Assyrians are the people of Assyria — more than one Assyrian. In a history class, ‘the Assyrians’ usually means the ancient empire-builders along the Tigris, famous for war, palaces, and writing on clay. In the news, ‘Assyrians’ may mean the living ethnic and Christian community that still uses that name. The form is a simple plural. The idea ‘of or about the people or language’ sits mainly on Assyrian (the adjective or the singular noun); Assyrians points to the people themselves, as a group. Though actually, schoolbooks sometimes talk as if Assyrians vanished when the empire fell. The empire did fall; the people-name did not altogether disappear.