Syrians (, Sūriyyīn) are an Eastern Mediterranean ethnic group indigenous to the Levant. They share common Levantine Semitic roots. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend of both indigenous elements and the foreign cultures that have come to inhabit the region of Syria over the course of thousands of years. The mother tongue of most Syrians is Levantine Arabic, which came to replace the former mother tongue, Aramaic, following the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 7th century. The conquest led to the establishment of the Caliphate under successive Arab dynasties, who, during the period of the later Abbasid Caliphate, promoted the use of the Arabic language. A minority of Syrians have retained Aramaic which is still spoken in its Eastern and Western dialects. In 2018, the Syrian Arab Republic had an estimated population of 19.5 million, which includes, aside from the aforementioned majority, the largest Syrian ethnic minority the Kurds, as well as Assyrians, Turks, Armenians and others. Before the Syrian Civil War, there was quite a large Syrian diaspora, who had immigrated to North America (United States and Canada), European Union member states (including Sweden, France, and Germany), South America (mainly in Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, and Chile), the West Indies, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Six million refugees of the Syrian Civil War also live outside Syria now, mostly in Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. Etymology Various sources indicate that the name Syria itself is derived from Luwian term "Sura/i", and the derivative ancient Greek name: , , or , , both of which originally derived from the Akkadian word Aššūrāyu (Assyria) in northern Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq However, during the Seleucid Empire, this term was also applied to The Levant, and henceforth the Greeks applied the term without distinction between the Assyrians of north Mesopotamia and Arameans of the Levant. Applications of the name The Greeks used the terms "Syrian" and "Assyrian" interchangeably to indicate the indigenous Arameans, Assyrians and other inhabitants of the Levant and Mesopotamia, Herodotus considered "Syria" west of the Euphrates. Starting from the 2nd century BC onwards, ancient writers referred to the ruler of the Seleucid Empire as the King of Syria or King of the Syrians. The Seleucids designated the districts of Seleucis and Coele-Syria explicitly as Syria and ruled the Syrians as indigenous populations residing west of the Euphrates (Aramea) in contrast to Assyrians who had their