Talk:Assyrians

Recent edits and changes

@Bw02145 This is now the third time I've reverted mass changes you have made to the Assyrians article. Can you please explain your rationale for some of these edits? I feel many of these are unconstructive and significantly reduce what are otherwise important details about Assyrians as a people. PresentlySuraye3 (talk) 18:59, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

The assyrian flag is redundant, it is found in the identity section, alongside the other two flags which should be respected equally. Most ethnic group pages don't display a flag in the introduction Bw02145 (talk) 19:02, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

I've looked at some other ethnic groups pages (Armenians, Kurds, Arabs, and Turkish people), and I agree with this change. I've removed the flag from the infobox per your edits and have also added a general template about Assyrians as well. PresentlySuraye3 (talk) 19:08, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

@Bw02145 I can't agree to some of these other changes you've made. Particularly, you remove certain phrases and facts that could otherwise do without being removed, such as:

• Sureth and Surayt (Turoyo) having Akkadian influences.
• Information about the Christianization of Assyrians. I am concerned in general that this information emphasizes the East Syriac rite and seldom mentions the West Syriac rite affiliations in the Syriac Orthodox and Catholic churches.
• Assyrian communities existing in Australia and New Zealand.

Can you explain why you removed/edited these parts? PresentlySuraye3 (talk) 20:42, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing these up, i did not add that information about the east and west rites, i am only making it more concise. I removed the mention of new zealand as they do not have a notable population, at this point are we going to just say "the globe"?. Australia does not deserve a mention because they do not have a long-standing history of Assyrians and do not offer cultural autonomy and recognition unlike the United States, you can refer to the 21st Century section. And the akkadian influence is already mentioned in one of the lead paragraph, let's please try to remember Assyrians are a real modern people that aren't only associated with ancient Mesopotamian history Bw02145 (talk) 20:48, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

I will address each point individually:

• Australia most certainly does deserve a mention. Their history with the Assyrian community is about as dense as other countries and they have a thriving community, why exclude Assyrian Australians from being mentioned? It just doesn't make sense.
• For the churches, it should be worded differently to show that Assyrians attend both East and West Syriac rites. The wording as it stands now implies that Assyrians are predominantly found in East Syriac churches, which isn't true given the SOC's size and the existence of the SCC. This should be accomodated for differently than how it is presently.
• The Akkadian influence should also be mentioned. What is the significance of the language shift from Akkadian to Aramaic that makes it worth mentioning these two specific dialects of Assyrian-Aramaic? That's where the Akkadian mention comes in, it's not about associating Assyrians only with ancient Mesopotamian history. PresentlySuraye3 (talk) 21:09, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

Why diddn't you bring up these east syriac bias issues when the edits were first made? I attempted to revert them as unproductive and you disagreed. My edits only made the sentence more concise because as it stands it reads as bad quality english. And I disagree that australia should be mentioned in the lead, we haven't even mentioned it at all in the modern history category, and I disagree that akkadian should be mentioned twice. The language is aramaic, we don't need to specify what influences are part of it, you can read the history section for that. Bw02145 (talk) 21:29, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

Scholarly views on the origins of modern Assyrian identity

This LLM-generated text has been collapsed and should be excluded from assessments of consensus.

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

The article should not present descent from the ancient Assyrians as an undisputed scholarly fact. Several scholars have questioned or rejected the idea of direct ethnic continuity between the ancient Assyrians and the modern Assyrian community.

John Joseph’s ‘‘The Modern Assyrians of the Middle East’’ discusses how the name “Assyrian” acquired a new meaning among Aramaic-speaking Christians during the nineteenth century, particularly through encounters with Western missionaries, archaeologists and the rediscovery of ancient Assyria. Adam H. Becker likewise argues that nineteenth-century missionary activity in Iran played an important role in the development of a new national identity, with increasing numbers of East Syriac Christians beginning to understand themselves nationally as Assyrians. Aaron Michael Butts also describes the nineteenth century as the period in which identification with ancient Assyria was promoted and an Assyrian ideology developed within Syriac Christian communities.

J. F. Coakley explicitly rejected the modern ethnological connection with the ancient Assyrians.

I will be adding these scholarly views to the article in the future. In its current state, the article gives a very one-sided presentation of this issue and does not adequately represent the range of academic views found in the literature. More high-quality academic scholarship needs to be incorporated so that the article reflects the scholarly debate in accordance with Wikipedia’s policies on neutrality and due weight. ~2026-52274-02 (talk) 15:27, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

The origins of modern Assyrian identity

Hi,

It’s actually true that many modern academic scholars do not view Assyrians as descendants of the ancient Assyrians or question this claim. Why are their views omitted in the article? ~2026-52898-81 (talk) 19:00, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

Hi,

Please provide these sources. You dont have to pretend this isnt your alt, why not just use your real account if you're so sure in what you're saying? Bw02145 (talk) 20:49, 1 October 2026 (UTC)