Greater Syria - Names For Syria

Names For Syria

"Greater Syria" is not always precisely synonymous with Levant, since Greater Syria can refer to a smaller region, while the Levant can refer to a larger region. For much of the history of the Middle East, Syria was closely integrated and shared a common culture and economy. The colonialism of the post-World War I years and the rise of a number of states in the region has ended this unity. It is still useful for historians looking at pre-twentieth century history to consider it as a region, however.

The name Syria derives from the ancient Greek name for Syrians, Σύριοι Syrioi, which the Greeks applied without distinction to various Assyrian people. Modern scholarship confirms the Greek word traces back to the cognate Ἀσσυρία, Assyria, ultimately derived from the Akkadian Aššur,

Syria was known to Arabian Arabs as Shām, which comes from the root SH-ʔ-M, meaning "sublime" and "victorious". A well known Arabic name that comes from this is Hisham, whereas Yemen comes from the root Y-M-N, meaning "fortune" and "right direction". Note that the name Sham has no valid etymological connection with the Biblical figure Shem son of Noah, which appears in Arabic as Sām سام (with a different initial consonant, and without any internal glottal stop consonant). There is also a connection with the word shams "sun" (as in Majdal Shams or ash-Shams).

The classical Arabic pronunciation of Syria is Sūriyya (as opposed to the MSA common pronunciation Sūrya). This name was not widely used among Muslims before about 1870, though it had been used by Christians earlier. According to the Syrian Orthodox Church, "Syrian" (sūriy سوري) used to mean "Christian" in early Christianity. In English, "Syrian" historically meant a Syrian Christian (as in, e.g., Ephraim the Syrian). Following the declaration of the Syrian Arab Republic in 1936, the term "Syrian" became to designate citizens of that state regardless of ethnicity. The adjective "Syriac" (suryāni سرياني) has come into common use since as a demonym to avoid the ambiguity of "Syrian".

Currently, the Arabic term Suriyya refers to the modern state of Syria (as opposed to the whole Greater Syria region), but this distinction was not as clear before the mid 20th-century. The Hashemite dream of a Greater Syrian Arab kingdom was frustrated after World War I due to the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and the uniting of the separate French mandates in Syria into one unified entity in 1936.