Editing Suret language (section)

== Literature ==
{{main|Syriac literature}}
Early Syriac texts still date to the 2nd century, notably the [[Peshitta|Syriac Bible]] and the ''[[Diatesseron]]'' Gospel harmony. The bulk of Syriac literary production dates to between the 4th and 8th centuries.
Classical Syriac literacy survives into the 9th century, though Syriac Christian authors in this period increasingly wrote in [[Arabic]]. The emergence of spoken [[Neo-Aramaic languages|Neo-Aramaic]] is conventionally dated to the 13th century, but a number of authors continued producing literary works in Syriac in the later medieval period.{{sfn|Brock|1996|p=}}

Because Assyrian, alongside [[Turoyo]], is the most widely spoken variety of Syriac today, modern Syriac literature would therefore usually be written in those varieties.<ref>Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron Michael Butts, George Anton Kiraz & Lucas Van Rompay (eds.), Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, Piscataway (NJ), Gorgias Press, 2011</ref> The conversion of the [[Mongols]] to Islam began a period of retreat and hardship for [[Syriac Christianity]] and its adherents, although there still has been a continuous stream of Syriac literature in [[Upper Mesopotamia]] and the [[Levant]] from the 14th century through to the present day. This has included the flourishing of literature from the various colloquial [[Eastern Aramaic languages|Eastern Aramaic]] [[Neo-Aramaic languages|Neo-Aramaic]] languages still spoken by [[Assyrian people|Assyrians]].

This ''Neo-Syriac'' literature bears a dual tradition: it continues the traditions of the Syriac literature of the past and it incorporates a converging stream of the less homogeneous spoken language. The first such flourishing of Neo-Syriac was the seventeenth century literature of the School of [[Alqosh]], in northern [[Iraq]].<ref>William Wright: ''A Short History of Syriac Literature'', 1894, 1974 (reprint)</ref> This literature led to the establishment of Assyrian Aramaic as written literary languages.

In the nineteenth century, [[printing press]]es were established in [[Urmia]], in northern [[Iran]]. This led to the establishment of the 'General Urmian' dialect of Assyrian Neo-Aramaic as the standard in much Neo-Syriac Assyrian literature up until the 20th century. The ''Urmia Bible'', published in 1852 by Justin Perkins was based on the [[Peshitta]], where it included a parallel translation in the Urmian dialect. The comparative ease of modern publishing methods has encouraged other colloquial Neo-Aramaic languages, like Turoyo, to begin to produce literature.{{sfn|Brock|1992|p=}}{{sfn|Brock|2006|p=}}
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