ShamZa's blog: "About Assyrians.."

Religion .. Assyrians became Christians during the first century AD,[53] though not until during the third century had they all become Christians.[29] Some Assyrians also claim that their ancestors became Christians during the lifetime of Jesus.[66] Jesus spoke of "Men of Nineveh", repenting from their old sins; this refers to when the prophet Jonah visited the Assyrian capital Nineveh: The men of Nineveh shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here. – Luke 11:32, King James Version

Language.. The ancient Assyrian tongue was referred to as the Akkadian language (also called Assyro-Babylonian),[24] an East Semitic language written in cuneiform script. After the Assyrian empire expanded westward, Aramaic gradually became the dominant tongue.[24] Aramaic was declared an auxiliary language by King Ashur-nirari V in 752 BC[citation needed] and became a lingua franca under Achaemenid Dynasty of Persia.[33] By the first century AD, Akkadian was extinct. Modern Syriac, however, shares some of its vocabulary, as both are Semitic languages,[63] and a result of vocabulary remnants from the Akkadian language still being preserved in the modern Syriac language.[31] Most Assyrians speak a modern form of Syriac,[64] an Eastern Aramaic language whose dialects include Chaldean and Turoyo as well as Assyrian. All are classified as Neo-Aramaic languages and are written using Syriac script, a derivative of the ancient Aramaic script. Assyrians also may speak one or more languages of their country of residence. To the native speaker, "Syriac" is usually called Soureth or Suryoyo. A wide variety of dialects exist, including Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, Chaldean Neo-Aramaic, and Turoyo. By modern linguistics, a more common classification for the language is "neo-Syriac". Being stateless, Assyrians also learn the language or languages of their adopted country, usually Arabic, Armenian, Persian or Turkish. In northern Iraq and western Iran, Kurdish is widely spoken. Recent archaeological evidence includes a statue from Syria with Assyrian and Aramaic inscriptions.[65] It is the oldest known Aramaic text.

Culture.. Assyrian culture is dictated by religion. The language is also tied to the church as well for it uses the Syriac language in liturgy. Festivals occur during religious holidays such as Easter and Christmas. There are also secular holidays such as Akitu (the Assyrian New Year).[62] People often greet and bid relatives farewell with a kiss on each cheek and by saying "Peace be upon you." Others are greeted with a handshake with the right hand only; according to Middle Eastern customs, the left hand is associated with evil. Similarly, shoes may not be left facing up, one may not have their feet facing anyone directly, whistling at night is thought to waken evil spirits, etc. There are many Assyrian customs that are common in other Middle Eastern cultures. A parent will often place an eye pendant on their baby to prevent "an evil eye being cast upon it".[citation needed] Spitting on anyone or their belongings is seen as a grave insult. There are Assyrians that are not very religious yet they may be very nationalistic. Assyrians are proud of their heritage, their Christianity, and of speaking the language of Christ. Children are often given Christian or Assyrian names such as Ashur, Sargon, Shamiram, Nineveh, Ninos, Nimrod, etc. Baptism and First Communion are heavily celebrated events similar to how a Bris and a Bar Mitzvah are in Judaism. When an Assyrian person dies, three days after they are buried they gather to celebrate them rising to heaven (as did Jesus), after seven days they again gather to commemorate their passing. A close family member wears only black clothes for forty days and forty nights. Or sometimes one year as a sign of respect.

History... The Assyrian people are descended from the population of the ancient Assyrian Empire, which itself emerged from the Akkadian Empire founded by Sargon of Akkad.[22][23][24] Eventually, Assyrian kings conquered Aramaean tribes and assimilated them into the Assyrian empire,[25][26][27] and their language, Aramaic, accordingly supplanted the native Akkadian language,[24][28][29] due in part to the mass relocations enforced by Assyrian kings of the Neo-Assyrian period.[30] However, the modern neo-Aramaic language spoken by modern Assyrians (i.e., neo-Syriac), is still influenced by the ancient Akkadian language.[31] The modern Assyrian identity is therefore believed to be a miscegenation, or ethnogenesis, of the major ethnic groups which inhabited Assyria-proper, which were, for the most part, Assyrian, and to some extent, Aramaean.[32] By the 5th century BC, "Imperial Aramaic" had become lingua franca in the Achaemenid Empire.[33] The Assyrian people are believed to have descended from the ancient Assyrians of Mesopotamia (Aramaic: Bet-Nahrain, "the land of the rivers"), who, in the 7th century BC, controlled a vast empire which stretched from Egypt and Anatolia, across the land between two rivers, to western Iran. Tradition maintains that the history of the Assyrian people stretches back over 6,500 years, to the dawn of Mesopotamian civilization.[34] Culturally and linguistically distinct from, although quite influenced by, their neighbours in the Middle East - the Arabs, Persians, Kurds, Turks, and Armenians - the Assyrians have endured much hardship throughout their recent history as a result of religious and ethnic persecution.[35][36]

Assyrian People ... The Assyrians (also called Syriacs or Chaldeans; see names of Syriac Christians) are an ethnic group whose origins lie in what is today Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria,[17] but many of whom have migrated to the Caucasus, North America and Western Europe during the past century. Hundreds of thousands more live in Assyrian diaspora and Iraqi refugee communities in Europe, the former Soviet Union, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon. As a result of persecution in the wake of the First World War, there is now a significant diaspora. Major events included the Islamic revolution in Iran,[18] the Simele massacre in Iraq, and the Assyrian genocide in what is today Turkey. The latest event to hit the Assyrian community is the war in Iraq; of the one million or more Iraqis reported by the United Nations to have fled, forty percent (40%) are Assyrian, despite Assyrians comprising only three to five percent of the Iraqi population