Nestorians

Nestorians, Christian sectaries, long established in the Lake Urmia district, north-west Persia, the Kurdistan mountains, about the Perso-Turkish frontier, and in Mossul, Diarbekr, and other places in the Upper Tigris Valley within the Turkish frontier; total population, about 200,000, many of whom have in recent years accepted the teachings of English and American Protestant missionaries. The term Nestwri (Nestorian) is of doubtful origin, and is repudiated by these communities, who disown the heresiarch Nestorius. It is probably a corrupt form of Nasserdni, a common name in the East for Christians, from Nazareth of Galilee; but they call themselves Kaldani, i.e. Chaldseans, and appear to be a remnant of the old Semitic Christian people of Mesopotamia, who were of Chaldaaan or Assyrian stock. They now mostly speak Arabic and Persian, but their liturgical language is a modernised form of Assyrian (Chaldean), with numerous Syrian elements as well as Arabic and Persian words, and written in a peculiar character derived from the Estranghelo (Old Syriac). Some are still in the tribal state, such as the Kojamis about the head-waters of the Tigris (1,000 families), and the Tiaris, in the Sulamani district (10,000 families).