Syrians

Etymology

The name "Syrians" was employed by the Greeks and Romans to denote the inhabitants of Syria; however, they called themselves Arameans and Assyrians. The ethnic designation "Syrian" is derived from the word "Assyrian" and appeared in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Some argue that the discovery of the Çineköy inscription in 2000 seems to support the theory that the term Syria derives from Assyria.

The Greeks used the terms "Syrian" and "Assyrian" interchangeably to indicate the indigenous Arameans, Assyrians and other inhabitants of the Near East, Herodotus considered "Syria" west of the Euphrates. Starting from the 2nd century BC onwards, ancient writers referred to the Seleucid ruler as the King of Syria or King of the Syrians. The Seleucids designated the districts of Seleucis and Coele-Syria explicitly as Syria and ruled the Syrians as indigenous populations residing west of the Euphrates (Aramea) in contrast to Assyrians who had their native homeland in Mesopotamia east of the Euphrates. However, the interchangeability between Assyrians and Syrians persisted during the Hellenistic period.

In one instance, the Ptolemies of Egypt reserved the term "Syrian Village" as the name of a settlement in Fayoum. The term "Syrians" is under debate whether it referred to Jews or to Arameans, as the Ptolemies referred to all peoples originating from Modern Syria and Palestine as Syrian.

The term Syrian was imposed upon Arameans of modern Levant by the Romans. Pompey created the province of Syria, which included modern-day Lebanon and Syria west of the Euphrates, framing the province as a regional social category with civic implications. Plutarch described the indigenous people of this newly created Roman province as "Syrians", so did Strabo, who observed that Syrians resided west of the Euphrates in Roman Syria, and he explicitly mentions that those Syrians are the Arameans, whom he calls Aramaei, indicating an extant ethnicity.

In his book The Great Roman-Jewish War, Josephus, a Hebrew native to the Levant, mentioned the Syrians as the non-Hebrew, non-Greek indigenous inhabitants of Syria.

The Arabs called Syria and the Levant Al-Sham. The national and ethnic designation "Syrian" is one that has been reused, accepted and espoused by the Syrian people since the advent of modern nationalism, which emanated from Europe and began with the culmination of the Napoleonic Wars of the early 1800s.

Identity

Besides religious identities, the Syrian people is split between three identities, namely the Arab, Syriac, and Syrian identities. Many Muslims and some Arabic-speaking Christians describe themselves as Arabs, while many Aramaic-speaking Christians and a minority of Muslims prefer to describe themselves as Syriacs or Arameans. Also some people from Syria, mainly Syrian nationalists, describe themselves as only Syrians.

Ethnogenesis

The inhabitants of Syria descend from the ancient Semitic peoples of antiquity, mainly the Arameans and Phoenicians, as well as from the pre- and post-conquest Arabs of the 7th century. The majority of the Syrian people who refer to themselves as Arabs are the result of the linguistic Arabization of Syria following the Muslim conquest of the Levant.

Arabisation and Islamization of Syria began in the 7th century, while it took several centuries for Islam, the Arab identity, and language to spread. Syrians welcomed the Arabs as liberators which made Arabisation and conversion faster. The Arabs had a policy of segregating indigenous Syrians from Arab tribes; they built new settlements to accommodate the new tribes which limited the ethnic assimilation of the original "Arabised" Arameans. Caliph Uthman specifically ordered his governor, Muawiyah I, to settle the new tribes away from the original population. However, the ascendancy of Arabic as the formal language of the state prompted the cultural and linguistic assimilation of Syrian converts.

While the Umayyad Caliphate showed some religious tolerance, the Abbasid Caliphate had a different approach, and by the time of the Crusades (1100 AD) most Syrians adopted Islam and were culturally and linguistically fully Arabised. The new Muslim converts mixed with the Arabs and shifted to an Arab racial identity, but the mixing didn't change the genetic pool dramatically.

Many Christians lost their identity and adopted an Arab racial identity, becoming indistinguishable from the Arab Christians of pre-conquest era, while those who kept their racial characteristics maintained the Syrian identity and are mainly divided between two groups:

Genetics

Genetic tests on Syrians were included in many genetic studies, the genetic marker which identifies descendants of the ancient Levantines is found among members of all Levantines from different religious groups. Syrian Muslims show a slightly more Arabian genetic influx than their fellow Christians. The most common Haplogroup is J represented by its subclades (branches) J1 and J2.

The paternal Y-DNA haplogroups J1 (which reaches it highest frequencies in Yemen 72.6% and Qatar 58.3%) accounted for 33.6% of Syrians. J1 has its highest frequency in people belonging to the Ismailis of Damascus with 58.8%, while reaching its lowest frequency among the Arameans of Ma'loula with 6.8%. Other frequencies are 14.7% for Druze, 47.2% for Sunnis of Hama, 14.3% for Syriac Catholics of Saidnaya and 26.7% among the Alawites population.

The J2 group accounted for 20.8% of Syrians, other Y-DNA haplogroups includes the E1B1B 12.0%, I 5.0%, R1a 10.0% and R1b 15.0%.

The Syrian people cluster the closest with the Lebanese, then the Palestinians, Jews and then the Jordanians.

Language

Arabic is the mother tongue of more than 90% of Syrians as well as the official state language. The Syrian variety of Levantine Arabic varies little from Modern Standard Arabic. A direct descendant of the Palestinian Aramaic spoken by Jesus, a variety of Western Neo-Aramaic, is still spoken in the ancient Christian village of Ma'loula by Muslim and Christian residents. Aramaic is further widely understood by Syrian-Christian communities — all of whom use Syriac as a liturgical language. English, and to a lesser extent French, is widely understood and used in interactions with tourists and other foreigners.

Religion and minority groups

Religious differences in Syria have historically been tolerated, and religious minorities tend to retain distinct cultural, and religious identities. Sunni Islam is the religion of 74% of Syrians. The Alawites, a variety of Shia Islam, make up 12% of the population and mostly live in and around Tartus and Latakia. Christians make up 10% of the country. Most Syrian Christians adhere to the Byzantine Rite; the two largest are the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and the Melkite Greek Catholic Church. The Druze are a mountainous people who reside in Jabal al-Druze who helped spark the Great Syrian Revolt. The Ismailis are an even smaller sect that originated in Asia. Many Armenian and Assyrian Christians fled Turkey during the Armenian Genocide and the Assyrian genocide and settled in Syria. There are also roughly 500,000 Palestinians, who are mostly descendants of refugees from the 1948 Israeli-Arab War. The community of Syrian Jews inside Syria once numbered 30,000 in 1947, but has only 200 today.

The Syrian people's beliefs and outlooks, similar to those of most Arabs and people of the wider Middle-East, are a mosaic of West and East. Conservative and liberally minded people will live right next to each other, and hold debates with each other. Like the other countries in the region, religion permeates life; the government registers every Syrian's religious affiliation.

Cuisine

Syrian cuisine is dominated by ingredients native to the region. Olive oil, garlic, olives, peppermint, and sesame oil are some of the ingredients that are used in many traditional meals. Traditional Syrian dishes enjoyed by Syrians include, tabbouleh, labaneh, shanklish, wara' 'enab, makdous, kebab, Kibbeh, sfiha, moutabal, hummus, mana'eesh, bameh, and fattoush.

Before the main courses, Syrians eat meze, which is basically an appetizer. Meze is usually served with Arab-style tea - highly concentrated black tea, which is highly sweetened and served in small glass cups. Another popular drink, especially with Christians and non-practicing Muslims, is the arak, a liquor produced from grapes or dates and flavored with anise that can have an alcohol content of over 90% ABV (however, most commercial Syrian arak brands are about 40-60% ABV).

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