Series Introduction

Todd B. Krause and Jonathan Slocum

Armenian is the state language of exactly exactly what in current memory was the republic that is smallest associated with the former Soviet Union, now the southernmost republic associated with the Commonwealth of Independent States. The language is talked by around four million individuals nevertheless residing inside the edges associated with republic. a tiny band of speakers are now living in north-western Iran, plus some communities dot the countryside of eastern Turkey. Many emigrees have actually spread the language to all or any corners of this globe. The initial documentary evidence of this Armenians is just a sixth century b.c. inscription in Behistun because of the Persian master Darius we. It had been almost a lot of years, nevertheless, ahead of the Armenians on their own begun to place their language to composing, when in 406 or 407 A.D. a priest MaЕЎtКїocКї (also called Mesrop) developed A armenian alphabet. One additionally discovers mention of a previous alphabet produced by the Syriac bishop Daniel, purportedly abandoned as it had been ill-suited into the audio system associated with the language. The language whose documents date back again to this period is termed traditional Armenian. Much later on, into the twelfth to centuries that are seventeenth one discovers the legacy of Middle Armenian, whose writers attempted to emulate the form of the Golden Age of Classical Armenian. Between those two cycles one further differentiates two phases associated with language that is armenian post-Classical, spanning the sixth and seventh hundreds of years, and Pre-Middle Armenian, through the eighth to twelfth centuries. Following the seventeenth century, Armenian progressed into a contemporary kind which includes split up into two varieties: West Armenian and East Armenian.

Note: this group of classes is actually for systems/browsers with Unicode В® support, but fonts lacking Armenian figures. Classes rendered in alternative character sets can be obtained via links (Romanized and Unicode 3) within the upper-left margin, and also at the base of this site.

Note: this group of classes in Armenian uses Romanized letters as opposed to the old-fashioned Armenian alphabet. Classes rendered into the old-fashioned alphabet may be accessed through the menu item that is armenian.

Origin and Geographical Location

According to Greek tradition that is mythic Armenia had been called after Armenus, certainly one of Jason’s Argonauts. Herodotus, composing within the fifth century B.C., states that the Armenians lived in Thrace after which relocated into Phrygia, from where they crossed into the subsequent Armenian territory. Strabo, composing when you look at the very first century B.C., states that the Armenians joined the territory from two guidelines, one team coming from Phrygia into the western, one other originating from Mesopotamia when you look at the southeast. Although by neither account had been they the initial inhabitants associated with area, Xenophon documents in 400 B.C. they appear to have consumed almost all of the neighborhood dwellers.

Armenian tradition, recorded amongst the fifth and centuries that are https://hookupdate.net/nl/amor-en-linea-recenzja/ eighth, relates the Armenian individuals to the descendants of Noah. Following the Flood, Noah’s household settled in Armenia before moving south to Babylon in successive generations. Certainly one of Noah’s descendants, Haik, revolted and returned to Armenia, pursued by the Babylonian Bel. Haik killed Bel and became ruler regarding the land that is armenian and the descendants of Haik later defended Armenia through the forces of Assyria.

Contemporary scholarly views are simply as wide-ranging. a typical view is that the Armenians had been of Indo-European stock and joined the region either along because of the Phrygians from the Balkan area or aided by the Mitanni through the section of the Aral Sea. They encountered the Urartuan tradition in a period of decline and finally arrived to rule over them along with other Caucasian teams in your community. Another theory draws on linguistic similarities involving the language that is armenian the Caucasian languages associated with area to state that the Armenians had initially been by themselves a Caucasian tribe which adopted an Indo-European tongue, and this Caucasian substrate is in charge of the reality that Armenian is rather genetically separated one of the Indo-European languages. Just one more concept is the fact that Armenians would be the many inactive people of the initial speakers of Proto-Indo-European; that the Indo-European languages originated from the region that is transcaucasian nevertheless the Armenians, whom decided to go with never to migrate from the area, had been marginalized during durations of Hittite and Urartuan dominance. Suffice it to say, the origin that is true of Armenian individuals will remain shrouded in obscurity for a while in the future.

The Armenian land itself is a plateau found approximately 5000 foot above sea degree and hemmed in by mountainous regions. It lies roughly southeast of the Ebony Sea and southwest regarding the Caspian Sea. The ancient homeland that is armenian somewhat more expansive as compared to modern Armenian Republic, also including a lot of eastern Turkey, the northeastern part of Iran, and components of Azerbaijan and Georgia. The Kur River separates the highland region from lowlands which sweep to the Caspian Sea in the northeast. The north edge is proceeded because of the Pontus mountain range, which expands west through the way to obtain the Kur and shields Armenia through the Ebony water. The Taurus and Zagros hill ranges produce a normal boundary operating over the whole southern expanse and cutting Armenia removed from Mesopotamia. The Armenian plateau it self is split by a number of smaller hill ranges that furnish the sources for several unnavigable streams. The section that is northermost of Euphrates would be to form the boundary between Greater and Lesser Armenia when you look at the subsequent imperial battles.