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78-899: Petrosyan ( Armenian : Պետրոսյան ), Petrosian or Petrossian ( Eastern Armenian ), Bedrosian or Bedrossian ( Western Armenian ) is a common surname in Armenia . It is a patronymic from the Armenian first name Petros (equivalent to Peter, making the name effectively equivalent to Peterson ). The following people share this surname: Armenian language Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European Armenian

156-520: A consistent Proto-Indo-European pattern distinct from Iranian, and that the inflectional morphology was different from that of Iranian languages. The hypothesis that Greek is Armenian's closest living relative originates with Holger Pedersen (1924), who noted that the number of Greek-Armenian lexical cognates is greater than that of agreements between Armenian and any other Indo-European language. Antoine Meillet (1925, 1927) further investigated morphological and phonological agreement and postulated that

234-622: A letter borrowed from Greek for a total of 35. The fourth Kartvelian language, Svan, is not commonly written, but when it is , it uses Georgian letters as utilized in Mingrelian, with an additional obsolete Georgian letter and sometimes supplemented by diacritics for its many vowels. The "living culture of three writing systems of the Georgian alphabet" was granted the national status of intangible cultural heritage in Georgia in 2015 and inscribed on

312-468: A loan from Armenian (compare to Armenian եւ yev , ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁epi ). Other loans from Armenian into Urartian includes personal names, toponyms, and names of deities. Loan words from Iranian languages , along with the other ancient accounts such as that of Xenophon above, initially led some linguists to erroneously classify Armenian as an Iranian language. Scholars such as Paul de Lagarde and F. Müller believed that

390-425: A network of schools where modern Armenian was taught, dramatically increased the rate of literacy (in spite of the obstacles by the colonial administrators), even in remote rural areas. The emergence of literary works entirely written in the modern versions increasingly legitimized the language's existence. By the turn of the 20th century both varieties of the one modern Armenian language prevailed over Grabar and opened

468-465: A stance on its validity or concede that Armenian clerics, if not Mashtots himself, must have played a role in the creation of the Georgian script. Another controversy regards the main influences at play in the Georgian alphabet, as scholars have debated whether it was inspired more by the Greek alphabet , or by Semitic alphabets such as Aramaic . Recent historiography focuses on greater similarities with

546-628: Is Ⴟ ( jani ). There have been various attempts to explain this exception. Georgian linguist and art historian Helen Machavariani believes jani derives from a monogram of Christ , composed of Ⴈ ( ini ) and Ⴕ ( kani ). According to Georgian scholar Ramaz Pataridze, the cross-like shape of letter jani indicates the end of the alphabet, and has the same function as the similarly shaped Phoenician letter taw ( [REDACTED] ), Greek chi (Χ), and Latin X , though these letters do not have that function in Phoenician, Greek, or Latin. From

624-469: Is also known as Mrgvlovani ( Georgian : მრგვლოვანი ) "rounded", from mrgvali ( მრგვალი ) "round", so named because of its round letter shapes. Despite its name, this "capital" script is unicameral . The oldest Asomtavruli inscriptions found so far date from the 5th century and are Bir el Qutt and the Bolnisi inscriptions . From the 9th century, Nuskhuri script started becoming dominant, and

702-545: Is an independent branch of the Indo-European languages . It is of interest to linguists for its distinctive phonological changes within that family. Armenian exhibits more satemization than centumization , although it is not classified as belonging to either of these subgroups. Some linguists tentatively conclude that Armenian, Greek (and Phrygian ), Albanian and Indo-Iranian were dialectally close to each other; within this hypothetical dialect group, Proto-Armenian

780-545: Is clearly the dialect to be most closely related to Armenian. Eric P. Hamp (1976, 91) supports the Graeco-Armenian thesis and even anticipates a time "when we should speak of Helleno-Armenian" (meaning the postulate of a Graeco-Armenian proto-language). Armenian shares the augment and a negator derived from the set phrase in the Proto-Indo-European language * ne h₂oyu kʷid ("never anything" or "always nothing"),

858-469: Is derived from Proto-Indo-European *h₂r̥ǵipyós , with cognates in Sanskrit (ऋजिप्य, ṛjipyá ), Avestan ( ərəzifiia ), and Greek (αἰγίπιος, aigípios ). Hrach Martirosyan and Armen Petrosyan propose additional borrowed words of Armenian origin loaned into Urartian and vice versa, including grammatical words and parts of speech, such as Urartian eue ("and"), attested in the earliest Urartian texts and likely

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936-578: Is found in Ateni Sioni Church dating back to 982 AD. The second oldest Mkhedruli-written text is found in the 11th-century royal charters of King Bagrat IV of Georgia . Mkhedruli was mostly used then in the Kingdom of Georgia for the royal charters , historical documents, manuscripts and inscriptions. Mkhedruli was used for non-religious purposes only and represented the "civil", "royal" and "secular" script. Mkhedruli became more and more dominant over

1014-452: Is individual and stylistic variation in many of the letters. For example, the top circle of ზ ( zeni ) and the top stroke of რ ( rae ) may go in the other direction than shown in the chart (that is, counter-clockwise starting at 3 o'clock, and upwards – see the external-link section for videos of people writing). Other common variants: Several letters are similar and may be confused at first, especially in handwriting. Asomtavruli

1092-415: Is not considered conclusive evidence of a period of common isolated development. There are words used in Armenian that are generally believed to have been borrowed from Anatolian languages, particularly from Luwian , although some researchers have identified possible Hittite loanwords as well. One notable loanword from Anatolian is Armenian xalam , "skull", cognate to Hittite ḫalanta , "head". In 1985,

1170-440: Is often highly stylized and writers readily formed ligatures , intertwined letters, and placed letters within letters or other such monograms . Nuskhuri, like Asomtavruli, is also often highly stylized. Writers readily formed ligatures and abbreviations for nomina sacra , including diacritics called karagma , which resemble titla . Because writing materials such as vellum were scarce and therefore precious, abbreviating

1248-466: Is only used in all-caps text in titles or to emphasize a word, though in the late 19th and early 20th centuries it was occasionally used, as in Latin and Cyrillic scripts, to capitalize proper nouns or the first word of a sentence. Contemporary Georgian script does not recognize capital letters and their usage has become decorative. Mkhedruli first appears in the 10th century. The oldest Mkhedruli inscription

1326-408: Is presently written in a 33-letter alphabet, as five letters are obsolete. The number of Georgian letters used in other Kartvelian languages varies. Mingrelian uses 36: thirty-three that are current Georgian letters, one obsolete Georgian letter, and two additional letters specific to Mingrelian and Svan . Laz uses the same 33 current Georgian letters as Mingrelian plus that same obsolete letter and

1404-428: Is the third and current Georgian script. Mkhedruli, literally meaning " cavalry " or " military ", derives from mkhedari ( მხედარი ) meaning " horseman ", " knight ", " warrior " and " cavalier ". Mkhedruli is bicameral , with capital letters that are called Mkhedruli Mtavruli ( მხედრული მთავრული ) or simply Mtavruli ( მთავრული ; Georgian pronunciation: [mtʰavɾuli] ). Nowadays, Mkhedruli Mtavruli

1482-504: Is the working language. Armenian (without reference to a specific variety) is officially recognized as a minority language in Cyprus , Hungary , Iraq , Poland , Romania , and Ukraine . It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . Georgian alphabet The Georgian scripts are the three writing systems used to write

1560-458: The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia (11–14th centuries) resulted in the addition of two more characters to the alphabet (" օ " and " ֆ "), bringing the total number to 38. The Book of Lamentations by Gregory of Narek (951–1003) is an example of the development of a literature and writing style of Old Armenian by the 10th century. In addition to elevating the literary style and vocabulary of

1638-553: The Armenian genocide , mostly in the diaspora ). The differences between them are considerable but they are mutually intelligible after significant exposure. Some subdialects such as Homshetsi are not mutually intelligible with other varieties. Although Armenians were known to history much earlier (for example, they were mentioned in the 6th-century BC Behistun Inscription and in Xenophon 's 4th century BC history, The Anabasis ),

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1716-505: The Georgian Orthodox Church , in ceremonial religious texts and iconography . Georgian scripts are unique in their appearance and their exact origin has never been established; however, in strictly structural terms, their alphabetical order largely corresponds to the Greek alphabet , with the exception of letters denoting uniquely Georgian sounds, which are grouped at the end. Originally consisting of 38 letters , Georgian

1794-548: The Georgian language : Asomtavruli , Nuskhuri and Mkhedruli . Although the systems differ in appearance, their letters share the same names and alphabetical order and are written horizontally from left to right . Of the three scripts, Mkhedruli, once the civilian royal script of the Kingdom of Georgia and mostly used for the royal charters , is now the standard script for modern Georgian and its related Kartvelian languages , whereas Asomtavruli and Nuskhuri are used only by

1872-584: The Greek language , the Armenian language, and the Indo-Iranian languages . Graeco-Aryan unity would have become divided into Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian by the mid-3rd millennium BC. Conceivably, Proto-Armenian would have been located between Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian, consistent with the fact that Armenian shares certain features only with Indo-Iranian (the satem change) but others only with Greek ( s > h ). Graeco-Aryan has comparatively wide support among Indo-Europeanists who believe

1950-631: The Indo-European homeland to be located in the Armenian Highlands , the " Armenian hypothesis ". Early and strong evidence was given by Euler's 1979 examination on shared features in Greek and Sanskrit nominal flection. Used in tandem with the Graeco-Armenian hypothesis, the Armenian language would also be included under the label Aryano-Greco-Armenic , splitting into Proto-Greek/Phrygian and "Armeno-Aryan" (ancestor of Armenian and Indo-Iranian ). Classical Armenian (Arm: grabar ), attested from

2028-528: The Mekhitarists . The first Armenian periodical, Azdarar , was published in grabar in 1794. The classical form borrowed numerous words from Middle Iranian languages , primarily Parthian , and contains smaller inventories of loanwords from Greek, Syriac, Aramaic, Arabic, Mongol, Persian, and indigenous languages such as Urartian . An effort to modernize the language in Bagratid Armenia and

2106-541: The UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2016. The origin of the Georgian script is poorly known, and no full agreement exists among Georgian and foreign scholars as to its date of creation, who designed the script, and the main influences on that process. The first attested version of the script is Asomtavruli , which dates back to the 5th century;

2184-534: The baseline , with a wider central oval, and with the top slightly higher than the ascender height. Before this addition, font creators included Mtavruli in various ways. Some fonts came in pairs, of which one had lowercase letters and the other uppercase; some Unicode fonts placed Mtavruli letterforms in the Asomtavruli range (U+10A0-U+10CF) or in the Private Use Area , and some ASCII-based ones mapped them to

2262-628: The 10th century, the letters were illuminated. The style of Asomtavruli capitals can be used to identify the era of a text. For example, in the Georgian manuscripts of the Byzantine era, when the styles of the Byzantine Empire influenced Kingdom of Georgia , capitals were illuminated with images of birds and other animals. From the 11th-century "limb-flowery", "limb-arrowy" and "limb-spotty" decorative forms of Asomtavruli are developed. The first two are found in 11th- and 12th-century monuments, whereas

2340-508: The 10th century. Nuskhuri letters vary in height, with ascenders and descenders, and are slanted to the right. Letters have an angular shape, with a noticeable tendency to simplify the shapes they had in Asomtavruli. This enabled faster writing of manuscripts. The following table shows the stroke direction of each Nuskhuri letter: Asomtavruli is used intensively in iconography , murals, and exterior design, especially in stone engravings. Georgian linguist Akaki Shanidze made an attempt in

2418-438: The 11th century. In early Asomtavruli, the letters are of equal height. Georgian historian and philologist Pavle Ingorokva believes that the direction of Asomtavruli, like that of Greek, was initially boustrophedon , though the direction of the earliest surviving texts is from left to the right. In most Asomtavruli letters, straight lines are horizontal or vertical and meet at right angles. The only letter with acute angles

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2496-481: The 1950s to introduce Asomtavruli into the Mkhedruli script as capital letters to begin sentences, as in the Latin script, but it did not catch on. Asomtavruli and Nuskhuri are officially used by the Georgian Orthodox Church alongside Mkhedruli. Patriarch Ilia II of Georgia called on people to use all three Georgian scripts. Mkhedruli ( Georgian : მხედრული ; Georgian pronunciation: [mχedɾuli] )

2574-408: The 5th century to the 19th century as the literary standard (up to the 11th century also as a spoken language with different varieties), was partially superseded by Middle Armenian , attested from the 12th century to the 18th century. Specialized literature prefers "Old Armenian" for grabar as a whole, and designates as "Classical" the language used in the 5th century literature, "Post-Classical" from

2652-535: The 7th century, the forms of some letters began to change. The equal height of the letters was abandoned, with letters acquiring ascenders and descenders. In Nuskhuri manuscripts, Asomtavruli are used for titles and illuminated capitals . The latter were used at the beginnings of paragraphs which started new sections of text. In the early stages of the development of Nuskhuri texts, Asomtavruli letters were not elaborate and were distinguished principally by size and sometimes by being written in cinnabar ink. Later, from

2730-481: The Armenian language by adding well above a thousand new words, through his other hymns and poems Gregory paved the way for his successors to include secular themes and vernacular language in their writings. The thematic shift from mainly religious texts to writings with secular outlooks further enhanced and enriched the vocabulary. "A Word of Wisdom", a poem by Hovhannes Sargavak devoted to a starling, legitimizes poetry devoted to nature, love, or female beauty. Gradually,

2808-778: The Georgian Unicode for the Macintosh systems. Significant contributions were also made by Anton Dumbadze and Irakli Garibashvili (not to be mistaken with the Prime Minister of Georgia Irakli Garibashvili ). Georgian Mkhedruli script received an official status for being Georgia's internationalized domain name script for ( .გე ). Mtavruli letters were added in Unicode version 11.0 in June 2018. They are capital letters with similar letterforms to Mkhedruli, but with descenders shifted above

2886-449: The Georgian and Caucasian Albanian alphabets . This tradition originates in the works of Koryun , a fifth-century historian and biographer of Mashtots, and has been quoted by Donald Rayfield and James R. Russell , but has been rejected by Georgian scholarship and some Western scholars who judge the passage in Koryun unreliable or even a later interpolation. In his study on the history of

2964-552: The Greek alphabet than in the other Caucasian writing systems, most notably the order and numeric value of letters. Some scholars have also suggested certain pre-Christian Georgian cultural symbols or clan markers as a possible inspiration for particular letters. Asomtavruli ( Georgian : ასომთავრული , ႠႱႭႫႧႠႥႰႳႪႨ ; Georgian pronunciation: [asomtʰavɾuli] ) is the oldest Georgian script. The name Asomtavruli means "capital letters", from aso ( ასო ) "letter" and mtavari ( მთავარი ) "principal/head". It

3042-460: The Hurro-Urartian and Northeast Caucasian origins for these words and instead suggest native Armenian etymologies, leaving the possibility that these words may have been loaned into Hurro-Urartian and Caucasian languages from Armenian, and not vice versa. A notable example is arciv , meaning "eagle", believed to have been the origin of Urartian Arṣibi and Northeast Caucasian arzu . This word

3120-656: The Russian Empire), removed almost all of their Turkish lexical influences in the 20th century, primarily following the Armenian genocide . In addition to Armenia and Turkey, where it is indigenous , Armenian is spoken among the diaspora . According to Ethnologue , globally there are 1.6 million Western Armenian speakers and 3.7 million Eastern Armenian speakers, totalling 5.3 million Armenian speakers. In Georgia, Armenian speakers are concentrated in Ninotsminda and Akhalkalaki districts where they represent over 90% of

3198-454: The Russian and Ottoman empires led to creation of two separate and different environments under which Armenians lived. Halfway through the 19th century, two important concentrations of Armenian communities were further consolidated. Because of persecutions or the search for better economic opportunities, many Armenians living under Ottoman rule gradually moved to Istanbul , whereas Tbilisi became

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3276-815: The Soviet linguist Igor M. Diakonoff noted the presence in Classical Armenian of what he calls a "Caucasian substratum" identified by earlier scholars, consisting of loans from the Kartvelian and Northeast Caucasian languages . Noting that Hurro-Urartian-speaking peoples inhabited the Armenian homeland in the second millennium BC, Diakonoff identifies in Armenian a Hurro-Urartian substratum of social, cultural, and animal and plant terms such as ałaxin "slave girl" ( ← Hurr. al(l)a(e)ḫḫenne ), cov "sea" ( ← Urart. ṣûǝ "(inland) sea"), ułt "camel" ( ← Hurr. uḷtu ), and xnjor "apple (tree)" ( ← Hurr. ḫinzuri ). Some of

3354-777: The Spreading of Literacy among Georgians , founded by Prince Ilia Chavchavadze in 1879, discarded five letters from the Georgian alphabet that had become redundant: All but ჵ ( hoe ) continue to be used in the Svan alphabet ; ჲ ( hie ) is used in the Mingrelian and Laz alphabets as well, for the y-sound / j / . Several others were used for Abkhaz and Ossetian in the short time they were written in Mkhedruli script. Mkhedruli has been adapted to languages besides Georgian. Some of these alphabets retained letters obsolete in Georgian, while others acquired additional letters: The following table shows

3432-434: The center of Armenians living under Russian rule. These two cosmopolitan cities very soon became the primary poles of Armenian intellectual and cultural life. The introduction of new literary forms and styles, as well as many new ideas sweeping Europe, reached Armenians living in both regions. This created an ever-growing need to elevate the vernacular, Ashkharhabar, to the dignity of a modern literary language, in contrast to

3510-565: The existence of the two modern versions of the same language was sanctioned even more clearly. The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (1920–1990) used Eastern Armenian as its official language, whereas the diaspora created after the Armenian genocide preserved the Western Armenian dialect. The two modern literary dialects, Western (originally associated with writers in the Ottoman Empire) and Eastern (originally associated with writers in

3588-462: The four-linear system, similar to Nuskhuri. Mkhedruli becomes more round and free in writing. It breaks the strict frame of the previous two alphabets, Asomtavruli and Nuskhuri. Mkhedruli letters begin to get coupled and more free calligraphy develops. Example of one of the oldest Mkhedruli-written texts found in the royal charter of King Bagrat IV of Georgia , 11th century. The modern Georgian alphabet consists of 33 letters: The Society for

3666-461: The headlines of the manuscripts or the books, although there are complete inscriptions which were written in the Asomtavruli "Curly" form only. The following table shows the stroke direction of each Asomtavruli letter: Nuskhuri ( Georgian : ნუსხური , ⴌⴓⴑⴞⴓⴐⴈ ; Georgian pronunciation: [nusχuɾi] ) is the second Georgian script. The name nuskhuri comes from nuskha ( ნუსხა ), meaning "inventory" or "schedule". Nuskhuri

3744-425: The hypothetical Mushki language may have been a (now extinct) Armenic language. W. M. Austin (1942) concluded that there was early contact between Armenian and Anatolian languages , based on what he considered common archaisms, such as the lack of a feminine gender and the absence of inherited long vowels. Unlike shared innovations (or synapomorphies ), the common retention of archaisms (or symplesiomorphy )

3822-464: The interests of the population at large were reflected in other literary works as well. Konsdantin Yerzinkatsi and several others took the unusual step of criticizing the ecclesiastic establishment and addressing the social issues of the Armenian homeland. These changes represented the nature of the literary style and syntax, but they did not constitute immense changes to the fundamentals of the grammar or

3900-434: The invention of the Armenian alphabet and the life of Mashtots, the Armenian linguist Hrachia Acharian strongly defended Koryun as a reliable source and rejected criticisms of his accounts on the invention of the Georgian script by Mashtots. Acharian dated the invention to 408, four years after Mashtots created the Armenian alphabet (he dated the latter event to 404). Some Western scholars quote Koryun's claims without taking

3978-434: The late 5th to 8th centuries, and "Late Grabar" that of the period covering the 8th to 11th centuries. Later, it was used mainly in religious and specialized literature, with the exception of a revival during the early modern period, when attempts were made to establish it as the language of a literary renaissance, with neoclassical inclinations, through the creation and dissemination of literature in varied genres, especially by

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4056-478: The medieval chronicle Lives of the Kings of Kartli ( c.  800 ), assigns a much earlier, pre-Christian origin to the Georgian alphabet, and names King Pharnavaz I (3rd century BC) as its inventor. This account is now considered legendary, and is rejected by scholarly consensus, as no archaeological confirmation has been found. Rapp Georgian linguist Tamaz Gamkrelidze offers an alternative interpretation of

4134-560: The morphology of the language. Often, when writers codify a spoken dialect, other language users are then encouraged to imitate that structure through the literary device known as parallelism . In the 19th century, the traditional Armenian homeland was once again divided. This time Eastern Armenia was conquered from Qajar Iran by the Russian Empire , while Western Armenia , containing two thirds of historical Armenia, remained under Ottoman control. The antagonistic relationship between

4212-403: The now-anachronistic Grabar. Numerous dialects existed in the traditional Armenian regions, which, different as they were, had certain morphological and phonetic features in common. On the basis of these features two major standards emerged: Both centers vigorously pursued the promotion of Ashkharhabar. The proliferation of newspapers in both versions (Eastern & Western) and the development of

4290-526: The official status of the Armenian language. Eastern Armenian is the official variant used, making it the prestige variety while other variants have been excluded from national institutions. Indeed, Western Armenian is perceived by some as a mere dialect. Armenian was also official in the Republic of Artsakh . It is recognized as an official language of the Eurasian Economic Union although Russian

4368-569: The oldest surviving Armenian-language writing is etched in stone on Armenian temples and is called Mehenagir . The Armenian alphabet was created by Mesrop Mashtots in 405, at which time it had 36 letters. He is also credited by some with the creation of the Georgian alphabet and the Caucasian Albanian alphabet . While Armenian constitutes the sole member of the Armenian branch of the Indo-European family, Aram Kossian has suggested that

4446-519: The other scripts were formed in the following centuries. Most scholars link the creation of the Georgian script to the process of Christianization of Iberia (not to be confused with the Iberian Peninsula ), a core Georgian kingdom of Kartli . The alphabet was therefore most probably created between the conversion of Iberia under King Mirian III (326 or 337) and the Bir el Qutt inscriptions of 430. It

4524-474: The parent languages of Greek and Armenian were dialects in immediate geographical proximity during the Proto-Indo-European period. Meillet's hypothesis became popular in the wake of his book Esquisse d'une histoire de la langue latine (1936). Georg Renatus Solta (1960) does not go as far as postulating a Proto-Graeco-Armenian stage, but he concludes that considering both the lexicon and morphology, Greek

4602-407: The path to a new and simplified grammatical structure of the language in the two different cultural spheres. Apart from several morphological, phonetic, and grammatical differences, the largely common vocabulary and generally analogous rules of grammatical fundamentals allows users of one variant to understand the other as long as they are fluent in one of the literary standards. After World War I ,

4680-552: The population. The short-lived First Republic of Armenia declared Armenian its official language. Eastern Armenian was then dominating in institutions and among the population. When Armenia was incorporated into the USSR, the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic made Eastern Armenian the language of the courts, government institutions and schools. Armenia was also russified . The current Republic of Armenia upholds

4758-446: The punctuation as in international usage of the Latin script . This table lists the three scripts in parallel columns, including the letters that are now obsolete in all alphabets (shown with a blue background), obsolete in Georgian but still used in other alphabets (green background), or additional letters in languages other than Georgian (pink background). The "national" transliteration is

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4836-436: The representation of word-initial laryngeals by prothetic vowels, and other phonological and morphological peculiarities with Greek. Nevertheless, as Fortson (2004) comments, "by the time we reach our earliest Armenian records in the 5th century AD, the evidence of any such early kinship has been reduced to a few tantalizing pieces". Graeco-(Armeno)-Aryan is a hypothetical clade within the Indo-European family , ancestral to

4914-491: The role of Asomtavruli was reduced. However, epigraphic monuments of the 10th to 18th centuries continued to be written in Asomtavruli script. Asomtavruli in this later period became more decorative. In the majority of 9th-century Georgian manuscripts which were written in Nuskhuri script, Asomtavruli was used for titles and the first letters of chapters. However, some manuscripts written completely in Asomtavruli can be found until

4992-463: The similarities between the two languages meant that Armenian belonged to the Iranian language family . The distinctness of Armenian was recognized when philologist Heinrich Hübschmann (1875) used the comparative method to distinguish two layers of Iranian words from the older Armenian vocabulary . He showed that Armenian often had two morphemes for one concept, that the non-Iranian components yielded

5070-412: The stroke order and direction of each Mkhedruli letter: ზ , ო , and ხ ( zeni, oni, khani ) are almost always written without the small tick at the end, while the handwritten form of ჯ ( jani ) often uses a vertical line, [REDACTED] (sometimes with a taller ascender, or with a diagonal cross bar); even when it is written at a diagonal, the cross-bar is generally shorter than in print. There

5148-700: The system used by the Georgian government, whereas "Laz" is the Latin Laz alphabet used in Turkey. The table also shows the traditional numeric values of the letters. The first Georgian script was included in Unicode Standard in October 1991 with the release of version 1.0. In creating the Georgian Unicode block, important roles were played by German Jost Gippert , a linguist of Kartvelian studies , and American-Irish linguist and script-encoder Michael Everson , who created

5226-512: The terms he gives admittedly have an Akkadian or Sumerian provenance, but he suggests they were borrowed through Hurrian or Urartian. Given that these borrowings do not undergo sound changes characteristic of the development of Armenian from Proto-Indo-European , he dates their borrowing to a time before the written record but after the Proto-Armenian language stage. Contemporary linguists, such as Hrach Martirosyan , have rejected many of

5304-482: The text. One dot indicated a "minor stop" (presumably a simple word break), two dots marked or separated "special words", three dots for a "bigger stop" (such as the appositive name and title "the sovereign Alexander", below, or the title of the Gospel of Matthew , above), and six dots were to indicate the end of the sentence. Starting in the 11th century, marks resembling the apostrophe and comma came into use. An apostrophe

5382-410: The third one is used until the 18th century. Importance was attached also to the colour of the ink itself. Asomtavruli letter Ⴃ ( doni ) is often written with decoration effects of fish and birds . The "Curly" decorative form of Asomtavruli is also used where the letters are wattled or intermingled on each other, or the smaller letters are written inside other letters. It was mostly used for

5460-451: The tradition, in the pre-Christian use of foreign scripts ( alloglottography in the Aramaic alphabet ) to write down Georgian texts. Another point of contention among scholars is the role played by Armenian clerics in that process. According to medieval Armenian sources and a number of scholars, Mesrop Mashtots , generally acknowledged as the creator of the Armenian alphabet , also created

5538-525: The two other scripts, though Khutsuri (Nuskhuri with Asomtavruli) was used until the 19th century. Mkhedruli became the universal writing Georgian system outside of the Church in the 19th century with the establishment and development of printed Georgian fonts. Mkhedruli inscriptions of the 10th and 11th centuries are characterized in rounding of angular shapes of Nuskhuri letters and making the complete outlines in all of its letters. Mkhedruli letters are written in

5616-429: Was a practical measure widespread in manuscripts and hagiography by the 11th century. Mkhedruli, in the 11th to 17th centuries also came to employ digraphs to the point that they were obligatory, requiring adherence to a complex system. Georgian scripts come in only a single typeface , though word processors can apply automatic ("fake") oblique and bold formatting to Georgian text. Traditionally, Asomtavruli

5694-462: Was first used for translation of the Bible and other Christian literature into Georgian , by monks in Georgia and Palestine . Professor Levan Chilashvili 's dating of fragmented Asomtavruli inscriptions, discovered by him at the ruined town of Nekresi , in Georgia's easternmost province of Kakheti , in the 1980s, to the 1st or 2nd century has not been accepted. A Georgian tradition first attested in

5772-405: Was situated between Proto-Greek ( centum subgroup) and Proto-Indo-Iranian ( satem subgroup). Ronald I. Kim has noted unique morphological developments connecting Armenian to Balto-Slavic languages . The Armenian language has a long literary history, with a 5th-century Bible translation as its oldest surviving text. Another text translated into Armenian early on, and also in the 5th-century,

5850-534: Was soon augmented with Asomtavruli illuminated capitals in religious manuscripts. The combination is called Khutsuri ( Georgian : ხუცური , Ⴞⴓⴚⴓⴐⴈ ; "clerical", from khutsesi ( ხუცესი " cleric "), and it was principally used in hagiography . Nuskhuri first appeared in the 9th century as a graphic variant of Asomtavruli. The oldest inscription is found in the Ateni Sioni Church and dates to 835 AD. The oldest surviving Nuskhuri manuscripts date to 864 AD. Nuskhuri becomes dominant over Asomtavruli from

5928-666: Was the Armenian Alexander Romance . The vocabulary of the language has historically been influenced by Western Middle Iranian languages , particularly Parthian ; its derivational morphology and syntax were also affected by language contact with Parthian, but to a lesser extent. Contact with Greek, Persian , and Syriac also resulted in a number of loanwords. There are two standardized modern literary forms, Eastern Armenian (spoken mainly in Armenia) and Western Armenian (spoken originally mainly in modern-day Turkey and, since

6006-538: Was used for chapter or section titles, where Latin script might use bold or italic type. In Asomtavruli and Nuskhuri punctuation, various combinations of dots were used as word dividers and to separate phrases, clauses, and paragraphs. In monumental inscriptions and manuscripts of 5th to 10th centuries, these were written as dashes, like −, = and =−. In the 10th century, clusters of one (·), two (:), three ( ჻ ) and six (჻჻) dots (later sometimes small circles) were introduced by Ephrem Mtsire to indicate increasing breaks in

6084-432: Was used to mark an interrogative word, and a comma appeared at the end of an interrogative sentence. From the 12th century on, these were replaced with the semicolon (the Greek question mark ). In the 18th century, Patriarch Anton I of Georgia reformed the system again, with commas, single dots, and double dots used to mark "complete", "incomplete", and "final" sentences, respectively. For the most part, Georgian today uses

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