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 of this previous Soviet Union, now the southernmost republic of this Commonwealth of Independent States. The language is talked by xpress around four million individuals nevertheless residing in the boundaries for the republic. a little set of speakers reside in north-western Iran, plus some communities dot the countryside of eastern Turkey. Many emigrees have actually spread the language to all the corners regarding the globe. The first documentary evidence of this Armenians is just a sixth century b.c. inscription in Behistun by the Persian master Darius we. It had been almost one thousand years, nevertheless, ahead of the Armenians on their own started to place their language to composing, when in 406 or 407 A.D. a priest MaЕЎtКїocКї (also called Mesrop) developed an alphabet that is armenian. One additionally discovers reference to a previous alphabet produced by the Syriac bishop Daniel, purportedly abandoned since it had been ill-suited to your audio system of this language. The language whose records date back into 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 associated with the language that is armenian post-Classical, spanning the sixth and 7th hundreds of years, and Pre-Middle Armenian, through the eighth to twelfth centuries. After the century that is seventeenth Armenian progressed into a contemporary kind which includes divided in to two varieties: West Armenian and East Armenian.

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

Note: this group of classes in Armenian uses Romanized letters as opposed to the conventional alphabet that is armenian. Lessons rendered into the old-fashioned alphabet could 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 and then relocated into Phrygia, from where they crossed into the subsequent Armenian territory. Strabo, composing into the very first century B.C., states that the Armenians joined the territory from two guidelines, one team originating from Phrygia into the west, one other originating from Mesopotamia within the southeast. Although by neither account had been they the initial inhabitants of this region, Xenophon documents in 400 B.C. which they appear to have consumed almost all of the dwellers that are local.

Armenian tradition, recorded between your 5th and eighth centuries A.D., relates the Armenian individuals to the descendants of Noah. Following the Flood, Noah’s household settled in Armenia before going 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 of this Armenian land, 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 the fact that Armenians had been of Indo-European stock and joined the region either along with all the Phrygians from the Balkan area or using the Mitanni through the part of the Aral Sea. They encountered the culture that is urartuan an amount of decrease and in the end came to rule over them along with other Caucasian groups in your community. Another concept attracts on linguistic similarities involving the language that is armenian the Caucasian languages associated with area to state that the Armenians had initially been by by 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 among the list of Indo-European languages. Still another concept is the fact that the Armenians will be the many inactive people in the first 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 not to ever migrate out of the area, had been marginalized during durations of Hittite and Urartuan dominance. Suffice it to state, the true origin for the Armenian individuals will remain shrouded in obscurity for quite a while in the future.

The Armenian land itself is a plateau found approximately 5000 foot above sea level and hemmed in by mountainous areas. It lies roughly southeast of the Ebony Sea and southwest associated with the Caspian Sea. The ancient homeland that is armenian somewhat more expansive compared to modern Armenian Republic, also including most of eastern Turkey, the northeastern part of Iran, and areas of Azerbaijan and Georgia. Into the northeast the Kur River separates the highland area from lowlands which sweep into the Caspian Sea. The border that is northern proceeded because of the Pontus mountain range, which stretches west through the supply of the Kur and shields Armenia through the Black water. The Taurus and Zagros hill ranges produce a boundary that is natural over the whole southern expanse and cutting Armenia removed from Mesopotamia. The Armenian plateau itself is split by a number of smaller hill ranges that furnish the sources for a number of unnavigable streams. The section that is northermost of Euphrates would be to form the boundary between Greater and Lesser Armenia into the subsequent imperial battles.