Series Introduction
Todd B. Krause and Jonathan Slocum
Armenian is the state language of just just what in current memory was the republic that is smallest of this previous Soviet Union, now the southernmost republic associated with Commonwealth of Independent States. The language is talked by roughly four million individuals nevertheless residing in the boundaries for the republic. a little number 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 any or all corners associated with globe. The first documentary evidence of this Armenians is a sixth century b.c. inscription in Behistun by the Persian master Darius we. It absolutely was almost a lot of years, nevertheless, prior to the Armenians on their own started UkraineDate download initially to place their language to writing, when in 406 or 407 A.D. a priest MaЕЎtКїocКї (also referred to as Mesrop) developed an alphabet that is armenian. One additionally discovers mention of the a previous alphabet developed by the Syriac bishop Daniel, purportedly abandoned as it ended up being ill-suited to your audio system associated with the language. The language whose documents date back again to this era is termed traditional Armenian. Much later on, into the twelfth to centuries that are seventeenth one discovers the legacy of Middle Armenian, whose writers attemptedto emulate the model of the Golden Age of Classical Armenian. Between those two cycles one further differentiates two phases of this Armenian language: post-Classical, spanning the sixth and 7th hundreds of years, and Pre-Middle Armenian, through the eighth to twelfth centuries. Following the seventeenth century, Armenian progressed into a contemporary type which includes split up into two varieties: West Armenian and East Armenian.
Note: this group of classes is for systems/browsers with Unicode В® support, but fonts lacking Armenian figures. Lessons rendered in alternative character sets can be obtained via links (Romanized and Unicode 3) into the margin that is upper-left as well as the base of this site.
Note: this group of classes in Armenian uses Romanized letters as opposed to the conventional alphabet that is armenian. Classes rendered into the old-fashioned alphabet may be accessed through the menu item that is armenian.
Origin and Geographical Location
Relating to Greek tradition that is mythic Armenia ended up being called after Armenus, certainly one of Jason’s Argonauts. Herodotus, composing into the fifth century B.C., states that the Armenians lived in Thrace then relocated into Phrygia, from where they crossed into the subsequent Armenian territory. Strabo, writing when you look at the very first century B.C., states that the Armenians joined the territory from two guidelines, one team originating from Phrygia within the western, one other originating from Mesopotamia when you look at the southeast. Although by neither account were they the first inhabitants associated with area, Xenophon documents in 400 B.C. they appear to have absorbed all of the dwellers that are local.
Armenian tradition, recorded involving the 5th and eighth centuries A.D., relates the Armenian visitors to the descendants of Noah. Following the Flood, Noah’s family members settled in Armenia before going south to Babylon in successive generations. Certainly one of Noah’s descendants, Haik, returned and revolted to Armenia, pursued by the Babylonian Bel. Haik killed Bel and became ruler associated with Armenian land, and the descendants of Haik later defended Armenia through the forces of Assyria.
Contemporary scholarly views are only as wide-ranging. a common view is that the Armenians were 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 duration of decrease and finally arrived to rule over them as well as other Caucasian teams in your community. Another concept attracts on linguistic similarities involving the Armenian language and the Caucasian languages of this area to state that the Armenians had initially been themselves a Caucasian tribe which adopted an Indo-European tongue, and this Caucasian substrate is in charge of the reality that Armenian is pretty genetically separated one of the Indo-European languages. Still another concept is the fact that Armenians would be the many inactive people in the first speakers of Proto-Indo-European; that the Indo-European languages originated from the transcaucasian region, however the Armenians, whom decided on not to ever migrate from the area, had been marginalized during durations of Hittite and Urartuan dominance. Suffice it to state, the origin that is true of Armenian individuals will remain shrouded in obscurity for quite a while in the future.
The land that actuallyrmenian is a plateau found roughly 5000 legs above ocean degree and hemmed in by mountainous areas. It lies roughly southeast of the Ebony Sea and southwest for the Caspian Sea. The ancient Armenian homeland was somewhat more expansive compared to modern Armenian Republic, also including a lot of eastern Turkey, the northeastern part of Iran, and areas 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 supply of the Kur and shields Armenia through the Ebony water. The Taurus and Zagros hill ranges create a normal boundary operating over the whole southern expanse and cutting Armenia faraway 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 northermost area of the Euphrates would be to form the boundary between Greater and Lesser Armenia when you look at the subsequent imperial battles.