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Arabs represent the major ethnicity in Syria, in addition to the presence of several, much smaller ethnic groups.
Ethnicity and religion are intertwined in Syria as in other countries in the region, but there are also nondenominational, supraethnic and suprareligious political identities, like Syrian nationalism.
Since the 1960 census there has been no counting of Syrians by religion, and there has never been any official counting by ethnicity or language. In the 1943 and 1953 censuses the various denominations were counted separately, e.g. for every Christian denomination. In 1960 Syrian Christians were counted as a whole but Muslims were still counted separately between Sunnis and Alawis. [1] [2] [3]
The majority of Syrians speak Arabic, except for a minority of Assyrians, Mandeans and 'Arameans of the Anti-Lebanon mountains' who speak Neo-Aramaic; Kurdish speaking Syrian Kurds; Turkish speaking Syrian Turkmens; and Armenian speakers who altogether form 5-10% of the population. Syrian Arab Sunni Muslims form ~70-75% of the populace, Christians altogether around 10%, Alawites at 10%, and the remaining ~5-10% consist of minor ethnoreligious groups including the Druze (3%), Isma'ilis, Mhallami, Yezidi and Twelver Shiite Muslims (the latter two together also about 3%). [4] However, these percentages are only indicative.
The majority of Syrian Arabs speak a variety of dialects belonging to Levantine Arabic. Arab tribes and clans of Bedouin descent are mainly concentrated in the governorates of al-Hasakah, Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa and eastern Aleppo, forming roughly 20 to 30% of the total population and speaking a dialect related to Bedouin and Najdi Arabic. In Deir ez-Zor a dialect of North Mesopotamian Arabic is also spoken, reminiscent of that of medieval Iraq prior the Mongol invasions in 1258. [5]
Syrian Kurds form 5 to 10% of the Syrian population, the largest non-Arab minority. Yezidis, a non Muslim group are often counted among Kurds. Other non-Arabic-speaking Muslim groups include Syrian Turkmen, who had settled Syria in Mamluk and Ottoman times, Syrian Circassians and Syrian Chechens who settled in the 19th century, Syrian Bosniaks who settled in the 1870s and Greek Muslims who were resettled in Syria following the Greco-Turkish War of 1897. The Assyrians form a multi-denominational Christian minority, mainly in northeastern Syria, where they have been indigenous since the Bronze Age.
The Iraqi people are people originating from the country of Iraq.
This is a demography of the population of Lebanon including population density, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.
The Levant is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west and core West Asia, or by the political term, Middle East, to the east. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is equivalent to Cyprus and a stretch of land bordering the Mediterranean Sea in western Asia: i.e. the historical region of Syria, which includes present-day Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Palestinian territories and most of Turkey southwest of the middle Euphrates. Its overwhelming characteristic is that it represents the land bridge between Africa and Eurasia. In its widest historical sense, the Levant included all of the Eastern Mediterranean with its islands; that is, it included all of the countries along the Eastern Mediterranean shores, extending from Greece in Southern Europe to Egypt and Cyrenaica in Northern Africa.
The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They include Arabic, Amharic, Tigrinya, Aramaic, Hebrew, Maltese and numerous other ancient and modern languages. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Malta, and in large immigrant and expatriate communities in North America, Europe, and Australasia. The terminology was first used in the 1780s by members of the Göttingen school of history, who derived the name from Shem, one of the three sons of Noah in the Book of Genesis.
Syria's estimated pre–Syrian Civil War 2011 population was 22 ±.5 million permanent inhabitants, which included 21,124,000 Syrians, as well as 1.3 million Iraqi refugees and over 500,000 Palestinian refugees. The war makes an accurate count of the Syrian population difficult, as the numbers of Syrian refugees, internally displaced Syrians and casualty numbers are in flux. The CIA World Factbook showed an estimated 20.4m people as of July 2021. Of the pre-war population, six million are refugees outside the country, seven million are internally displaced, three million live in rebel-held territory, and two million live in the Kurdish-ruled Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.
Nineveh or Ninawa Governorate is a governorate in northern Iraq. It has an area of 37,323 km2 (14,410 sq mi) and an estimated population of 2,453,000 people as of 2003. Its largest city and provincial capital is Mosul, which lies across the Tigris river from the ruins of ancient Nineveh. Before 1976, it was called Mosul Province and included the present-day Dohuk Governorate. The second largest city is Tal Afar, which has an almost exclusively Turkmen population.
Western Neo-Aramaic, more commonly referred to as Siryon, is a modern variety of the Western Aramaic branch consisting of three closely related dialects. Today, it is spoken by Christian and Muslim Arameans (Syriacs) in only three villages – Maaloula, Jubb'adin and Bakhʽa – in the Anti-Lebanon mountains of western Syria. Bakhʽa was vastly destroyed during the war and most of the community fled to other parts of Syria or Lebanon. Western Neo-Aramaic is believed to be the closest living language to the language of Jesus, whose first language, according to scholarly consensus, was Galilean Aramaic belonging to the Western branch as well; all other remaining Neo-Aramaic languages are Eastern Aramaic.
Maaloula is a town in southwestern Syria. The town is located in the Rif Dimashq Governorate and is 56 km northeast of Damascus, and is built into the rugged mountainside at an altitude of more than 1,500m. It is known as one of three remaining villages where Western Neo-Aramaic is spoken, the other two being the nearby smaller villages of Jubb'adin and Bakhʽa. However, Bakhʽa was vastly destroyed during the Syrian Civil War, and all the inhabitants fled to other parts of Syria or to Lebanon.
Minorities in Iraq have been incredibly influential to the history of the country, and consist of various ethnic and religious groups. The largest minority group in Iraq is the Kurds, with Turkmen following shortly after. Prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Assyrians constituted a sizeable population of 1.5 million, and belonged to various different churches such as the Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, and the Syriac Orthodox/Catholic Churches. Other minority groups in Iraq include Armenians, Mandaeans, Baha'i, and Marsh Arabs, among others.
Iraqis are the native Middle Eastern citizens of the Republic of Iraq. Culturally, Iraqis are known for their hospitality, deep-rooted traditions, and a profound respect for both family and community. The majority of Iraqis are Muslims, split between Shia and Sunni sects, influencing much of their cultural practices, including art, literature, and daily life.
Several different denominations and sects of Islam are practised within Syria, who collectively constitute approximately 87% of the population and form a majority in most of the districts of the country.
Syrian Turkmen are Syrian citizens of Turkish origin who mainly trace their roots to Anatolia. Turkish-speaking Syrian Turkmen make up the third largest ethnic group in the country, after the Arabs and Kurds respectively.
The Arab world consists of the 22 members of the Arab League. As of 2023, the combined population of all the Arab states was around 473 million people.
For approximately a millennium, the Abrahamic religions have been predominant throughout all of the Middle East. The Abrahamic tradition itself and the three best-known Abrahamic religions originate from the Middle East: Judaism and Christianity emerged in the Levant in the 6th century BCE and the 1st century CE, respectively, while Islam emerged in Arabia in the 7th century CE.
Western Aramaic is a group of Aramaic dialects once spoken widely throughout the ancient Levant, predominantly in the south, and Sinai, including ancient Damascus, Nabatea, Judea, across the Palestine Region, Transjordan, Samaria as well as Lebanon and the basins of the Orontes as far as Aleppo in the north. The group was divided into several regional variants, spoken mainly by the Nabataeans, Palmyrenes, Mizrahi Jews, Melkites of Jewish and pagan descent, Samaritans, Galileans and Maronites. All of the Western Aramaic dialects are considered extinct today, except for the modern variety Western Neo-Aramaic, which is still spoken by the Arameans (Syriacs) in the towns of Maaloula and Jubb'adin in Damascus, Syria.
Religion in Syria refers to the range of religions practiced by the citizens of Syria. Historically, the region has been a mosaic of diverse faiths with a range of different sects within each of these religious communities.
Ethnic groups in the Middle East are ethnolinguistic groupings in the "transcontinental" region that is commonly a geopolitical term designating the intercontinental region comprising West Asia without the South Caucasus, and also comprising Egypt in North Africa. The Middle East has historically been a crossroad of different cultures and languages. Since the 1960s, the changes in political and economic factors have significantly altered the ethnic composition of groups in the region. While some ethnic groups have been present in the region for millennia, others have arrived fairly recently through immigration. The largest socioethnic groups in the region are Egyptians, Arabs, Turks, Persians, Kurds, and Azerbaijanis but there are dozens of other ethnic groups that have hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions of members.
The Syrian Civil War is an intensely sectarian war. However, the initial phases of the uprising in 2011 featured a broad, cross-sectarian opposition to the rule of Bashar al-Assad, reflecting a collective desire for political reform and social justice, transcending ethnic and religious divisions. Over time, the civil war has largely transformed into a conflict between ruling minority Alawite government and allied Shi'a governments such as Iran; pitted against the country's Sunni Muslim majority who are aligned with the Syrian opposition and its Turkish and Persian Gulf state backers. Sunni Muslims made up the majority of the former Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and many held high administrative positions, while Alawites and members of almost every minority were also been active on the rebel side.
Jubb'adin is a village in southern Syria, administratively part of the Rif Dimashq Governorate, located northeast of Damascus in the Qalamoun Mountains. Nearby localities include Saidnaya and Rankous to the southwest, Yabroud and Maaloula to the northeast, and Assal al-Ward to the northwest.
Al-Sarkha, Bakhʽah or Bakh'a is a Syrian village in the Yabroud District of the Rif Dimashq Governorate. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Al-Sarkha had a population of 1,405 in the 2004 census. The village, inhabited by Sunni Muslims of Aramean descent, it was vastly damaged during the Syrian Civil War, and most of the inhabitants fled to other parts of Syria or to Lebanon as refugees. It is one of the only three remaining villages where Western Neo-Aramaic is spoken, alongside Maaloula and Jubb'adin.
السريان في معلولا وجبعدين ولا يزال الأهلون فيها يتكلمون
... معلولا السريان منذ القديم ، والذين ثبتت سريانيتهم بأدلة كثيرة هم وعين التينة وبخعا وجبعدين فحافظوا على لغتهم وكتبهم أكثر من غيرهم . وكان للقوم في تلك الأيام لهجتان ، لهجة عاميّة وهي الباقية الآن في معلولا وجوارها ( جبعدين وبخعا ) ...
Ich kenne das Dorf nicht, doch gehört habe ich davon. Was ist mit Malula?‹ fragte der festgehaltene Derwisch. >Das letzte Dorf der Aramäer< lachte einer der…
The fact that nearly all Arabic loans in Ma'lula originate from the period before the change from the rural dialect to the city dialect of Damascus shows that the contact between the Aramaeans and the Arabs was intimate…
Aramäer von Ǧubbˁadīn
Die arabischen Dialekte der Aramäer
Die Kontakte zwischen den drei Aramäer-dörfern sind nicht besonders stark.
Aramäern in Ma'lūla
Viele Aramäer arbeiten heute in Damaskus, Beirut oder in den Golfstaaten und verbringen nur die Sommermonate im Dorf.
