Assyrian Cultural Production in Baathist Iraq
In 2014, I enrolled in a beginners’ Syriac course at SOAS, motivated largely by curiosity. The lectures concentrated on the Peshitta and Classical Syriac, which is the usual focus for learners in Anglo-American academic institutions. Nevertheless, it soon became apparent that Syriac, far from being the preserve of a priestly-academic class, was part of a…
Lives Seen: Anatolian Arabic, Azakh and Authorial Authority
In a previous blog post, I noted how the Treaty of Lausanne established, among other things, official recognition of the communal rights of the Greeks of Istanbul, Armenians and Jews by the Ottoman Empire. These rights included mother-tongue education, religious instruction, and publishing activities. To assume that these three were the only minorities to benefit…
From Altay to Yughur 