the ideology of assyrian nationalism advocates assyrian independence or autonomy within the regions they inhabit, and is based on the political and national unification of ethnic assyrian followers of a number of syriac christian churches (mainly those originating in, or based in and around northern mesopotamia) with classical syriac as its cultural language and eastern aramaic dialects as spoken tongues. its main proponents in the late 19th century and early 20th century were naum faiq, freydun atturaya, ashur yousif, malik khoshaba and farid nazha.