Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence "Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence" proposed that Ashkenazi Jews as a group inherit higher verbal and mathematical intelligence with somewhat lower spikes in spatial intelligence than other ethnic groups, on the basis of inherited diseases and the peculiar economic situation of Ashkenazi Jews in the Middle Ages. Ashkenazi Jews have had success in a variety of academic fields disproportionate to their small population size, including science, technology, politics, and law. For instance, Ashkenazi Jews have won more than one quarter of Fields Medals, Turing Awards, and Regeneron Science Talent Search awards. People of Ashkenazi Jewish descent are also disproportionately represented
Ashkenazi Hebrew eastern, e.g. Eastern Syriac "Peshitta" as against Western Syriac "Peshito". Ashkenazi Hebrew in its written form also resembles Palestinian Hebrew in its tendency to "male" spellings (see Mater lectionis). Others, including Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, believed that the distinction is more ancient, and represents the distinction between the Judaean and Galilean dialects of Hebrew in Mishnaic times (1st−2nd centuries CE), with the Sephardi pronunciation being derived from Judaean and the Ashkenazi from Galilean. This theory is supported by the fact that Ashkenazi Hebrew, like Samaritan Hebrew, has lost the distinct sounds of many of the guttural letters, while there are references