Chaldaeans

Chaldaeans (Kaldani), Semitic Christian communities in Mossul, the Kurdistan Mountains, opposite Lake Urumiah, and elsewhere in Persia and Turkey; by some supposed to be descended from the ten lost tribes, by others to represent the old Assyrians; commonly but wrongly called "Nestorians," being simply Eastern Christians with a national liturgy. The term Kaldi occurs in Assyrian cuneiform writings at least 900 years before Christ as the national name of the later Babylonians ("Chaldaeans"), who were of Semitic stock and speech, closely allied to the Assyrians. The present speech (Chaldee) is a corrupt Aramaic (Syriac) dialect written in a modified form of the Estranghelo (Old Syriac) alphabet. Amongst them American Protestant missionaries have long been at work.