r/Assyria • u/Accurate-Primary9038 • Nov 28 '24
History/Culture What was the vernacular of most Levantines in the Byzantine era?
I know that the liturgical, intellectual, and administrative language was Greek. And I think Aramaic must have been a considerable presence given that the Maronite Church used to use it in their liturgy, and it continues to be spoken in Maaloula.
But was Aramaic the universal vernacular of the population? Did urban and wealthier Levantines gravitate to Greek? What was the socioeconomic status of most Aramaic speakers?
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u/Similar-Machine8487 Nov 28 '24
It was Aramaic. Greek was spoken by the elites and Greek settlers, mostly. Most of the population were native, Hellenized Assyrians who spoke Assyrian “Suryon”.
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u/NewOrder010 27d ago
Aramaic, Koine Greek (Alexandrian Text Type) and Vulgar Latin.
Most popular was Aramaic, letters written by commoners (such as Mara bar Serapion and Kingdom of Osroene)
Koine Greek is common in surviving scholarly texts and governmental papers.
Vulgar Latin was very rare in use, trace use of words in inscriptions only survive to this day.
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u/GPT_2025 29d ago
About yours question from Siberian Fasting: They do only Bible Fasting (zero food for few hours or longer, up to 3 days. (No, they do not do unbiblical from man- made traditions fasting )
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u/MannyH12345 Nov 28 '24
Aramaic was the "lingua Franca". The language of the land. Essentially the language of the world(or a lot of it) at the time.