Learn Assyrian › Grammar

A note on dialect (read once, then forget about it)

About this guide · a plain-language guide to Assyrian (Sureth) grammar

Assyrian has several regional flavors. This guide teaches through the Urmi dialect of Assyrian — the Christian variety spoken around Urmia and carried by that community — for two good reasons: it's the dialect these materials are built on, and it became the basis of standard literary Assyrian, so it travels well and is widely understood.

If your family's Assyrian comes from somewhere else (say the Iraqi/Chaldean side), you'll still recognize the great majority of what's here — the bones are shared. A handful of words and sounds differ between regions; where a form belongs to the Urmi dialect specifically (and not to general Assyrian), it's flagged so you're never misled. Everything else is simply Assyrian.