Series Introduction
Todd B. Krause and Jonathan Slocum
Armenian is the state language of just exactly what in current memory was the littlest republic bhm dating associated with the previous Soviet Union, now the southernmost republic associated with the Commonwealth of Independent States. The language is talked by roughly four million individuals still residing in the boundaries of this republic. a group that is small of reside in north-western Iran, plus some communities dot the countryside of eastern Turkey. Countless emigrees have actually spread the language to all or any corners of this globe. The first documentary evidence of this Armenians is a sixth century b.c. inscription in Behistun because of the Persian master Darius we. It absolutely was almost a lot of years, nonetheless, ahead of the Armenians by themselves started initially 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 the a previous alphabet developed because of the Syriac bishop Daniel, purportedly abandoned since it ended up being ill-suited to your audio system regarding the language. The language whose documents date back again to this era is termed traditional Armenian. Much later, within the twelfth to centuries that are seventeenth one discovers the legacy of Middle Armenian, whose authors attemptedto emulate the type of the Golden Age of Classical Armenian. Between those two cycles one further distinguishes two phases for the 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 kind that has put 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 characters that are armenian. Classes rendered in alternative character sets can be obtained via links (Romanized and Unicode 3) within the margin that is upper-left as well as the base of these pages.
Note: this group of classes in Armenian uses Romanized letters as opposed to the conventional alphabet that is armenian. Classes rendered in the conventional alphabet may be accessed via the Armenian menu product.
Origin and Geographical Location
According to Greek mythic tradition, Armenia ended up being 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 territory that is armenian. Strabo, writing within the very first century B.C., states that the Armenians entered the territory from two instructions, one team originating from Phrygia when you look at the western, one other originating from Mesopotamia within the southeast. Although by neither account had been they the first inhabitants associated with area, Xenophon records in 400 B.C. which they appear to have absorbed a lot of the regional dwellers.
Armenian tradition, recorded between your fifth and eighth centuries A.D., relates the Armenian people 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, returned and revolted to Armenia, pursued by the Babylonian Bel. Haik killed Bel and became ruler of this 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 the fact that Armenians had been of Indo-European stock and entered the region either along with all the Phrygians from the Balkan area or because of the Mitanni through the section of the Aral Sea. They encountered the culture that is urartuan 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 for the 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 isolated among the list of Indo-European languages. Just one more concept is the fact that Armenians will be the most sedentary people in the first speakers of Proto-Indo-European; that the Indo-European languages originated from the transcaucasian area, however the Armenians, whom decided on not to ever migrate out from the area, had been marginalized during durations of Hittite and Urartuan dominance. Suffice it to express, the real beginning associated with the Armenian individuals will remain shrouded in obscurity for quite a while in the future.
The Armenian land it self is a plateau situated approximately 5000 foot above ocean degree and hemmed in by mountainous areas. It lies roughly southeast of the Ebony Sea and southwest associated with Caspian Sea. The ancient Armenian homeland was somewhat more expansive compared to modern Armenian Republic, also including most of eastern Turkey, the northeastern corner of Iran, and components of Azerbaijan and Georgia. Into the northeast the Kur River separates the highland area from lowlands which sweep towards the Caspian Sea. The north border is proceeded by 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 many 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.
