According to the ordinary theory, this race was Aramaic or Semitic.

"The name of Aramaeans, Syrians, or Assyrians," says Niebuhr, "comprises the nations extending from the mouth of the Euphrates and Tigris to the Euxine, the river Halys, and Palestine.

They applied to themselves the name of Aram, and the Greeks called them Assyrians, which is the same as Syrians( ?).
Within that great extent of country there existed, of course, various dialectic differences of language; and there can be little doubt but that in some places the nation was mixed with other races." The early inhabitants of Lower Mesopotamia, however, he considers to have been pure Aramaeans, closely akin to the Assyrians, from whom, indeed, he regards them as only separate politically.
Similar views are entertained by most modern writers.

Baron Bunsen, in one of his latest works, regards the fact as completely established by the results of recent researches in Babylonia.

Professor M.Muller, though expressing himself with more caution, inclines to the same conclusion.