[10] Term Ṭuroyo comes from the word ṭuro, meaning 'mountain', thus designating a specific Neo-Aramaic language of the mountain region of Tur Abdin in southeastern part of modern Turkey (hence Turabdinian Aramaic).

However, it has also been influenced by Classical Syriac, which itself was the variety of the Eastern Middle Aramaic spoken farther west, in the city of Edessa, today known as Urfa.

Due to the proximity of Tur Abdin to Edessa, and the closeness of their parent languages, meant that Turoyo bears a greater similarity to Classical Syriac than do Northeastern Neo-Aramaic varieties.

[15][16] The Turoyo-speaking population prior to the Assyrian genocide largely adhered to the Syriac Orthodox Church.

In the 1880s, various attempts were made, with the encouragement of western missionaries, to write Turoyo in the Syriac alphabet, in the Serto and in Estrangelo script used for West-Syriac Kthobhonoyo.

One of the first comprehensive studies of the language was published in 1881, by orientalists Eugen Prym and Albert Socin, who classified it as a Neo-Aramaic dialect.

[19] However, with upheaval in their homeland through the twentieth century, many Turoyo speakers have emigrated around the world (particularly to Syria, Lebanon, Sweden and Germany).

[14] A closely related language or dialect, Mlaḥsô, spoken in two villages in Diyarbakır, is now deemed extinct.

[12][22] Attempts to write down Turoyo have begun since the 16th century, with Jewish Neo-Aramaic adaptions and translations of Biblical texts, commentaries, as well as hagiographic stories, books, and folktales in Christian dialects.

Justin Perkins also tried to write the vernacular version of religious texts, culminating in the production of school-cards in 1836.

[23] In 1970s Germany, members of the Aramean evangelical movement (Aramäische Freie Christengemeinde) used Turoyo to write short texts and songs.

In the 1970s, educator Yusuf Ishaq attempted to systematically incorporate the Turoyo language into a Latin orthography, which resulted in a series of reading books, entitled [toxu qorena].

[5] Although this system is not used outside of Sweden, other Turoyo speakers have developed their own non-standardized Latin script to use the language on digital platforms.

The additional phonemes /d͡ʒ/ (as in judge), /t͡ʃ/ (as in church) /ʒ/ (as in azure) and a few instances of /ðˤ/ (the Arabic ẓāʾ) mostly only appear in loanwords from other languages.