Caucasian Albania alphabet

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Aluanic girn e or Caucasian Albania alphabet was rediscovered by a Georgian scholar, Professor Ilia Abuladze, in 1937. The alphabet was found in Matenadaran MS No. 7117, an Armenian language manual of the 15th century. This manual presents different alphabets for comparison: Armenian, Greek, Latin, Syrian, Georgian, Coptic, and Albanian among them. The Albanian alphabet was titled: "Aluanic girn e" (Albanic letters). Abuladze made an assumption that this alphabet was based on Georgian letters.

The Udi language, spoken by 8000 people mostly in Azerbaijan, and also Georgia, is thought to be the last remnant of the language once spoken in Caucasian Albania.^[1]

Armenian historian, Koriun, in his book "The Life of Mashtots", wrote: "Then there came and visited them an elderly man, an Albanian named Benjamin. And he Mesrob Mashdots inquired and examined the barbaric diction of the Albanian language, and then through his usual God-given keenness of mind invented an alphabet, which he, through the grace of Christ, successfully organized and put in order." ^[2]

According to Moses Kalankaytuk, the Albanian alphabet was 'invented' by Mesrob Mashdots, an Armenian monk, theologian and linguist (see Moses Kalankaytuk, The History of Aluank, I, 27 and III, 24).

As usually with writing system 'discoveries' the acclamations may be questionable. Mesrob Mashdots is also credited for creating the Armenian alphabet.

[edit] External links

• Armazi project:
  • Jost Gippert: The "Albanian" Alphabet as preserved in Armenian Tradition – has images of glyphs
  • Zaza Aleksidze: A Breakthrough in the Script of Caucasian Albany
• For a specimen of the 'Caucasian Albanian Palimpsest', see : Wolfgang Schulze “The Language of the ‘Caucasian Albanian’ (Aluan) Palimpsest from Mt. Sinai and of the ‘Caucasian Albanian’ inscriptions”

[edit] Footnotes