Encyclopedia

Kurzgefasste Syrische Grammatik

“From the time the Greeks came to have a more intimate acquaintance with Asia, they designated by the name of Syriacs the people who called themselves Arameans.”

Encyclopedia

Hermes: Zeitschrift für klassische Philologie

"The main body of the population of all these wide landscapes from the Mediterranean Sea to beyond the Tigris belonged to a certain nationality, that of the Arameans." "It is well understandable that people have started to transfer the name of the country to the most important nationality and so the name Syriac was apprehended ethnological and was equated with Aramean." "Since the times of Alexander [the Great], if not already somewhat earlier, people have started to transfer the name of the Syriacs exclusively over the prevailing in Syria nationality, and in this way this originally political-geographical term became an ethnological one that was identified with the local Arameans."

Encyclopedia

Die Namen der aramäischen Nation und Sprache

"The Greeks were largely unfamiliar with the name 'Aramaeans.' Apart from Posidonius, whom Strabo follows, only another Oriental writer, Josephus, mentions it (Antiquities 1, 6, 4). It is highly improbable that Homer was referring to them with the terms Ἔρεμβοι (Eremboi - 'Erembians') or εἰν ᾿Αρίμοις (ein Arimois - 'in Arimi'). Instead, the Greeks referred to these people as 'Syriacs.' Seelen (de Dis Syris, prol. cap. 1) explained that Σύριοι (Syriacs) or Σύροι (Syriacs) was a shortened form of ᾿Ασσύριοι (Assyrians). Initially, the Greeks used 'Syriacs' to describe the subjects of the Assyrian Empire without distinction of nationality. However, over time, they applied this name specifically to the northwestern Semitic regions, eventually associating it with the predominant nationality in these areas. Thus, Σύροι (Syriacs) became synonymous with ᾿Αραμαῖοι (Aramaeans). I have explored this argument in greater detail in an article recently published in Hermes, to which I must refer the reader. Over time, the Aramaeans themselves gradually adopted the Greek name 'Syriacs.' While the dominance of Greek rule and education played a significant role in this shift, an even more powerful factor contributed to it: the change of religion. Quatremère (Jour. As., Feb. 1835, p. 122 f.) suggested that newly converted Aramaic Christians, feeling ashamed of their pagan compatriots, believed that adopting a new religion also required adopting a new name. As a result, they embraced the term Σύροι (Syriacs), which appears in the New Testament." “Regarding the name of this nation and its language is the original ‘Aramean’ in essence also the only one [sic], that for the employment of the present-day scholarship as yet strongly fits.”