The right to education of Syriacs in mother tongue

Today, many nation-states that occupy the agenda of the right to education in the mother tongue is not considered independent of the context of minority rights in Turkey. The only legal text on minorities is the Treaty of Lausanne, which is qualified as the founding document of Turkey. By regulating the legal status of minorities in Turkey this treaty makes a number of obligations in this regard. It is clear that Turkey made a distinction among minorities based on religious principles with Treaty of Lausanne and that position of minority was given to all non-Muslims with this distinction. However, in practice, it is accepted that this status was given to the traditional three major minority communities, Greeks, Armenians, and Jews and this acceptance pushes other small non-Muslim communities out of Lausanne protection. Thus, the Syriacs who have been living in Anatolian lands since ancient times, have not been recognized as minorities and cannot benefited from minority rights as a natural consequence. Although it is known that the right to be educated in the mother tongue is a part of the rights of minority communities in Turkey, the probability of death of the Syriac language comes to the fore as it cannot be passed on to future generations through education. In this study, it is tried to be proved that this community has the official right of education in the mother tongue (that is, according to the Treaty of Lausanne), which is the most obvious demand of the Syriacs. According to findings from personal meetings of 10 people, it is determined that non-teaching of the Syriac as a mother tongue in educational institutions is one of the most important reasons affecting linguistic assimilation.