The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> More questions, if it's okay.

More questions, if it's okay.
Posted by Fareed (Guest) - Wednesday, March 21 2012, 9:18:15 (UTC)
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First, thank you for the response. Now I have a few more question, if you don’t mind. I will put your comments in [brackets] then follow it with my question.

[..sure thing...happy to oblige. For an ethnic identity as old as the Assyrian I would say it would have to be of the same caliber as what other people, also from that era, have to show. And that would be if they had retained their original religion of Ashur and not changed to Jesus....or Muhammad....or Buddha.]

You’re saying that Religion defines Ethnicity. Is that what you mean?

[...if a Jew loses faith in Yahweh, he is no longer a Jew....same for an Assyrian....same for a Christian. You can't be a Jew or a Christian is you give up on Yahweh or Jesus.}

Again, you’re saying it is faith that defines ethnicity, correct?

[...but if any MidEasterner could show that his family had never left off believing in Ashur, that would go a long way...]

I like that! And again, in your mind faith and religion is what defines ethnicity, correct?

[although it's always possible that they were never ethnically Assyrian, even 3000 years ago...]

Are you saying here that even believing in Ashur could exclude you from being Assyrian? Help me here, you said earlier that Religion defines ethnicity. But then you say that it may not?

[but it's much better than saying "Only Christians are true Assyrians" today.]

I don’t know which fool says that, but fair enough.

[..Language alone wouldn't do it because anyone can learn a language (just as anyone can adopt a religion),]

I’m not following you, sorry. What I understand from you is this: Religion defines ethnicity, but it’s possible it won. And to be Assyrian, one has to believe in Ashur, but even if he does, that doesn’t make him Assyrian... This is what I understand you’re saying so far, from what you said earlier.

[but even there the language we speak is not Assyrian but Aramaic..."we" gave up Akkadian long ago, which was the language of the ancient Assyrians...the language all their history and culture is recorded in,]

Are you now saying that language is important when defining an ethnicity?

[which no Nestorian or modern assyrian could read when the tablets and monuments were dug up, beginning in the 1840s.]

Again, meaning it’s language that defines ethnicity?

[The safest thing that can be said is that all of the people residing in the MidEast today are descended from ALL of the ancient people of that region, which includes Sumerians, Babylonians, Hurrians, Hittites, Amorites, Kassites, Assyrians AND Arabs, Turks, Qurds, Greeks, Persians etc and etc.....that religion has nothing to do with it and so forth.]

That’s very plausible, yes.

[But to say that ONLY Christians today are descended from ONLY the Assyrians and everyone else "disappeared" is as silly as our claim that Assyriologists say that ALL Assyrians disappeared...of course they didn;t all disappear...they just forgot their native tongue and THEN disappeared, when they lost their identity by losing their history and real culture.

[After all, didn;t your parents warn you not to forget "your mother tongue" (though they meant Aramaic) because "if you forget your language you forget who you are"? And it's true and in that sense, Assyrians "disappeared", because, like your parents warned you...they "forgot who they were when they forgot their mother tongue", Akkadian.]

I have seen many people in all nationalities here, including Assyrians, who don’t speak their mother tongue but they know what they are when you ask them... Chinese, Koreans Lebanese, Italians, Greeks and Assyrians. So, I’m not sure that what you said is true... At least not according to the facts about those I know, anyway.



[..what would be most convincing would have been a "continuity of consciousness"....had the people claiming to be of direct Assyrian descent remembered their culture and language, even if they changed religions, all through the same centuries that the Hebrews kept theirs, for instance, there would be some basis for accepting their claims.]

I’m sure there are many others, but what do you think about Greeks, then? Or Italians? They don’t speak their original language and they have changed faith. Do they fall in the same category as Assyrians? Are they not Greeks or Italians?


Thank you.



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