Aryan Roots Save Armenians from Nazi Extermination

[Armanen]

Re: Aryan Roots Save Armenians from Nazi Extermination

Lingustics helps to explain some of the unkown but it is not the end all be all. I'm not implying that you think this, just want to point it out since I think you agree with that statement. As you said there is a lot of info that we do not have and most will not have. The Hurrian and Subartu issue are still not well known, and while Kavoukjian does seem to gloss over some things, one has to remember that when the book was written, 20+ years ago, he had less info to work with than we do now.

As far as learning my peoples ancient history from two groups that both have an agenda: Armenian nationalists or western 'scholars' I will go with the former every time.

Both Armenian and Gevorg Nazaryan (creator of AH) are well versed in this topic, especially Gevorg, I wish they were here to discuss this issue with us.

[jgk3]

Re: Aryan Roots Save Armenians from Nazi Extermination

Lingustics helps to explain some of the unkown but it is not the end all be all. I'm not implying that you think this, just want to point it out since I think you agree with that statement. As you said there is a lot of info that we do not have and most will not have. The Hurrian and Subartu issue are still not well known, and while Kavoukjian does seem to gloss over some things, one has to remember that when the book was written, 20+ years ago, he had less info to work with than we do now.

As far as learning my peoples ancient history from two groups that both have an agenda: Armenian nationalists or western 'scholars' I will go with the former every time.

Both Armenian and Gevorg Nazaryan (creator of AH) are well versed in this topic, especially Gevorg, I wish they were here to discuss this issue with us.

I agree with your statement. My aim is to evaluate all of Kavoukjian's 20 year old glossing over. I'm already learning Hittite, and thus cuneiform script and the numerous Akkadian and Sumerian logograms. In a few years time, I'll give you my verdict on his translations. I think I should be able to get a hand on the texts he used. We Armenians would definitely benefit to have an English source that verifies Kavoukjian, who is basically one of the only sources we've used for a while now for these types of claims. I was intrigued by those propositions, whether they are true or not, and I am grateful for having been exposed to them as they have significantly motivated me to move toward this field in historical linguistics.

As for linguistic evidence helping to explain some of the unknown but not all, this is certainly true when it comes to the telling of historical events, artifacts and geographic locations. Archaeology and Linguists are the right and left arms both complementarily required before we can feel certainty in our propositions. However, when it comes to terminology and domains of inquiry that belong strictly to linguistics, only linguistics can tell the answer, and the question of Hurrian's genetic relationship to the Indo-European language family falls into this category. And the verdict is, Hurro-Urartian constitute their own language family.

There is quite an important but small set of Armenian words that have a non-Indo-European origin, having attested cognates in either 1. Sumerian and/or Akkadian, 2. Hurrian and/or Urartian, or 3. from both 1 and 2. I have an article from Diakonov that deals with this and Kavoukjian must've seen it. If you'd like, I can try to send the files of it to you.

This set of words however does suggest that the Indo-Europeans of the Armenian Highlands were definitely in contact with the Hurrians, who were in turn definitely in contact with Southern Mesopotamia quite early on. It adds weight to the claim that the Armenian Highlands were involved in this extensive trade network in the Levant (of which the Tigris and Euphrates played a great role, a point which Kavoukjian doesn't fail to repeat several times throughout his book). It also supports the idea that there was a situation of bilingualism between the Indo-European languages and the Hurro-Urartian languages in the Armenian Highlands. But I think we start to go too far if we take Kavoukjian's stance that the lands of the Aramaens also experienced this situation of bilingualism (of Semitic) with Indo-European dialects. Bilingualism with Hurrians most probably occurred, and this explains why Armenian and Aramaic share a set of words from this ancient strata of history (be careful not to treat all Aramaic words that look like Armenian ones as common borrowings from this very ancient era of the Hurrians, as we also loaned a great many Aramaic words under the much later Parthian rule, and especially after our Christianization).

At the end of the day, what we need to have a cleared understanding of in order to best explain this period isn't the Indo-European homeland, but the Hurrians and Urartians... We need to dig more of their sites and hope that we can find more texts from them so that we can expand our list of attested words in them and have more to work with, and more hopefully, find texts of more varied themes... (the best would be poetics and literature, but that's asking a lot). Unfortunately, the political situation today in the Near East doesn't seem to favour us Armenians in our desire to dig to better understand our pre-history.

I also recommend for Armenians in the meantime to understand that the Indo-European homeland being in Armenia shouldn't have to be such a "MUST", especially if it's going to cloud our appreciation of the J.P. Mallory's hypothesis and the reasons for why he holds them. This isn't part of some "enemy western agenda". Proto-Indo-European culture has a strong element of horses used ritualistically for example, and the Pontic and Central Asian Steppe seem to have a lot to offer in explaining this element of the culture, as the earliest site of horse domestication, horse sacrifices and burials... What is interesting is how the Indo-European horse rituals show up in Latin, Greek, Hittite and Sanskrit religion and law (which we know about thanks to philology/linguistics), which backs up the idea that this was a strongly Indo-European phenomenon. We know that horse domestication arrived in Anatolia at least a millenium later in Anatolia, by 3000BC, which many people hold to have been too late for the Urheimat responsible for the wide expanse of the Indo-European branches (keeping this homogenous horse ritual) across Eurasia, and also the realization of the Indo-European language family as we know it (refering to the level of difference between the branches), but I'm not well read on the reasoning behind why there should be such a cut-off point that renders 3000BC too late.

Another important Indo-European phenomenon btw is the myth of the Dragon Slayer, which turns up universally in Indo-European folktales and mythology. Yet another phenomenon is the set of Indo-European phrases, such as "Eternal Fame", one of several very popular themes that shows up in many of the attested daughter languages, all keeping true to this construction without fail.

So was the tradition of how people's names were constructed using a compound of two words:

They are found in the Celtic region (Dumnorix: "king of the world"; Kennedy: "ugly head"), in Indo-Aryan languages (Asvaghosa: "tamer of horses"); in Greek (Socrates: "good ruler", Hipparchos: "horse master"; Cleopatra: "from famous lineage") in Slavic languages (Vladimir: "great ruler"); in the Germanic languages (Alfred: "elf-counsel"; Godiva: "gift of God"), and in the Anatolian languages (Piyama-Radu: "gift of the devotee?").

Patronymics are also an Indo-European phenomenon. As are the metrics of Indo-European poetry... As all this glossing over its unique traits suggests, Indo-European culture has its own nucleus which is quite separate from that of other civilizations.

If we are interested in placing the homeland within the boundaries of our historical territory, we'd better know more about the actual cultural implications this would have... and evaluate how much of it has survived in the various cultures of the Armenian Highlands compared to other Indo-European cultures, and be able to intelligently explain the conclusions we arrive at. So many questions to address, so much responsibility for the ardent advocate of an Indo-European homeland in the Armenian Highlands. Do we really want this kind of weight on our shoulders?

It is absolutely necessary to deal with Indo-European in this way if we want to advance our claim in the international arena. And we can't just milk one scholar by the name of Colin Renfrew who advocates an Anatolian (more Central Anatolian/Hittite area) PIE homeland either.

[Armanen]

Re: Aryan Roots Save Armenians from Nazi Extermination

Yes, please e-mail me the file.

The western conspiracy that I see is not that Armenia is not the IE homeland, rather the continued attitude that Armenian historians are all nationalists and therefore their work is more biased than non Armenian sources. A number of western 'historians' that write about Armenia continue to advocate that Armenians arrived in Asia Minor from the Balkans, basing most of this on the comments made by Herodotus. As you said, and as I mentioned too, I do not doubt that the Armenian ethnogenesis includes both IE and Caucasian blood. But I think the mix of the two happened sooner than 600 BC, and as you mentioned it is very likely that the population of Armenia was bi-lingual. I believe this is the case with the Kingdom of Ararat, the religious and diplomatic language was Urartian, but the vernacular was ancient Armenian.

I hope you are successful in finding more evidence that suggests Armenia was the IE homeland, if not, I will at least know that you didn't have an agenda to push.

[jgk3]

Re: Aryan Roots Save Armenians from Nazi Extermination

Yes, please e-mail me the file.

The western conspiracy that I see is not that Armenia is not the IE homeland, rather the continued attitude that Armenian historians are all nationalists and therefore their work is more biased than non Armenian sources. A number of western 'historians' that write about Armenia continue to advocate that Armenians arrived in Asia Minor from the Balkans, basing most of this on the comments made by Herodotus. As you said, and as I mentioned too, I do not doubt that the Armenian ethnogenesis includes both IE and Caucasian blood. But I think the mix of the two happened sooner than 600 BC, and as you mentioned it is very likely that the population of Armenia was bi-lingual. I believe this is the case with the Kingdom of Ararat, the religious and diplomatic language was Urartian, but the vernacular was ancient Armenian.

I hope you are successful in finding more evidence that suggests Armenia was the IE homeland, if not, I will at least know that you didn't have an agenda to push.

Thanks for your understanding reply. I too must protest that there is no indication for why the Indo-European presence in the Armenian Highlands cannot be earlier than 600BC. The reasoning is that just because Urartu used a non-Indo-European language, Indo-Europeans did not live in their kingdom. But then why do the Armenians identify with their patron god Hayk, who founded our tribe in the Armenian Highlands and slew Bel single-handedly? What the hell does Bel, the God-King of the Babylonians have to do with the 600BC and later? The same goes for the story of Ara the Beautiful and Semiramis... Clearly, the international scene ignores Mashtots' description of the pagan religion of Armenia when they hold that our history must be neatly separated from that of Urartu. If they cared to pay more attention, they'd see that they are contradicting the story told by Armenian linguistics and mythology on a level that would be embarressing if they were instead dealing with Ancient Greek, Avestan or Sanskrit.

p.s.I'll send you the files soon.

[Կարմիր Բ]

Re: Aryan Roots Save Armenians from Nazi Extermination

I can't believe this ridiculous thread still exists.

[Armanen]

Re: Aryan Roots Save Armenians from Nazi Extermination

I can't believe this ridiculous thread still exists.

Care to explain what is so ridiculous about it?

[Կարմիր Բ]

Re: Aryan Roots Save Armenians from Nazi Extermination

Read the OP.

[diaukhi]

Re: Aryan Roots Save Armenians from Nazi Extermination

why don't you understand that urartu was not armenia?

[Armanen]

Re: Aryan Roots Save Armenians from Nazi Extermination

why don't you understand that urartu was not armenia?

The Kingdom of Ararat aka Urartu was an Armenian kingdom or at the very least a proto-Armenian kingdom.

[diaukhi]

Re: Aryan Roots Save Armenians from Nazi Extermination

was aratta also armenian?