Assyrians are an indigenous ethnic group native to Mesopotamia, a geographical region in West Asia. Modern Assyrians descend directly from Ancient Mesopotamians such as ancient Assyrians and Babylonians. Modern Assyrians may culturally self-identify as Syriacs, Chaldeans, or Arameans for religious, geographic, and tribal identification.
Beth Nahrain ; "between (two) rivers") is the name for the region known as Mesopotamia in the Syriac language. Geographically, it refers to the areas between and surrounding the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. The Aramaic name also refers to the area around the rivers, not only literally between the rivers.
The Assyrian diaspora refers to ethnic Assyrians living in communities outside their ancestral homeland. The Eastern Aramaic-speaking Assyrians claim descent from the ancient Assyrians and are one of the few ancient Semitic ethnicities in the Near East who resisted Arabization, Turkification, Persianization and Islamization during and after the Muslim conquest of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey.
Rosie Malek-Yonan is an Assyrian-American actress, author, director, public figure and activist. Malek-Yonan became a noted pianist at an early age. Having graduated from the University of Cambridge, she settled in the United States, where she pursued a career in music and dramatic arts. As an actress she appeared in well over 30 films and television series, including Up Close & Personal (1996) and Rendition (2007), as well as, among others, Generations, Dynasty, CSI: Miami, JAG, ER and Babylon 5.
George Malek-Yonan (1924-2014) was an Iranian Assyrian international attorney, politician and athlete, and father of actress Rosie Malek-Yonan.
Nuri Kino,, is a Swedish-Assyrian award-winning investigative journalist, documentary filmmaker, author and human rights expert. He is the author of several nonfiction books, and hundreds of stories and reports from the Middle East, western and eastern Europe as well as Africa over the past two decades. He has won awards for his reporting on human-rights issues, and is the founder of human rights organization A Demand For Action (ADFA) which advocates for persecuted minorities in Iraq, Syria, Turkey and elsewhere in the Middle East.
The Assyrian homeland, Assyria, refers to the homeland of the Assyrian people within which Assyrian civilisation developed, located in their indigenous Upper Mesopotamia. The territory that forms the Assyrian homeland is, similarly to the rest of Mesopotamia, currently divided between present-day Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria. In Iran, the Urmia Plain forms a thin margin of the ancestral Assyrian homeland in the north-west, and the only section of the Assyrian homeland beyond the Mesopotamian region. The majority of Assyrians in Iran currently reside in the capital city, Tehran.
Assyrian Americans refers to individuals of ethnic Assyrian ancestry born in or residing within the United States. Assyrians are an indigenous Middle Eastern ethnic group native to Mesopotamia in West Asia who descend from their ancient counterparts, directly originating from the ancient indigenous Mesopotamians of Akkad and Sumer who first developed the independent civilisation in northern Mesopotamia that would become Assyria in 2600 BC. Modern Assyrians often culturally self-identify as Syriacs, Chaldeans, or Arameans for religious and tribal identification. The first significant wave of Assyrian immigration to the United States was due to the Sayfo genocide in the Assyrian homeland in 1914–1924.
Assyrians/Syriacs in Sweden are citizens and residents of Sweden who are of Assyrian/Syriac descent. There are approximately 150,000 Assyrians/Syriacs in Sweden.
Paulus Khofri, was an Assyrian composer, lyricist and painter. He was born August 7, 1923, in Baghdad, Iraq and died in Tehran, Iran in May 2000 at the age of 77.
Sargon Dadesho is an Iraqi-American author, broadcaster, activist, and nationalist leader of Assyrian descent. Dadesho is currently the head of various Assyrian organizations and political parties.
Assyrian nationalism is a movement of the Assyrian people that advocates for independence or autonomy within the regions they inhabit in northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, northwestern Iran, and southeastern Turkey.
John B. Joseph was an Assyrian-American educator and historian of Middle Eastern studies. He taught courses on the history of the Middle East and its relationship with the West at Franklin & Marshall College (F&M) in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, from 1961 to 1988.
Assyrian folk/pop music, also known as Assyrian folk-pop or modern Syriac music, is the musical style of the Assyrian people derived from traditional music that includes a broad range of stylistic varieties, which would also encompass fusions of Western genres such as pop, electronic, Latin, jazz and/or classical music, with a melodic basis of Assyrian folk.
Kha b-Nisan, Ha b-Nisin, or Ha b-Nison, also known as Resha d-Sheta and as Akitu (ܐܟܝܬܘ), or Assyrian New Year, is the spring festival among the indigenous Assyrians of northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and northwestern Iran, celebrated on the first day of April.
Tyari is an Assyrian tribe and a historical district within Hakkari, Turkey. The area was traditionally divided into Upper and Lower Tyari –each consisting of several Assyrian villages. Both Upper and Lower Tyari are located on the western bank of the Zab river. Today, the district mostly sits in around the town of Çukurca. Historically, the largest village of the region was known as Ashitha. According to Hannibal Travis the Tyari Assyrians were known for their skills in weaving and knitting.
Barwari is a region in the Hakkari mountains in northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey. The region is inhabited by Assyrians and Kurds, and was formerly also home to a number of Jews prior to their emigration to Israel in 1951. It is divided between northern Barwari in Turkey, and southern Barwari in Iraq. The Assyrian people who inhabit this speak dialects of Suret, a modern form of the Aramaic language.
Dooreh is a village in Dohuk Governorate in Kurdistan Region, Iraq. It is located near the Iraq–Turkey border in the Amadiya District and the historical region of Barwari.
Sonia Odisho is an Assyrian singer-songwriter from Zakho, Iraq. She is currently currently based in Sydney, Australia.
