Syriac Alphabets

"The terms ‘Aramaeans’ and ‘Syrians’, ‘Aram’ and ‘Syria’, are synonymous. The Hebrew aram is rendered in the Septuagint by ‘Syria’. However, the term ‘Syriac’ denotes the ancient Semitic language and literature of the ‘Syriac’ Christians, but is not synonymous with ‘Christian inhabitants of Syria’; it roughly denotes those Christians who employed the Syrian descendant of Aramaic or were part of the Syriac Church under the influence of Syriac thought and hellenistic culture. Syriac was then the language and script of the extensive Syriac literature, which is a Christian literature in a very special sense, consisting entirely of original documents dealing exclusively with Christian subjects."

"The Edessan dialect became the liturgical language of the Syriac Church, the literary language of the Christian Aramaeans of Syria and of the neighbouring countries, even of Persia. Syriac literature flourished mainly in the fourth to seventh centuries."

While "Aram" and "Syria" are historically synonymous terms for the region and its people, "Syriac" refers specifically to the Semitic language, script, and Christian literature that originated from the Edessan dialect. Emerging as the literary language of Christian Arameans, this extensive literature flourished between the fourth and seventh centuries across Syria and neighboring regions.