ASSYRIAN LANGUAGE
Understanding The Assyrian Language & Providing Professional Assyrian Interpreters, Translators and Transcriptionists
American Language Services (AML-Global) understands the importance of working in the Assyrian language. For over a Quarter of a Century, American Language Services has worked with the Assyrian language as well as hundreds of others from around the world. We offer comprehensive language services 24 hours, 7 days a week worldwide by providing Assyrian interpreting, translation and transcriptions services along with hundreds of other languages and dialects. Our linguists are native speakers and writers who are screened, credentialed, certified, field tested and experienced in a number of specific industry settings. The Assyrian language is unique and has very specific origins and characteristics.
Assyrian, The Ancient Language
The Assyrian is a Semitic language that is part of the greater Afro-Asiatic language family. The language began its decline around 8th century BCE and was marginalized by Aramaic but is still taught today by priests and scholars. Where you will find Assyrian speakers is along the Tigres-Euphrates river system bordering parts of northeastern Syria, some parts of southeastern Turkey and Provinces of southwestern Iran. Here you can tour the pleasures of these areas and explore the deep Mesopotamia history that they provide. Commonly known as the “cradle of civilization” the Mesopotamian Bronze age included a number of powerful empires until the 7th century Islamic conquest of the Sassanid Empire. Understanding Assyrian will help you gain additional insight to the rich history from where this language came from.
The Writing System of Assyrian
Because the Assyrian language is so ancient, Assyrian scribes wrote the language, originally, in cuneiform script (an earlier writing system devised by the Sumerians using wedge-shaped signs pressed in wet clay). There are many problems with this, namely the inability to represent important phonemes in Semitic. Eventually the writing system became more complicated and evolved into pictograms, cuneiform and into phonetic complement. Eventually Assyrians switched to Aramaic but it was not a complete transplantation. The type of Aramaic that Assyrians spoke was, and still is, heavily infused with Akkadian words as it is today. Scholars still practice the writing style of the Assyrian alphabet because of its rich history and linkage to biblical language. .
The Phonology of Assyrian
Although Assyrian was mostly replaced by modern Akkadian language, there are certain Proto-Semitic phonemes vital to ancient biblical languages that are lost in Akkadian. The Proto-Semitic glottal stop, as well as the fricatives, are lost as consonants, either by sound change or orthographically, but they gave rise to the vowel quality e not exhibited in Proto-Semitic. Priests practice the proper use of the Assyrian phonology to preserve the integrity of religious writings. Akkadian, unlike Arabic, has mainly regular plurals (i.e. no broken plurals), although some masculine words take feminine plurals. In that respect, it is similar to Hebrew and Maltese.
Who are You Going to Trust with Your Vital Assyrian Language Needs?
The Assyrian language is an important language worldwide. It is vital to understand the general nature and specific idiosyncrasies of Assyrian. Since 1985, AML-Global has provided outstanding Assyrian interpreters, translators and transcriptionsts worldwide.
