The Syriac language is the Aramaic language itself, and the Arameans are the Syrians themselves. He who has made a distinction between them has erred.
The Syriac Orthodox Patriarch H.H. Mor Ignatius Zaka I Iwas in The Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch At A Glance (2008; 19831), p. 25.
In the early Byzantine period and the first centuries of Islam, Tūr ‘Abdīn was probably inhabited almost entirely by Christian Arameans. Later, more and more Muslims (mainly Kurds) settled there.
W.P. Heinrichs, “Tūr ‘Abdīn,” in P.J. Bearman et al. (eds.), in The Encyclopaedia of Islam Vol. X (Leiden: Brill, 2000), p. 666.
The Greeks and Romans knew the Near East mainly through the Arameans, for it was they who united and canalized the sources of its culture, bringing together Babylonian, Persian and Hebrew elements and transmitting them to Christianity, and with Christianity to the West. From the West, at a later date, the Arameans were to bring to the East Greek culture, especially philosophy, which became known to the Arabs through the medium of Aramaic.
S. Moscati, Ancient Semitic Civilizations (New York, 1957), p. 179.
