Proto-Armenian language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| History of the Armenian language (see also: Armenian alphabet) |
| Proto-Armenian Graeco-Armenian hypothesis |
| Classical Armenian (from 405)
|
| Middle Armenian (c. 1100–1700)
|
| Modern Armenian (c. 1820 to present) Eastern Armenian Western Armenian |
The earliest testimony of the Armenian language dates to the 5th century AD (the Bible translation of Mesrob Mashtots). The earlier history of the language is unclear and the subject of much speculation. It is clear that Armenian is an Indo-European language, but its development is opaque. The Graeco-Armenian hypothesis proposes a close relationship to the Greek language, putting both in the larger context of Paleo-Balkans languages (notably including Macedonian and Phrygian, which are widely accepted as Indo-European languages particularly close to Greek), consistent with Herodotus' recording of the Armenians as descending from colonists of the Phrygians.
In any case, Armenian has many layers of loanwords and shows traces of long language contact with Hurro-Urartian, Greek and Iranian.
The Proto-Armenian sound-laws are varied and eccentric (such as *dw- yielding erk-), and in many cases uncertain.
PIE voiceless stops are aspirated in Proto-Armenian, a circumstance that gave rise to the Glottalic theory, which postulates that this aspiration may have been sub-phonematic already in PIE. In certain contexts, these aspirated stops are further reduced to w, h or zero in Armenian (PIE *pots, Armenian otn, Greek pous "foot"; PIE treis, Armenian erek’, Greek treis "three").
The reconstruction of Proto-Armenian being very uncertain, there is no general consensus on the date range when it might have been alive. If Herodotus is correct in deriving Armenians from Phrygian stock, the Armenian-Phrygian split would probably date to between roughly the 12th and 7th centuries BC, but the individual sound-laws leading to Proto-Armenian may have occurred at any time preceding the 5th century AD. The various layers of Persian and Greek loanwords were likely acquired over the course of centuries, during Urartian (pre-6th century BC) Achaemenid (6th to 4th c. BC; Old Persian), Hellenistic (4th to 2nd c. BC Koine Greek) and Parthian (2nd c. BC to 3rd c. AD; Middle Persian) times.
| “ | The Armenians according to Diakonoff, are then an amalgam of the Hurrian (and Urartians), Luvians and the Proto-Armenian Mushki who carried their IE language eastwards across Anatolia. After arriving in its historical territory, Proto-Armenian would appear to have undergone massive influence on part the languages it eventually replaced. Armenian phonology, for instance, appears to have been greatly affected by Urartian, which may suggest a long period of bilingualism.[1] | ” |
[edit] Notes
- ^ “Armenians” in Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture or EIEC, edited by J. P. Mallory and Douglas Q. Adams, published in 1997 by Fitzroy Dearborn.
[edit] References
- William M. Austin, Is Armenian an Anatolian Language?, Language, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Jan., 1942), pp. 22-25
- Charles R. Barton, The Etymology of Armenian ert’am, Language 39, No. 4 (Oct., 1963), p. 620
- G. Bonfante, The Armenian Aorist, Journal of the American Oriental Society 62, No. 2 (Jun., 1942), pp. 102-105
- I. M. Diakonoff - First evidence of the Proto-Armenian language in Eastern Anatolia, Annual of Armenian linguistics 13, 51-54, Cleveland State University, 1992.
- I. M. Diakonoff, Hurro-Urartian Borrowings in Old Armenian, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 105, No. 4 (Oct., 1985), pp. 597-603
- John A. C. Greppin; I. M. Diakonoff, Some Effects of the Hurro-Urartian People and Their Languages upon the Earliest Armenians, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 111, No. 4 (Oct., 1991), pp. 720-730
- A. Meillet, Esquisse d'une grammaire comparée de l'arménien classique, Vienna (1936)
- Robert Minshall, 'Initial' Indo-European */y/ in Armenian, Language 31, No. 4 (Oct., 1955), pp. 499-503
- J. Alexander Kerns; Benjamin Schwartz, On the Placing of Armenian, Language 18, No. 3 (Jul., 1942), pp. 226-228
- K. H. Schmidt, The Indo-European Basis of Proto-Armenian : Principles of Reconstruction, Annual of Armenian linguistics, Cleveland State University, 11, 33-47, 1990.
- Werner Winter, Problems of Armenian Phonology I, Language 30, No. 2 (Apr., 1954), pp. 197-201
- Werner Winter, Problems of Armenian Phonology II, Language 31, No. 1 (Jan., 1955), pp. 4-8
- Werner Winter Problems of Armenian Phonology III, Language 38, No. 3, Part 1 (Jul., 1962), pp. 254-262
