The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> Willful Confusion

Willful Confusion
Posted by pancho (Moderator) - Monday, July 15 2013, 5:59:52 (UTC)
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Dr Dalley has nothing to do, nor any interest or knowledge, about us little assyrians and our claim that when we say Syrian we really mean Assyrian too...I think she'd laugh at us, but anyway.

Once again we are using what we think makes our point, but again, we are being disingenuous if not downright deceitful. The two or three times some assyrian friend has rushed to tell me of this fragment from Turkey which "proves" that Syrian also means Assyrians (including our one assyrian Assyriologist, Zack Cherry) none of them have told the full story...maybe they didn't know it, or maybe they didn't want to say it.

The impression assyrians want to give is that on this fragment Syrian and Assyrian are used interchangeably, that is, they are one and the same..that the text uses both as if they were one. But that isn't the case.

It is indeed one fragment, but it contains two, distinct languages, written in different script...in one the Luwian language Assyrian is written as "Syrian", which is not the way the Assyrians referred to themselves...but in the Phoenician language it is written "Assyrian", same as the Assyrians wrote it.

This is a big difference which decides any conclusions reached about Syrian meaning the same as Assyrian. The question has to be asked.."To WHOM"? If this fragment showed that the Assyrians also called themselves Syrians, that would make the case...but to show only that some other people used Syrian in PLACE of Assyrian merely tells us something about their language, and nothing else.



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