Talk:Saint Mesrob

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[edit] Transliteration

Hopefully the name in Armenian script is correct, it's copied from here --Fpga 10:33, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The name was correct, however it was in Easten Armenian, while the English article title uses a Western Armenian transliteration. Even though I'm a supporter of the Eastern version, it's probably not fair to say that either one is more "correct" than the other. In my opinion, the best thing to do is to take advice from Wikipedia guidelines on US/UK English spelling, which state that the spelling used by the creator or most major contributor to the article should be used, and use the same policy with Eastern/Western Armenian. Since the article used a Western transliteration from the start, it should probably stay that way, and the Armenian script should be consistent with the transliteration. Comments and suggestions about this are welcome. --Aramgutang 19:41, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I think the best thing to do is to include both Eastern and Western in both Unicode and transliteration. It will give readers unfamiliar with the language a better taste of it, and it will give a more complete answer to people like me who have been looking for the Armenian spelling and didn't realize there would be two variations. — Hippietrail 23:54, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I've changed the article to include both, although I don't like the amount of space it takes up. I was thinking of writing it like this instead:
(am: W:"Մեսրոբ Մաշտոց"; E:"Մեսրոպ Մաշտոց" [Mesrop Mashtots])
where people can just move the mouse over or click on the abbreviations to find out what they are. Does anyone think that this may be too ambiguous (I've seen some articles that use the (am:"", ru:"", etc...) format already)? --Aramgutang 06:52, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
When spellings of a name or place become too much to squeeze in brackets inline, we can always put it in a separate paragraph further from the top of the article. Or for Armenian topics, we can develop a standard whereby all articles include Eastern and Western spellings in the same format somehow. Thanks for providing them here by the way! — Hippietrail 10:27, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Well, you see, the two spellings only differ in that "t" and "d", "k" and "g", and "p" and "b" are interchanged. So for example the name "Karapet" in Eastern Armenian becomes "Garabed" in Western. Other than that, there are no differences when it comes to spelling names (there are significantly more differences when writing actual words), so it just doesn't seem worth it to list both spellings all the time. It would be great if there was some way to decide on either Western or Eastern to be the default, which would make things a lot easier and more compact, and maybe just have a small link to a page pointing out the differences between them. However, knowing that I have a strong bias toward Eastern Armenian, having been born and raised in Armenia, I don't feel comfortable making this decision. It would thus be nice to get a general concensus on the issue, but I don't think there are enough active Wikipedians that care about it, or are informed enough to have an opinion. --Aramgutang 11:19, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)


Hmmm, then it's pronounced "Mesrop Mashtots" in eastern and "Mesrop Mashdots" in western Armenian and "Mesrob" is actually wrong?

Are there any objextions to this page? Years of birth and death differ a bit and as the date of death February 19 instead of 17 is mentioned. --Fpga 05:27, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out the inconsistency in writing "Mesrob Mashtots", I completely missed it. I changed the spelling in the article to be consistent. On the same basis, I've changed all articles with "Mesrob Mashtots" to "Mesrop Mashtots" (after all, that's how Mesrop would write his name himself in the alphabet he invented). I've left any references to just Mesrob or Saint Mesrob intact, since it is not wrong to say Mesrob, it's just a different dialect. I don't know enough history about him to have objections to the page you gave, the Matenadaran would be the one source for accurate information. --Aramgutang 19:22, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)


[edit] The Ethiopian alphabet

The claim that Saint Mesrob invented an alphabet for Ge'ez, the language of the contemporary Axumite Kingdom might be rethought. I don't want to interfere. Wetman 14:14, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

All the aricle implies is that the Matenadaran claims he invented it, it does not imply that such a claim is true. --Aramգուտանգ 17:58, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Earlier versions implied that he had been credited with the Gregorian alphabet. Rich Farmbrough 22:48 28 February 2006 (UTC).
I don't know how I didn't notice that before, but it is plainly ridiculous. The earliest inscriptions in Ethiopic are from before he was born. Such a claim does not even merit mentioning. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 20:45, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
It does merit mentioning in the context that he is credited with having invented so many alphabets, most of which he didn't invent at all. I've replaced the section on the other alphabets, mainly because the idea that he invented the Georgian alphabet is so common that people actively look for references to it to cleanse away, usually anons and usually without an edit comment. — Hippietrail 22:52, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

With all respect to Saint Mesrob it has to be said that he couldn't possibly invent Georgian alphabet since he didn't speak Georgian language (citation needed), which is absolutely different from Armenian or any other languages. At first sight, first Georgian alphabet Aso Mtavruli (Capital), however, does look like modern Armenian alphabet but remblence is deceptive. 85.132.14.38 10:23, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bible translation =

Could you clarify if the translation made was that of the Hebrew Torah or the Christian Gospels? I note that it says "afterwards John of Egheghiatz and Joseph of Baghin were sent to Edessa to translate the Scriptures. They journeyed as far as Constantinople, and brought back with them authentic copies of the Greek text." However the Greek texts of the Hebrew Torah were not authentic since only the original could be authentic, and that would have required knowledge of Hebrew. I'm surprised that as a claimed linguist Saint Mesrob was satisfied with the Greek translation.--Mrg3105 11:43, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyvio

Much of this article seems to follow the Catholic Encyclopedia article word-for-word. Isn't this a Copyright violation? Til Eulenspiegel 14:38, 22 July 2007 (UTC)