Re: [tied] Armenian.

Russian is inaccessible -- to whom? ;) There is also a vast amount of Armenologist literature written in German or French, and as any linguist might be expected to be able to read at least one language besides English ... Well, I see what you mean. A specialist will know where to look, but an interested layman will find less reader-friendly information in the English language about Armenian than about most other IE branches (but what about Albanian, Tocharian or even Baltic?). One problem is that Armenian historical linguistics is a dauntingly difficult field with lots of controversial issues -- thin ice even for well-trained IEists. Imagine a language in which *t becomes "th", "h", "y", "t", "w", "d" _or_ zero depending on conditions that sometimes are clear and sometimes aren't.

Linguists have traditionally concentrated on Classical Armenian for the very good reason that it is the oldest documented form of the language. It was also for a long time its main literary dialect, and the liturgical language of the Armenian Church. Of course Classical Armenian was not the only form of Old Armenian, just as Old Church Slavic was just one old Slavic dialect among many and not the actual ancestor of the extant Slavic languages, and Classical Latin is not the common ancestor of the Romance group. There is a similar bias in the history of English: since the West Saxon dialect of King Alfred happens to be better attested than other varieties of Old English, handbooks treat it tacitly as the legitimate ancestor of present-day standard English (via East Midland Middle English as epitomised by Chaucer). Literary tradition is thus confused with linguistic descent. This is a completely false picture: in the "tangled bush" representing the evolution of English precious little of the stuff that standard English is made of comes from West Saxon.

As for Armenian linguistic nationalism, purism and emphasis on unity at the expense of reality -- well, that's the usual instinctive attitude of nations that are or feel endangered. Give the Armenians some time to recover from the atrocities of the 20th century. The question "one language with many dialects, or a language family" is political rather than linguistic anyway.

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: markodegard@...

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2001 5:09 AM

Subject: [tied] Armenian.

Armenian is the least well served of the IE stocks. Part of this is the result of political and geographic realities. Most of the literature is either in Armenian or Russian, which means it is largely inaccessable. When you read the articles in the EIEC or Britannica, you note what the authors don't say, and how they say they don't say it. The official story is that there are two groups of Armenian, Western and Eastern, both descended from Classical Armenian, which emerged ca AD 500. Classical Armenian is Biblical Armenian, 'Church Armenian', and uses the Armenian alphabet. EA is spoken in Armenia proper, while WA is the remnant of Armenian spoken in territories now controlled by Turkey and Syria. WA is what is mainly heard in immigrant communities in the United States. Not too much else is said, beyond the edifying stories about St. Mesrop. The reality seems to be considerably more complicated. There's an article in the Spring/Summer 2000 JIES by Harold C. Fleming: "Glottalization in Eastern Armenian". He covers a number of topics, the main one not being germane to my own posting here. He discusses the various problems with Armenian and without saying so in so many words, comes to the conclusion that a major clearing-of-the-air is necessary. Essentially, the Armenians have carefully avoided bringing attention to their internal linguistic differences in order to maintain ethnic unity. Armenian is not just one language with a bunch of dialects. It's a language family, with distinct living languages, some of which patently cannot be descended from Classical Armenian. Fleming's view is the Armenians most likely went right over the Caucasus into Urartu as shepherds, crossing thru the world's 2nd most intense area of glottalization. When the Urartian state collapsed (the details are very obscure) the Armenian-speakers seem to have taken over, probably peacefully, leading to language-replacement. Fleming mentions Cavalli-Sforza stuff regarding the Armenians: --start quote-- the Dargwa (of Dagestan), East Caucasic speakers, are closest of all, followed by Kabardians from (North) West Caucasic. Old neighboring peoples like Azeris (Turkic 'Iranians') and Syrians (Semites) are next closest, in that order." [pp 194-5] --end quote-- There seems to be a little conspiracy among all Armenians to pretend they all speak the same language. They regard themselves as a single people. The Classical Armenian language, their bible, and the Armenian Church are the great vessels of their nationalism. The situation is as if the French, Spanish and Italians regarded themselves as a single ethnic group and averred they all speak Latin. As for coming over the Caucasus, why not. We know Indic-speakers got there too. If you take the idea they were high-mountain shepherds, the whole process would have been peaceful, and of mutual economic benefit to those lower down in the valleys. Armenian has certainly joined the Caucasian sprachbund, and is also the most radically 'strated stock in the living IE family. It seems also to have been there for a long time. Fleming hints we need to look back into the 2nd millenium BCE for their arrival in the Caucasus, more or less part-and-parcel with the expansion of the Indo-Iranians (and who knows else). Thoughts? Comments? Have I made any howlers?