ABSTRACT
This North-West Semitic language, centring on the Mesopotamian city of Edessa (present-day Urfa in Turkey) was one of the most important derivatives of literary Aramaic. The oldest inscriptions in what is recognizably Syriac go back to the turn of the millennia. From the third to the seventh century, Syriac was the medium for a rich and important Christian literature, comprising both original writing and translation from Greek. The Syriac Vulgate is represented by the peshitta, i.e. 'simple', redaction of the Old Syriac translation of the New Testament. The peshitta was more or less complete by the end of the fourth century.
