syriac christians are an ethnoreligious grouping of various ethnic communities of indigenous pre-arab semitic and often neo-aramaic-speaking christian people of iraq, syria, iran, turkey, lebanon, jordan, palestine, and israel. syriac christians advocate different terms for ethnic self-designation. syriac christians from the middle east are theologically and culturally closely related to, but should not be confused with, the saint thomas christians from india, whose ties to syriac christians were the result of trade links and migration by assyrian christians from mesopotamia and the middle east mostly around the 9th century.