What is Syriac? Syriac refers to Aramaic, which was the universal language for over a thousand years in the Near East, what the Greeks called Mesopotamia, and what we call, Beth Nahreen (The Home of Two Rivers). When the word Aramaic was used, it typically referred to the Pagans as opposed to the faith given to us by God. A Syrian (Nowadays we say Syriac so as not to confuse with the country called Syria), is a Christian Aramean. More than that, the term Syriac emcompases many different nations in Beth Nahreen, including but not limited to; the Akkadians, the Arameans, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Chaldeans, the Hebrews, and the Phonecians.

Let's Begin - We shall begin by learning how to read and write the 2 major Aramaic alphabets, and also the Hebrew alphabet (which may come into play later). Notice the similarities in characters.

For the purposes of our study, we will be using Serto more often (especially if we get into Turoyo later on).

Serto is the most recent evolution of the Aramaic alphabet and is used in the Western Syriac tradition.

Estrangelo is an older form of the Syriac alphabet, which was used by the authors at the time when the New Testament was put together. The word Estrangelo comes from 2 Syriac words, "sroto"=to write, and "evangelion"=gospel. Put together, the two words mean "happy message".

The old Square Aramaic characters were used by many Arameans, but made popular by the Hebrews. This Alphabet was the primary alphabet of the Old Testament, and the Hebrew language, which itself, is a dialect of Aramaic. While the Hebrew dialect serves a historical purpose here, it will only come into our discussions at a later time.

The Syriac vowels often float on top of words so as to convey the vowel sound. The Eastern Dialect and Hebrew each have a similar system using a series of dots. The vowels are as follows:

Ftoho - Read "a" as in Fan or Van.

Zqofo - Read "o" as in No.

Rboso - Read "e" as in When.

Hboso - Read "i" as in Heat

Soso - Read "u" as in Flue