Armenian Language. The ancient Armenian or Haikan language (now dead), notwithstanding the great antiquity of the nation to which it belongs, pos- sesses no literary documents prior to the fifth century of the Christian sera. The translation of the Bible, begun by Mesrob (q. v.) in the year 410, is the earliest monument of the language that has come down to us. The dialect in which this version is written, and in which it is still publicly read in their churches, is called the old Armenian. The dialect now in use — the mod- ern Armenian — in which they preach and carry on the intercourse of daily life, not onty departs from the elder form b}' dialectual changes in the native elements of the language itself, but also by the great intermixture of Persian and Turkish words which has resulted from the conquest and subjection of the country. It is, perhaps, this diversity of the ancient and modern idioms which has given rise to the many conflicting opinions that exist as to the relation in which the Ar- menian stands to other languages. Thus Cirbied and Vater both assert that it is an original language ; that is, one so distinct from all others in its fundamental character as not to be classed with any of the great families of languages. Eichhorn, on the other hand (Sprachcnkunde, p. 349), affirms that the learned idiom of the Armenian undoubtedly belongs to the Medo- Persian family; whereas Pott {Untersuchungen, p. 32) says that, notwithstanding its many points of rela- tion to that family, it cannot strictly be considered to belong to it ; and Gatterer actually classed it as a living sister of the Basque, Finnish, and Welsh lan-
As to form, it is said to be rough and full of conso- nants; to possess ten cases in the noun — a number which is only exceeded by the Finnish ; to have no dual ; to have no mode of denoting gender in the noun by change of form, but to be obliged to append the words man and woman as the marks of sex — thus, to say prophet-woman for prop)hetess (nevertheless, modern writers use the syllable ouhi to distinguish the femi- nine ; Wahl, Geschichte d. Morgenl. Sprachen, p. 100) ; to bear a remarkable resemblance to Greek in the use of the participle, and in the whole syntactical struc- ture ; and to have adopted the Arabian system of metre.— Kitto, s. v.
The history of its alphabetical character is briefly this : until the third century of our a>ra, the Armeni- ans used either the Persian or Greek alphabet (the letter in Syrian characters, mentioned by Diodor. xix, 23, is not considered an evidence that they wrote Ar- menian in Syrian characters, as that letter was prob- ably Persian). In the fifth century, however, the translation of the Bible created the necessity for char- acters which would more adequately represent the pe- culiar sounds of the language. Aecordingty, after a fruitless attempt of a certain Daniel, and after several efforts on his own part, Mesrob saw a hand in a dream write the very characters which now constitute the Armenian alphabet. The 38 letters thus obtained are chiefly founded on the Greek, but have partly made out their number by deriving some forms from the Zend alphabet. The order of writing is from left to right. Mesrob employed these letters in his transla-
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tion of the Bible, and thus insured their universal and permanent adoption by the nation (Gesenius, article Palcvographie, in Ersch und Gruber). See Tromler, Bibliothecm Armenian spec. (Plan. 1758) ; Schroder, Thesaurus ling. A rmen. antiqucv et novte (Amsterd. 1711) ; Cirbied, Gram. Armenienne (Par. 1822); Petermann, Grammatica A rmen. (Berol. 1 N37) ; also, Breris Ungues Armenicai grammatica, literatura, chrestomathia, c. glos- sario (ib. 1841); Calfa, Dictimnaire Armenienne (Par. 1861). See Shemitic Languages.
Armenian Version. This translation of the Bible was undertaken in the year 410 by Mesrob, with the aid of his pupils Joannes Eccelensis and Jo- sephus Palnensie. It appears that the Patriarch Isaac first attempted, in consequence of the Persians having destroyed all the copies of the Greek version, to make
ARMENIAN VERSION
412
ARMINIANISM
a translation from the Peshito ; that Mesrob became his coadjutor in this work; and that they actually completed their translation from the Syriac. But when the above-named pupils, who had been sent to the ecclesiastical council at Ephesus, returned, they brought with them an accurate copy of the Greek Bible. Upon this, Mesrob laid aside his translation from the Peshito, and prepared to commence anew from a more authentic text. Imperfect knowledge of the Greek language, however, induced him to send his pupils to Alexandria, to acquire accurate Greek scholarship; and, on their return, the translation was accomplished. Moses of Chorene, the historian of Armenia, who was also employed, as a disciple of Mesrob, on this version, fixes its completion in the year 410 ; but he is contradicted by the date of the Council of Ephesus, which necessarily makes it subse- quent to the year 431.