Syriac Language   Syriac (ܠܫܢܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ, Lessana Suryāyā) is a high Aramaic dialect historically spoken in much of the Fertile Crescent.  Arising around the first century AD, classical Syriac became one of the principal literary languages throughout the Middle East from the fourth to the eighth century, and was the classical language of Edessa, preserved in a great corpus of Syriac literature.   It became the main vehicle of culture and Eastern Orthodox Christianity, spreading throughout Asia, reaching Malabar and eastern China, and was an important means of communication and cultural spread among the Arabs and to a lesser extent, the Persians.   Primarily a means of Christian expression, Syriac had a fundamental cultural and literary influence on the development of Arabic, which replaced it in the region at the end of the eighth century  Syriac remains the liturgical language of Syriac Christianity.  Written in Syriac alphabet derived from Aramaic, Syriac belongs to the western branch of the Semitic language family.   Alphabet   Syriac was a system of writing (alphabet) which the Jacobites used in the region of Syria.   There are varieties such as modern Syriac and eastern Syriac.   While the first has written documents only from the mid-nineteenth century, the second, besides marking points on the vowels, is used in manuscripts from the fifteenth century.   History   It had a very unusual feature due to the influence of the scribes who drew the characters from top to bottom, so that the reader must handle the sheet by straightening it to read it from right to left.   It is important to emphasize that various translations were made in this language of the Bible, of both the Old and New Testaments, as well as other religious books that serve as sources for Judaism and Christianity.