Syriac literature

In the wider sense, the term is often used as designation for both Classical Syriac and Modern Syriac literature,[4] but its historical scope is even wider, since Syrian/Syriac labels were originally used by ancient Greeks as designations for Aramaic language in general, including literature written in all variants of that language.

[8][9] Such plurality of meanings, both in ancient literary texts and in modern scholarly works, is further enhanced by the conventional scholarly exclusion of Western Aramaic heritage from the Syriac corpus, a practice that stands in contradiction not only with historical scope of the term, but also with well attested self-designations of native Syriac-speaking communities.

An important testimony of early Syriac is the letter of Mara bar Serapion, possibly written in the late 1st century (but extant in a 6th- or 7th-century copy).

The works of this period were more encyclopedic and scholastic, and include the biblical commentators Ishodad of Merv and Dionysius bar Salibi.

However, there has been a continuous stream of Syriac literature in Upper Mesopotamia and the Levant from the fourteenth century through to the present day.

Modern Syriac literature includes works in various colloquial Eastern Aramaic Neo-Aramaic languages still spoken by Assyrian Christians.

The comparative ease of modern publishing methods has encouraged other colloquial Neo-Aramaic languages, like Turoyo and Senaya, to begin to produce literature.