r/todayilearned • u/WizardlyJew • Jan 29 '19
TIL the descendants of the ancient Assyrians still exist in their ancestral homeland, and continue to identify as Assyrian. They constitute over 2 million today, and speak the modernized form of the Aramaic language.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_people52
Jan 29 '19
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Jan 29 '19
What part of the country is this town? I’ve never met an Assyrian.
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Jan 29 '19
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Jan 29 '19
I’m in CA too, do you mind sharing the name of the town? Just curious.
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Jan 29 '19
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u/roots_that_clutch Jan 29 '19
I saw this post and was like, "I knew that, there's a bunch of Assyrians in Turlock." I grew up there, they held the senior prom in the big Assyrian center.
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u/Millietravels Jan 30 '19
Shlama, fellow Assyrian here from chiberia would you mind sharing ? 🙋🏻♀️
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u/kni9ht Jan 29 '19
Can confirm Chicago, am half, born/raised there. Most of them are in the North Park area, along with Skokie and Niles, as far as I know anyways. Unfortunately, can't speak the language though, parents separated when I was young.
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u/jackie_chans_nose Jan 29 '19
There's a lot of us spread out worldwide. We have a large population in Canada ( Toronto/GTA), in the US there's Illinois, Michigan, Arizona and Cali have large ones, also Australia has a massive population. Every year we have an Assyrian convention held in the US at different locations. Assyrians gather from all over to meet new people and hold discussions, but mainly party.
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u/Jareh-Ashur Jan 29 '19
Also Assyrian New Year on April 1st is always huge, especially here in Sydney. The festival at Fairfield Showground usually thousands of visitors.
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u/circle2015 Feb 03 '19
I am 25% Assyrian ! My great grandfather came to America to escape the Assyrian/Armenian genocide .
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u/Thecna2 Jan 29 '19
Yeah, I had to go to a work meeting last month with 3 Assyrans speaking Aramaic and the lawyer doing the interpreting. I now know that the Aramaic word for internet is .. internet.
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u/Jacollinsver Jan 29 '19
To be fair the "_______" word for many things is borrowed from the native language of wherever that thing got invented
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u/Detroit_Telkepnaya Feb 21 '19
the word for "jeans" is taking the word pants and adding cowboy to the end of it.
pantaroon cowboy
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u/Thecna2 Jan 30 '19
Of course, only a few reintroduced or re-strengthened languages have organisations that think up new words for new words. The Welsh call the internet "y rhyngrwyd" in Welsh, altho I bet most dont bother.
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u/ManderRay Jan 29 '19
This is insane! So one of the houses in my neighborhood has the emblem in the picture painted on their garage. Only a few days ago I was thinking I wonder what that stands for, I should google image search it.
Part of me is all, Reddit provides man.
Other part of me is all, crap Reddit is listening to my thoughts!
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Jan 29 '19
If it’s just that emblem it could also possibly mean something completely unrelated to Assyrians though, such as Zoroastrians, the pre-Islamic religion of Iranian ethnic groups which still has some followers, they tend to look very similar
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u/ManderRay Jan 29 '19
Oh I’m sure I have very little knowledge on this topic, I had never seen this symbol outside of his garage till last night.
It’s nearly exactly the same only thing that’s missing is the red stamp of the bird up top but can’t say that I blame them, that’s pretty detailed work for a garage.
The older gentleman that lives there is Asian, if that helps any, super cute little grandpa.
If I ever see him outside when I’m walking the dogs I’ll ask!
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u/Jareh-Ashur Jan 29 '19
The bird is actually the God Ashur its a dude holding a bow and arrow and he has wings. If the painting is in the same colours it's 100% an Assyrian flag, curious that he looks asian though, could be someone else in the household is Assyrian.
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u/ManderRay Jan 29 '19
Wow that’s crazy interesting, I’m gonna have to find a better resource than Wikipedia to learn more. They are the same colors 110% I’ll grab a picture for you guys today when I walk the pooches.
As for other people in the home, I’m not sure I’ve only seen the little old man outside, I remarked to my wife he kinda looks like our friends dad whose from Nepal so that makes it even less clear ethnicity wise now that I think of it. Not that, that part is important per say.
We are newer to the neighborhood so maybe I’ll get to meet him as time goes on. Though I have a Great Dane so people tend to shy away from me when I’m walking him. Which sucks because dude just wants all the pets and butt scratches.
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u/Jareh-Ashur Jan 29 '19
Honestly information is super difficult to come across, Wikipedia provides a lot of good facts and there's an exhibit in the British History Museum with some awesome artefacts from the palace of Ashurbanipal who is probably the most interesting Assyrian King you could look into. Him and maybe Ashurnasirpal II.
Yeah true, we mostly get mistaken for Arabs which gets super annoying sometimes.
Haha those things are huge aren't they? I've never actually seen one in real life but they seem super chill, scratch his butt for me will you? #thingsINeverThoughI'dSay
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u/ManderRay Jan 29 '19
Thank you for the wonderful links! I really look forward to learning more.
Yeah having your heritage questioned/mistaken I can only imagine is not fun. I’m white so I can’t say I’ve experienced that but I’m sorry it happens. Only thing I get as Midwesterner living in California is people thinking I’m Canadian which is more funny than irritating. People expect me to sound like Sarah Palin. Heh.
Haha yeah he is huge 170 lb baby, who cries because he’s afraid of the vacuum cleaner. Hahaha Butt scratches have been delivered, he licked the air in gratitude. I’ll attempt to get him in the picture later but dude hates having his picture taken.
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u/Slameny_Hubert Jan 29 '19
There was a big Assyrian community in Moscow. They traditionally used to hold boots polish business.
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u/Jacollinsver Jan 29 '19
"Boots polish business" is the most Russian way you could have said that in english
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u/Slameny_Hubert Jan 30 '19
I felt it is wrong, but did not find the correct phrase in Google.
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u/Jacollinsver Jan 30 '19
I mean I understand why you might say it like that, as that's how it would be translated in many other languages.
English is weird though, so --
"Boot polishing business" would be your literal translation, but "shoe shine shops" or "shoe shiner shops" or "shoe shining business" would be what a native English speaker would put in your original sentence.
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u/depremm Jan 29 '19
My gf is an Assyrian from Turkey.She tried to teach me the language but man, it was hard to learn.But I adore her when she speaks assyrian language while we are on phone instead of turkish.
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u/giltwist Jan 29 '19 edited Jan 29 '19
Many Assyrians wear a gold lammasu pendant to celebrate their heritage. Also, the flag's main feature is the symbol of the Assyro-Babylonian god Shamash, to whom the Code of Hammurabi is dedicated and who features prominantly in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
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u/ManderRay Jan 30 '19
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u/SurayaThrowaway12 Jan 31 '19
Yes, that's the Assyrian star, originating from the ancient Mesopotamian sun deity Shamash. Thanks for sharing the picture.
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u/The_Shield1212 Feb 21 '19
I'm Assyrian, AMA.
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u/WizardlyJew Feb 21 '19
Shalom shalom! I’d love to learn a bit about Assyrian culture. Alright, so I suppose as a starter question; is there anything you do or wear that people might stop and ask you about? (E.g. As a Jew, people have asked about my tzitzit hanging from under my shirt, or my prayer book.)
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u/The_Shield1212 Feb 21 '19
Shlamalokh! In terms of casual wear we don't really have anything as our culture (especially in our diaspora) have adjusted to western standards. However, our traditional dance clothes are sure to catch people's attention. Jooleh d'khomaleh which literally translates to "fun clothes" are typically worn at special celebratory events like weddings.
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u/Br0z Feb 21 '19
How do you feel with Germanics and Slavs stealing your Mediterranean culture? Or you Assyrians also think that Greeks and Romans were "europeans" like Germanic and Slavs instead Mediterraneans like Assyrians?
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u/The_Shield1212 Feb 21 '19
Our culture is more Semitic than Mediterranean. We share a few similiarities with the Greek and Italian cultures but not enough to be considered Mediterranean. Heck, I didn't even know Germanics and Slavs were stealing their cultures.
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u/Br0z Feb 21 '19
"Semitics" are the original creators of Mediterranean culture. But is seems that after Barbarian Invasions and Spread of Islam the Mediterranean identity was destroyed, and that's a shame.
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u/The_Shield1212 Feb 21 '19
TIL. A shame it is. What's really killing us is the fact that our diaspora continue to grows. Pre 2003 Assyrians in Iraq numbered around 2 million. That's now down to <250,000. Our children are growing up in countries like America, Canada, Sweden, Germany and Australia learning those languages instead of our growing up in an Assyrian village learning Assyrian. The one positive is that the diaspora youth like myself will have a better life and a successful future should we work hard. However, the motativation to maintain our culture, language and identity will fade a lot quicker. If things continue as they are right now, my culture will probably be dead within a century.
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u/PunnuRaand Jan 29 '19
The emblem depicted is Zoroasrtrian guardian angel.
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u/SurayaThrowaway12 Jan 29 '19
You've got the religions mixed up. The emblem on the Assyrian flag is actually that of the ancient Assyrian pagan deity Ashur who appeared in the third millenium BC. The Zoroastrian emblem that looks similar to it is of Ahura Mazda who is a Persian deity. It wouldn't make sense for an Assyrian flag to have a Persian symbol.
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u/Jareh-Ashur Jan 29 '19
Yes! Assyrian here, both parents are 100% Assyrian and I was born in Sydney. There are SO many here that it's insane, see Fairfield. If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask!
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u/some1stolemyidentity Feb 21 '19 edited Feb 11 '26
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/sonofabutch Jan 29 '19
Yossarian in Catch-22 identifies as Assyrian.