spheres, Syriac, Aramaic or Assyrian is not legally recognized as a national language or integrated into official state education or administrative documents. Hence, this language remains institutionally unrecognized in Syria.
Assyrian/Syriac groups in Syria are actively campaigning for their native language to be constitutionally recognized as an indigenous national language. Their key demands include its integration into the public education system, use in official state institutions, and guaranteed representation in the country’s constitution.
The conquest of the Syrian capital of Damascus by al-Qaeda affiliated forces of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in December 2024 has severely escalated Christian persecution in the country. The past year has seen a sharp increase in the murder of Christians, and attacks on churches—including the bombing of a church in Damascus in June 2025.
Christian communities are increasingly targeted by violence, discrimination and marginalization. Churches are subjected to insults, bombings and intimidation, including leaflets demanding conversion or jizya. In public schools, Christian children face pressure to attend Islamic lessons—especially if no Christian teacher is present. Syria’s curriculum has been Islamized by the new regime, who has reframed history through an Islamic lens and removed female figures.
In an interview with IDI, Professor Travis emphasized the dangers posed by the new regime in Syria against the country’s Christian minorities:
“Recent developments, including the rise of an extremist regime in Syria and its dispersion throughout the country of most persons who had been detained on suspicion of conspiring with ISIS to destroy minority religions, languages, and cultural heritage, represent an extraordinary threat to Assyrians’ Article 1 and Article 27 rights under the ICCPR (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights).
The decision of the United States, some European countries, and other countries to proclaim a false dawn of freedom, democracy, human rights, and stability prevailing in the country will only serve to drive nails into the coffins of the Assyrian communities that formerly resided in Aleppo, Qamishli, and Hasakah province along the Khabur river prior to the ISIS-related invasions of foreigners from Turkey, Iraq, Libya, and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.”
Iran 🇮🇷
In Iran, the Assyrian community is repressed. The organization Open Doors reports that although Assyrian and Armenian Christians are recognized by the Iranian state, they are treated as second-class citizens who are subject to systematic human rights abuses with restrictions on language use and contact with Persian-speaking Christian converts. They also face legalized discrimination in marriage rights, inheritance laws, and restrictions on employment opportunities. Open Doors adds:
“The state’s control of over 80% of the economy enables systematic discrimination, with Armenian and Assyrian Christians facing business obstacles while other Christians rarely receive business permits. The mandatory hijab requirement applies to all women regardless of faith. All high government positions are reserved for Shia Muslims, with Christians banned from public office except for three token parliamentary seats allocated to Armenian and Assyrian representatives. In addition, Armenian and Assyrian Christians’ children face mandatory Islamic classes.”
In Iran, the right to obtain official public education in the Assyrian language is heavily restricted; the Iranian constitution mandates Persian as the sole language of instruction in the public system.
Dr. Eden Naby, an independent scholar who specializes in religious and ethnic minorities of the Middle East, noted in her 2006 article,
“The dwindling of the Middle East’s non-Muslim population is nowhere more clearly observable than among Assyrians, the last substantive Aramaic speaking population of the world. With the establishment of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, the Assyrian population dropped within a decade from 100,000 to 20,000.”
Directive #62123 of Aban 20, 1360 (October 13, 1981) from the Tehran provincial office of education, “sent alarm throughout the Assyrian community,” wrote Dr. Naby:
“The strict enforcement of such directives from the Ministry of Education and Training—and especially from the Ministry of Culture and Religious Guidance—led to eventual disintegration of Assyrian schools. Assyrian schools were forced to accept Muslim principals to conform to the law forbidding non-Muslims to serve as head administrators of any organization. Clearly this decision affected other minorities as well, including the Jews, Zoroastrians, and Armenians. Moreover, Assyrian schoolgirls were obligated to wear the hijab (veil) in accordance with Muslim Shari’a law. The schools were also forced to introduce Koranic instruction into the curriculum, as they accepted Muslim students.”
Iraq 🇮🇶
In Iraq, the ancient homeland of Assyrians and where their ancient cities of Assur and Nineveh once stood, Assyrians maintain some public schools. These schools are located in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI).
Although 22 Assyrian schools reportedly remainoperational across the region, eight have closed in recent years due to sustained population decline in Assyrian villages. These schools produce strong academic outcomes despite the challenges they face such as chronic underfunding and insufficient infrastructure, the Assyria Post reported in April 2026:
“As Assyrian schools continue to operate under mounting financial, institutional, and demographic pressures, their survival remains inseparable from the survival of the Assyrian language itself. Without meaningful government support and long-term investment, one of the most significant achievements in modern Assyrian education risks gradual erosion, along with the cultural identity it was created to protect.”
Sam Darmo is a prominent Assyrian-American activist and the head of the “Assyrians for Justice,” a US-based organization that advocates for the rights, cultural heritage, and protection of the Assyrian people. He credits the Assyrian Church of the East for the preservation of the Assyrian language.
In an interview with IDI, Dermo said that the Assyrian schools in the Kurdistan region of Iraq need remodeling and better infrastructure. His organization has relayed those requests to the Kurdish administration during their visit to the region. He said:
“Unemployment is a major problem throughout Iraq, which is forcing the youths to leave the country in large numbers. Another major problem is the confiscation of Assyrian lands and properties by some Kurdish individuals. We are working on a daily basis to resolve those issues, help our Assyrian people maintain their property rights and help them live on their lands in freedom and safety.”
As the persecution of Assyrians in Iraq remains ongoing, they need wider political representation, security, civil rights, and cultural autonomy. Many members of the Assyrian community request an autonomous region or protected districts for Assyrians in Iraq, their ancient homeland, as the community faces growing pressures from multiple actors in Iraq—such as the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The European Center for Law and Justice (ECLJ) callsthis threat:
“Iran’s project of establishing a Shiite crescent, in which Christians are merely obstacles to be moved aside.”
The ECLJ issued a report on May 26 entitled “Iraqi Christians: An Ancient People Driven into Exile:”
“Christians are not only leaving in pursuit of a better future,” the report said. “They are being pushed out by various political and military actors who view this minority as an obstacle to their strategic goals. This is particularly true of the Shiite militias of the Popular Mobilization Forces (Hachd al-Chaabi), which number between 140,000 and 238,000 fighters.
Supported by Iran, they form a powerful, largely uncontrolled faction within the Iraqi army, with growing political and military influence. In the Nineveh Plains, these militias are gradually taking over territory, checkpoints, and establishing Shiite settlements in traditionally Christian areas.
The Hammurabi Organization denounces this and proposes countermeasures: ‘We are witnessing a real demographic shift—they are distributing land to Shiites in Christian areas. We demand the creation of protected districts where land would be reserved for Christians!’”
Meanwhile, a large group of Assyrian Christians is currently seeking refuge in countries such as Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. The Iraqi Christian Relief Council (which is now called the “Here I Am Charitable Foundation”) has helped those refugees for years. In an interview with IDI, Juliana Taimoorazy, a leading Assyrian-American advocate and founding president of the Here I Am Charitable Foundation, said:
“In the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Assyrian parents, much like their ancestors who were forced to escape their homes, decided to leave to save their children from imminent danger. Between 2003 and 2026, over 90 percent of the Christian population left Iraq, with most seeking refuge in Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan where they endured dehumanizing living conditions.
Prohibited from working, burdened by exorbitant cost of living, lack of adequate medical care, and limited access to safe educational opportunities for their children are all conditions that deprived them of their dignity and created an environment that posed real dangers to their physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. These children who endured such hardship have come to be known as the ‘lost generation.’ The memory of their suffering and resilience has become one of the defining narratives in the modern history of the Assyrians of Iraq, shaping our identity in exile.”
Legal Framework for the Protection of Assyrians and Their Language
In an interview with IDI, Professor Travis, a legal scholar who focuses on global human rights, said that the question of what could be done to support the Assyrian language “can be helpfully thought of in four ways: Lemkin’s anti-genocide perspective, minorities treaties and national-minorities law, universal human rights law, and national indigenous language policy innovation.” He explains:
“First, Raphael Lemkin considered genocide to be a mosaic of activities to limit population numbers and resistance by interfering with biological and cultural processes of group reproduction. In the Assyrian case, as with other small indigenous groups, mass killings combined with drastic reductions in the number and strength of cultural and religious institutions like schools, churches, and nationalist movements led to forcible and adaptive assimilation and language loss, which may be irreversible.
“In the Genocide Convention and post-World War II political practice, legal judgments against perpetrators along with measures on behalf of victim group survival are a main bulwark against the elimination of ethnical, national, and religious groups. The Assyrians qualify as three of these group types by virtue of their language and historical ties to kin, language, and specific lands (ethnical); traditions of self-rule particularly as quasi-independent tribes under loose empires and later millet systems; and religious differences from other Christians such as the Catholics, Russian Orthodox, or Protestants who sought to displace their hereditary and ancient rites.
“Second, the minorities treaties of the interwar period and the subsequent UN and EU instruments on minorities and indigenous peoples establish a variety of helpful norms, which result in recommendations from groups like Helsinki Watch, Human Rights Watch, UN special rapporteurs, the European Court of Human Rights, etc. Here is a report by the Helsinki Watch, whose officials were experts in the 1990s on European minorities treaties and human-rights situations.
“The Greek and Assyrian situations in Turkey are similar in that both communities were reduced to a smaller numerical remnant than the Armenians or Kurds were in the 1909-1939 period.
“Third, universal human-rights law, while focused in the main on governments not prohibiting the use of minority languages in private or communal life as opposed to in public institutional settings, has a nexus with the anti-genocide prophetic teachings of Lemkin in the following respect:
‘[The UN] Human Rights Committee has pointed out that Article 1 of the ICCPR [International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights], on the right to self-determination for ‘peoples’, may have significance on the interpretation of the individual rights in the Covenant, including Article 27. Indigenous peoples in particular have a way of life that is closely related to land, and there may therefore be a need to restrict states’ right to intervene in such lands. HRC [Human Rights Committee] General Comment No. 23, paragraph 3.2: ‘The enjoyment of the rights to which Article 27 relates does not prejudice the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a State party. At the same time, one or other aspect of the rights of individuals protected under that article—for example, to enjoy a particular culture—may consist in a way of life which is closely associated with territory and use of its resources. This may particularly be true of members of indigenous communities constituting a minority.’
‘The content of indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination was a challenging question during the negotiations on the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It is assumed that the term, as used in ICCPR Article 1, refers to both external and internal right of self-determination, but that the threshold for requiring external right of self-determination (status as a state) is extremely high.
Article 1 on ‘self-determination’ for ‘all peoples’ in both ICCPR and ICESCR [International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights] must be seen against the background of the decolonization that had taken place after World War II, and which was still an inflamed political theme in the 50s and 60s. In any case, Article 1 on self-determination must be read in the light of the provisions of the UN Charter on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states. The wording of UNDRIP [United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples] Articles 3, 4 and 5 reflects that indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination encompasses a right to internal self-determination within a state.
‘In several cases, the Human Rights Committee has pointed out that Article 1 of the ICCPR may be relevant to the interpretation of Article 27…
‘In two individual complaint cases on Sami rights in Finland from 2018, the Human Rights Committee emphasized the right of indigenous peoples to self-determination. HRC, Tiina Sanila-Aikio v Finland (Communication No. 2668/2015), Klemetti Näkkäläjärvi et al. v Finland.... In the decisions, the Committee expressed its view on the significance of ICCPR Article 27 in light of the right to self-determination. The Committee observed that Article 27, interpreted in the light of the Indigenous Declaration and ICCPR Article 1 on self-determination, gives indigenous peoples a fundamental right to ‘freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.’”
As for methods to support the language of Assyrians, Professor Travis says:
“There are various models for indigenous language promotion or revival. One might include in this trend the establishment of academies of sciences in various new states inhabited by peoples that had been subject to genocide in the preceding decades of the twentieth century. Or, for a different example, the establishment in Canada of a network of indigenous language instructional institutions in relation to the residential schools compensation system and Indigenous Services Canada.”
“The preservation of the Aramaic language is important for several reasons,” Dr. David Fischler, a pastor and the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Here I Am Charitable Foundation, told IDI:
“One is that it’s the language of Jesus, and the Assyrians are still speaking it, giving them some unique insights into His words in the gospels. (The gospels were written in Greek, but there’s an Aramaic version, the Peshitta, that isn’t translated from the Greek that contains nuances that are uniquely Semitic.) A second is that as one of the oldest languages still being spoken (dating from circa 1100 B.C.), it has a connection to humanity’s origins in the Middle East unsurpassed by any other. Finally, every language encompasses a culture, which is why it’s always a tragedy to see a language die out. The Assyrian culture is one of the world’s oldest, and their Aramaic language is intimately tied to that culture.”
Other scholars also emphasize the significance of keeping Assyrian as a living language. Dr. Anahit Khosroeva, visiting professor at Harvard University, told IDI:
“The question is not only how the Assyrian language can survive, but how it can remain a living, intergenerational language rather than becoming primarily a liturgical, symbolic, or heritage language. Culturally, Assyrian must remain a language spoken in homes and families, not only in churches, cultural events, or heritage programs. We also need more literature, music, films, media, and youth activities in Assyrian so that the language remains relevant to everyday life.
Intellectually, Assyrian must be developed as a language of modern knowledge. Scholars, educators, and institutions should create terminology for contemporary fields such as technology, science, economics, and politics. We need more books, research, digital resources, and educational materials in Assyrian so that the language can function in both academic and public life. Linguistically, we should work toward greater standardization in writing and education while respecting the richness of our dialects. At the same time, endangered dialects should be documented and preserved. The development of language-learning programs, digital tools, and artificial intelligence resources will also be essential for ensuring Assyrian’s place in the modern world.
“The future of Assyrian language depends on cooperation between communities in the Middle East and the Diaspora. The homeland provides historical continuity and cultural roots, while the Diaspora offers educational, technological, and institutional opportunities. If we strengthen language transmission, invest in cultural and intellectual production, and embrace modern technology, the Assyrian language can remain a living language for future generations rather than becoming merely a language of memory and heritage.”
Before Islamic military conquests, massacres, and persecution started in the seventh century, most of the Middle East and North Africa (including lands which are now called Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Morocco, Algeria, and Egypt, amongst others) were predominantly Christian. They were part of the Eastern Roman/ Byzantine Empire. There were large Jewish and other non-Muslim communities throughout. People spoke Greek, Assyrian/Aramaic/Syriac, Armenian, Hebrew, Coptic (an ancient Egyptian language), and other indigenous languages. The linguistic diversity existed long before Arabic or Turkish largely erased and then replaced many of these languages—a process that occurred simultaneously with Islamization.
After centuries of persecution, Assyrians should finally have an autonomous region in the Middle East to secure their survival in a Muslim-dominated region that is hostile to Christianity and to non-Arab and non-Turkish communities. The Assyrian language should enjoy official administrative and guaranteed educational status in its indigenous homelands in Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran. It should also be taught as an elective foreign language course at more universities in the West.
Some activities that could be carried out include the opening of Assyrian language schools, academic institutions, and research centers in the Middle East and the Assyrian diaspora. The governments of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria should be obliged to officially recognize the Assyrians, their language and their national and human rights, including their right to obtain education in their native language. Concrete actions should be taken to help this unique nation thrive and live in dignity in a way that their identity, language, rights, and freedoms will be recognized, respected, and protected.
Uzay Bulut is a Turkey-born journalist and political analyst formerly based in Ankara. As an exiled writer, she has worked and lived in various parts of the world. Her writings have appeared in various outlets such as the Washington Times, Christian Post, Gatestone Institute, Jewish News Syndicate, the European Conservative, Al-Ahram Weekly, American Spectator, the Providence, and Jerusalem Post.
