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- Quoting again from Wikipedia:
- “From the 1st century A.D., Syriac became the vehicle of Syriac Christianity and culture, and the liturgical language of the Syriac Orthodox Church and subsequently Assyrian Church of the East, together with the later offshoots of the Assyrian Church; the Nestorian Church, Chaldean Catholic Church, Ancient Church of the East, Saint Thomas Christian Churches, and Assyrian Pentecostal Church. Syriac Christianity and language spread throughout Asia as far as the Indian Malabar Coast and Eastern China, and was the medium of communication and cultural dissemination for the later Arabs and, to a lesser extent, the Parthian Empire and Sassanid Empire Persians. Primarily a Christian medium of expression, Syriac had a fundamental cultural and literary influence on the development of Arabic, which largely replaced it towards the 14th century. Syriac remains the liturgical language of Syriac Christianity to this day.”