Series Introduction
Todd B. Krause and Jonathan Slocum
Armenian is the state language of exactly exactly exactly what in current memory was the republic that is smallest regarding the previous Soviet Union, now the southernmost republic associated with the Commonwealth of Independent States. The language is talked by roughly four million individuals nevertheless living inside the edges associated with the republic. a tiny band 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 or any corners around the globe. The first documentary evidence of this Armenians is just a century that is sixth inscription in Behistun because of the Persian master Darius I. It had been nearly a lot of years, nonetheless, prior to the Armenians on their own started 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 also discovers mention of a previous alphabet developed because of the Syriac bishop Daniel, purportedly abandoned as it ended up being ill-suited towards the audio system regarding the language. The language whose documents date back again to this era is termed Classical Armenian. Much later on, into the twelfth to seventeenth hundreds of years, one discovers the legacy of Middle Armenian, whose writers attemptedto emulate the design of the Golden Age of Classical Armenian. Between those two cycles one further differentiates two phases for 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. Following the seventeenth century, Armenian progressed into a contemporary type which includes divided 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) when you look at the margin that is upper-left and also at the base of these pages.
Note: this group of classes in Armenian uses Romanized letters as opposed to the old-fashioned Armenian alphabet. Classes rendered when you look at the conventional alphabet could be accessed through the Armenian menu product.
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 into the very first century B.C., states that the Armenians joined the territory from two guidelines, one team originating from Phrygia within the west, one other originating from Mesopotamia into the southeast. Although by neither account had been they the initial inhabitants of this area, Xenophon records in 400 B.C. they appear to have consumed a lot of the neighborhood dwellers.
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 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 regarding the Armenian land, and the descendants of Haik later defended Armenia through the forces of Assyria.
Contemporary scholarly views are only as wide-ranging. a typical view is that https://hookupdate.net/nl/meet-an-inmate-recenzja/ the Armenians had been of Indo-European stock and joined the region either along with all the Phrygians from the Balkan area or utilizing the Mitanni through the part of the Aral Sea. They encountered the culture that is urartuan an amount of decrease and finally arrived to rule over them along with other Caucasian teams in the area. Another concept attracts on linguistic similarities between your language that is armenian the Caucasian languages for the area to express 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 truth that Armenian is pretty genetically isolated on the list of Indo-European languages. Still another concept is the fact that the Armenians will be the many inactive people of 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 to not ever migrate from the area, had been marginalized during durations of Hittite and Urartuan dominance. Suffice it to state, the real beginning for 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 legs 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 the modern Armenian Republic, also including most of eastern Turkey, the northeastern corner of Iran, and elements of Azerbaijan and Georgia. The Kur River separates the highland region from lowlands which sweep to the Caspian Sea in the northeast. The border that is northern continued by the Pontus mountain range, which expands west from the way to obtain the Kur and shields Armenia through the Ebony water. The Taurus and Zagros hill ranges create a boundary that is natural across the entire 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 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.