Are Iranian-Armenians Iranian? What is Armenian Assimilation?

[Armanen]

Re: Are Iranian-Armenians Iranian? What is Armenian Assimilation?

Check this out:





So... the prefix AR shows up so much in Armenian apparently... Does it even have the same PIE meaning as all that has been identified or suggested above? The earliest mention of it, in the Avesta, uses it to denote kinfolk.

Thanks! But in order to address that we first need to prove whether Armenian broke away from Iranian, or the other way around. Not so much if the meaning is the same but if different why are they different since the two languages are related. Ivanov and Gramkilridze (among others) claim Indo-Iranian and Greaco-Armenian were once part of a larger family. So the prefix AR could appear in all four languages at the same time. However, why is it more common in Armenian than the other three?

Yes, like many mountains around the world.

The Bible does not refer to these other mountain tops as the landing spot. Only Mt. Ararat, which lies in the heart of the Armenian Highlands.

Armenia became more oriented toward the west when the Sassanids came to power, who were more zealous in their Zoroastrian cult and destroyed the Parthians who preceded them, and Armenia was an island of Parthian nobility for a few centuries by that point. With their old home base gone, these nobles had to find something else to clothe themselves in, to distance themselves from the oncoming Sassanids. This is also represented by the story of Vartan Mamikonian. It is actually because of these Armenianized Parthians that Armenia became Christian, and embraced its local language as a literary and administrative one, ushering in the Golden Age of Armenian.

Perhaps the zealousness of the Sassanids contributed to Armenia looking West, but the fact that they were more eager to conquer Armenia, politically caused the shift as well. I agree that the nobility wanted to set up some cultural wall between themselves and the Sassanids. Did Christianity provide this? Sure. But I would be hesitant to give them all the credit. The pagan cults were not speaking to the people as they had in days past, and it was becoming too separated from the inner spirituality of the common folk.

No, they did it less for others, and more for themselves. You start to feel insecure when your nobility comes from an non-local origin that is about to go extinct themselves. This nobility allowed itself to absorb completely into an Armenian identity, but this identity was so Iranicized, it did need to be revamped, it did need to identify with something more local, to bring the center of gravity for its history into Armenia proper, and not from the land of the Arsacids which was now under the enemy Sassanids who wanted to replace their Mazdeic cult. They could do nothing but look to the South (Syria, in the beginning) and the West (Greece). Armenia chose Greece as its archetype, until they came to feel too Hellenicized and threatened by the Greek centers of power to become assimilated. With Sassanids becoming softer over time, they oscillated back to the East.

Armenia had already experienced Hellenization before, when it was under the control of the Seleucids, then under Tigran the Great. The attraction to Greece was linked more with the fact that Greek was one of the chief languages of the Bible in the early Church. Syriac was another as you pointed out, but they did not carry the rich philosophical heritage that Greek did and Armenia had not been under the domination of a Syriac speaking empire before. I believe that played a part too.

[jgk3]

Re: Are Iranian-Armenians Iranian? What is Armenian Assimilation?

Let me guess, you are going to say there are no main prefixes, etc. How about, most common, or one which carried a metaphysical meaning as well? Without question, AR is the most common prefix in the Armenian language. There is an connection between AR, Arev, Ararich, Ararat, Ara, AR MAN, AR MEN, and Aryan. They all connection with the central deity of the PIE pantheon, the Sun-god.

Check this out:

Derivation of the word "Aryan"

The English word "Aryan" is borrowed from the Sanskrit word ārya meaning 'Noble';[1] it was used initially as a national name to designate the worshippers of the Hindu deities and especially Indra according to Brahmanical principles (performance of sacrifice, Yajna).[1][12] The Zend airya 'venerable' and Old Persian ariya are also considered as national names.[1][13]

In colloquial English, the word has been adopted in accordance with Nazi racial theory's appropriation of the term to describe persons corresponding to the "Nordic" physical ideal of Nazi Germany (the "master race" ideology).[n 1]

In Iranian context the original self-identifier lives on in ethnic names like "Alani", "Ir".[15] Similarly, The word Iran is the Persian word for land/place of the Aryans[16](see also Iranian peoples).

[edit] Possible derivations from Proto-Indo-European

According to a 1957 theory by Laroche, Indo-Iranian ar-ya- descends from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) *ar-yo-, a yo-adjective to a root *ar "to assemble skillfully", present in Greek harma "chariot", Greek aristos, (as in "aristocracy"), Latin ars "art", etc. Thus, according to this theory, an Aryan is "one who skillfully assembles". Proto-Indo-Iranian *ar-ta- was a related concept of "properly joined" expressing a religious concept of cosmic order.[17]

Various attempts to find an etymon are as follows:
Before 1950 – all are reductions of the historical variety to an original unity:[clarification needed] Bopp (1830): ar- "to go, to move", read as "one who roams" (like a nomad)
Müller (1862): ar- "to plough", read as "cultivator of the land" [18]
Güntert (1924): ar- "to fit", read as "allied, friendly"
Thieme (1938): ar- "to give, allot, share", read as "hospitable"

After 1950 – all treat the autonym as distinct from similar-looking words:[clarification needed] Laroche (1957): ara- "to fit", read as "fitting, proper"
Dumézil (1958): ar- "to share", read as a uniting property of "appartenant au monde aryen"
Bailey (1959): ar- "to beget", read as "born, nurturing"
Benveniste (1969): ar- "to fit", read as "companionable"


A review of these and numerous other ideas, and the various problems with each is given by Oswald Szemerényi.[19]

In Iranian literature

Unlike the several meanings connected with ārya- in Old Indic, the Old Iranian term has solely an ethnic meaning.[22][23] That is in contrast to Indian usage, in which several secondary meanings evolved, the meaning of ar- as a self-identifier is preserved in Iranian usage, hence the words "Iran"/"Iranian" themselves. Iranian airya meant and means "Iranian", and Iranian anairya [13][15] meant and means "Un-Iranian".Arya may also be found as an ethnonym in newer Iranian languages, e.g., Alan/Persian Iran and Ossetian Ir/Iron[15]

The name Iran, Iranian is itself equivalent to Aryan, where Iran means "land of the Aryans,"[6][13][13][15][23][24][25][26] and has been in use since Sassanid times[24][25]

The Avesta clearly uses airya/airyan as an ethnic name (Vd. 1; Yt. 13.143-44, etc.), where it appears in expressions such as airyāfi; daiŋˊhāvō "Iranian lands, peoples", airyō.šayanəm "land inhabited by Iranians", and airyanəm vaējō vaŋhuyāfi; dāityayāfi; "Iranian stretch of the good Dāityā", the river Oxus, the modern Āmū Daryā.[23] Old Persian sources also use this term for Iranians. Old Persian which is a testament to the antiquity of the Persian language and which is related to most of the languages/dialects spoken in Iran including modern Persian, Kurdish, Gilaki and Baluchi makes it clear that Iranians referred to themselves as Arya.

The term "Airya/Airyan" appears in the royal Old Persian inscriptions in three different contexts:
1.As the name of the language of the Old Persian version of the inscription of Darius the Great in Behistun
2.As the ethnic background of Darius in inscriptions at Naqsh-e-Rostam and Susa (Dna, Dse) and Xerxes in the inscription from Persepolis (Xph)
3.As the definition of the God of Aryan people, Ahuramazda, in the Elamite version of the Behistun inscription.[13][15][23]

For example in the Dna and Dse Darius and Xerxes describe themselves as "An Achaemenian, A Persian son of a Persian and an Aryan, of Aryan stock".[27] Although Darius the Great called his language the Aryan language,[27] modern scholars refer to it as Old Persian[27] because it is the ancestor of modern Persian language.[28]

The Old Persian and Avestan evidence is confirmed by the Greek sources".[23] Herodotus in his Histories remarks about the Iranian Medes that: "These Medes were called anciently by all people Arians; " (7.62).[13][15][23] In Armenian sources, the Parthians, Medes and Persians are collectively referred to as Aryans.[29] Eudemus of Rhodes apud Damascius (Dubitationes et solutiones in Platonis Parmenidem 125 bis) refers to "the Magi and all those of Iranian (áreion) lineage"; Diodorus Siculus (1.94.2) considers Zoroaster (Zathraustēs) as one of the Arianoi.[23]

So... the prefix AR shows up so much in Armenian apparently... Does it even have the same PIE meaning as all that has been identified or suggested above? The earliest mention of it, in the Avesta, uses it to denote kinfolk.

And some Ecuadoreans claim Cotopaxi is the Biblical Mt. Ararat. So what? The fact remains that since ancient times, prior to the Bible even being written, the Armenian Highlands were seen as a mystical place, a land that was the nexus between our world and that of the gods. The name Ararat was used by Armenians as was masis prior to Christ's birth.

Yes, like many mountains around the world.

Are you saying Armenia become politically oriented toward the West because of Christianity, and that this was the main reason or just one of others? Because the former assertion is incorrect, the later is more accurate. With the Greeks it was more assimilation of our Church, which would have then led to us as a people. With the Persians it was not any type of assimilation, but rather subordination and a changing of our creed; prior to their conquest by the Arabs in the mid 600s. And let us not forget that since the 300s BC Armenia was a battle ground between empires from the East and empires from the West. It had to balance the two in order to survive. While Armenia was under Persian control longer than Hellenic or Roman, it nonetheless still had to contend with political domination from two sides, which shaped the culture of the court to at times align and other times to repel Eastern/Persian or Western/Roman-Byzantine pressures. Most of the time it was alignment.

Armenia became more oriented toward the west when the Sassanids came to power, who were more zealous in their Zoroastrian cult and destroyed the Parthians who preceded them, and Armenia was an island of Parthian nobility for a few centuries by that point. With their old home base gone, these nobles had to find something else to clothe themselves in, to distance themselves from the oncoming Sassanids. This is also represented by the story of Vartan Mamikonian. It is actually because of these Armenianized Parthians that Armenia became Christian, and embraced its local language as a literary and administrative one, ushering in the Golden Age of Armenian.

Are you really saying that Armenians HAD to create a identity so other nations would recognize us? Armenia may have been Hellenzied to a certain extent, and Persianized as well, but Armenians were well known in the ancient world. I would agree that the Golden Age of Armenian culture in the early medieval period was an attempt to shake off some foreign influences, much as there is a movement to rid Armenia of some Russian/Soviet elements, but to totally re-construct Armenian identity was not the goal. I am curious, if you are taking the position that it was a total revamping of Armenian identity, where you are getting that notion from?
I take what Western academia says about Armenia with a grain of salt. Knowing the number of times they have been wrong or glossed over inconvenient facts doesn't help their case. As I mentioned earlier. Recent archaeological finds in Armenia, and the Armenian Highlands are proving Khorenatsi to be more of a historian than modern Armenian historians in the West with their Ph.Ds. Case in point, Nina Garsoian.

No, they did it less for others, and more for themselves. You start to feel insecure when your nobility comes from an non-local origin that is about to go extinct themselves. This nobility allowed itself to absorb completely into an Armenian identity, but this identity was so Iranicized, it did need to be revamped, it did need to identify with something more local, to bring the center of gravity for its history into Armenia proper, and not from the land of the Arsacids which was now under the enemy Sassanids who wanted to replace their Mazdeic cult. They could do nothing but look to the South (Syria, in the beginning) and the West (Greece). Armenia chose Greece as its archetype, until they came to feel too Hellenicized and threatened by the Greek centers of power to become assimilated. With Sassanids becoming softer over time, they oscillated back to the East.

[Armanen]

Re: Are Iranian-Armenians Iranian? What is Armenian Assimilation?

Main? So what are the other "main" prefixes?

Let me guess, you are going to say there are no main prefixes, etc. How about, most common, or one which carried a metaphysical meaning as well? Without question, AR is the most common prefix in the Armenian language. There is an connection between AR, Arev, Ararich, Ararat, Ara, AR MAN, AR MEN, and Aryan. They all connection with the central deity of the PIE pantheon, the Sun-god.

When I mentioned Noah's Ark, I was not mentioning Sumerian myths. I was talking about what Armenians did upon their conversion to Christianity by considering Mount Masis to be the site mentioned in Biblical legend. This myth, already used to designate Mount Judi by the Syrians by the 2nd century AD as the biblical site of the "Mountains of Ararat", spread to Armenia with Christianity. You can believe what you want about Ararat being the site of Noah's Ark, or if there even was such a thing as it was described in the bible.

And some Ecuadoreans claim Cotopaxi is the Biblical Mt. Ararat. So what? The fact remains that since ancient times, prior to the Bible even being written, the Armenian Highlands were seen as a mystical place, a land that was the nexus between our world and that of the gods. The name Ararat was used by Armenians as was masis prior to Christ's birth.

Again, I never said there was no spoken Armenian prior to classical. I merely said that it's use in writing beginning from the 5th century, along with the adoption of Christianity and the destruction of their Pagan Mazdaism was a nationalistic front (in which they became politically oriented towards the west, in order to find the instruments to do so), used by Armenians to separate themselves from the Iranian yoke they had lived under for 1000 years. All of this began before Khorenatsi even opened his mouth. After a while, when the Greeks wanted to assimilate them, naturally the Armenians gravitated back towards the East politically, and began their custom of always sitting on the fence, never wanting to go so far as to get reassimilated, holding onto their distinct language and religion.

Are you saying Armenia become politically oriented toward the West because of Christianity, and that this was the main reason or just one of others? Because the former assertion is incorrect, the later is more accurate. With the Greeks it was more assimilation of our Church, which would have then led to us as a people. With the Persians it was not any type of assimilation, but rather subordination and a changing of our creed; prior to their conquest by the Arabs in the mid 600s. And let us not forget that since the 300s BC Armenia was a battle ground between empires from the East and empires from the West. It had to balance the two in order to survive. While Armenia was under Persian control longer than Hellenic or Roman, it nonetheless still had to contend with political domination from two sides, which shaped the culture of the court to at times align and other times to repel Eastern/Persian or Western/Roman-Byzantine pressures. Most of the time it was alignment.

Their problem was that they needed to identify some ancient history to align themselves under, to distinguish themselves from the ancient peoples of the Greeks, Iranians, Syrians, etc... That is the premise for why Khorenatsi began compiling his History of Armenia, it was a pro-Armenian political move. You have to expect this history to be questioned by modern academia for precisely this reason however, because a lot of its claims are based on local folklore and myth, not co-attested by other sources. It is healthy to recognize it as such. If his history was, like the epic of homer, compiled from some oral tradition that had preserved its poetics unchanged for 1000 years (whether this epic was preserved in a proto-Armenian, or some other language), then maybe you can extend its life of direct transmission of information back to Urartian times without question. In the meantime, questioning is good. Science questions. Ignoring is not the goal. Comparing and questioning can reveal more truth and detail about Armenian history, than accepting every pro-Armenian claim as truth. If you want the latter, no one's stopping you. Just don't expect to be believable to any other type of person.

Are you really saying that Armenians HAD to create a identity so other nations would recognize us? Armenia may have been Hellenzied to a certain extent, and Persianized as well, but Armenians were well known in the ancient world. I would agree that the Golden Age of Armenian culture in the early medieval period was an attempt to shake off some foreign influences, much as there is a movement to rid Armenia of some Russian/Soviet elements, but to totally re-construct Armenian identity was not the goal. I am curious, if you are taking the position that it was a total revamping of Armenian identity, where you are getting that notion from?
I take what Western academia says about Armenia with a grain of salt. Knowing the number of times they have been wrong or glossed over inconvenient facts doesn't help their case. As I mentioned earlier. Recent archaeological finds in Armenia, and the Armenian Highlands are proving Khorenatsi to be more of a historian than modern Armenian historians in the West with their Ph.Ds. Case in point, Nina Garsoian.

[jgk3]

Re: Are Iranian-Armenians Iranian? What is Armenian Assimilation?

You need to recheck your history. There has been evidence to show that Armenian was written in foreign scripts. Before Persian rule, Armenia was independent, and proto-Armenian tribes can be attested to living in the area by 2000BC and even earlier. Because Urartuian/Hurrian was the language of the court, at least we assume so since the suriving documents are in that language, does not mean that the vernacular was Urartuian as well. Linguistics is just one factor in determining a peoples history, but it is not the end all be all, and I think you may be attaching too much weight to it. If 1000 years from now researchers found documents in Mali written in French, would they now assume that the people of Mali were related to the French? Would they also assume that Mali had no other languages?

I never said Armenian was not spoken prior to the earliest attestation of it in writing, or its first mention as a distinct ethnic group. In fact, I inferred that Armenian existed well before this, as it is descended from a distinct line from Indo-European, since it would have come from proto-Armenian, rather than from any other daughter group.

The prefix AR appears in Armenian more than any other IE language. And some historians and linguists consider it one of the main PIE prefixes.

Main? So what are the other "main" prefixes?

As for Noah's ark, it was the Hebrews who made that claim. And and the fact that the Armenian Highlands has been considered to be where the Gods live even by the Sumerians, attests to the special significance that area had for the ancient peoples of the wider Near East.

When I mentioned Noah's Ark, I was not mentioning Sumerian myths. I was talking about what Armenians did upon their conversion to Christianity by considering Mount Masis to be the site mentioned in Biblical legend. This myth, already used to designate Mount Judi by the Syrians by the 2nd century AD as the biblical site of the "Mountains of Ararat", spread to Armenia with Christianity. You can believe what you want about Ararat being the site of Noah's Ark, or if there even was such a thing as it was described in the bible.

Finally, Classical Armenian was not pro anything other than pro-Armenian. Again, it is illogical to believe that there was no spoken Armenian language prior to Classical Armenian just because we have not found documents in that language. As a student of linguistics you should be well of aware of how many languages have died out and left no trace. Most of those have been spoken by few people and also never developed a writing system. With each passing year we are finding that Khorenatsi was indeed telling the truth, as far as he knew, in his histories, and that he was anything but a pseudo-historian like Herodotus.

Again, I never said there was no spoken Armenian prior to classical. I merely said that it's use in writing beginning from the 5th century, along with the adoption of Christianity and the destruction of their Pagan Mazdaism was a nationalistic front (in which they became politically oriented towards the west, in order to find the instruments to do so), used by Armenians to separate themselves from the Iranian yoke they had lived under for 1000 years. All of this began before Khorenatsi even opened his mouth. After a while, when the Greeks wanted to assimilate them, naturally the Armenians gravitated back towards the East politically, and began their custom of always sitting on the fence, never wanting to go so far as to get reassimilated, holding onto their distinct language and religion.

Their problem was that they needed to identify some ancient history to align themselves under, to distinguish themselves from the ancient peoples of the Greeks, Iranians, Syrians, etc... That is the premise for why Khorenatsi began compiling his History of Armenia, it was a pro-Armenian political move. You have to expect this history to be questioned by modern academia for precisely this reason however, because a lot of its claims are based on local folklore and myth, not co-attested by other sources. It is healthy to recognize it as such. If his history was, like the epic of homer, compiled from some oral tradition that had preserved its poetics unchanged for 1000 years (whether this epic was preserved in a proto-Armenian, or some other language), then maybe you can extend its life of direct transmission of information back to Urartian times without question. In the meantime, questioning is good. Science questions. Ignoring is not the goal. Comparing and questioning can reveal more truth and detail about Armenian history, than accepting every pro-Armenian claim as truth. If you want the latter, no one's stopping you. Just don't expect to be believable to any other type of person.

[Armanen]

Re: Are Iranian-Armenians Iranian? What is Armenian Assimilation?

The concept of an "Iranian people" that we all take for granted today comes from linguistic classification. Kurds, Ossetians, Sogdians, Bactrians... these are all Iranian linguistically. They themselves probably would not have known better to classify themselves as such if it were left up to them, without being aware of the linguistic academia from 19th century Europe that made the link loud and clear for the entire world to begin to take for granted.

Armenian vocabulary (by the time Classical Armenian is first attested) shows up with 80% of its lexicon (meaning, 80% of root words, which can subsequently be used to generate a vast size of vocabulary several times the lexicon size through word constructions) being derived from Iranian loanwords, mostly from Old Persian and Pahlavi, particularly religious (together with all proper names associated with them) and administrative language.

Another 18% comes from Indo-European, which represents a distinct "Armenian daughter" from the ancestor, which is the core vocabulary used in households, for names of many animals and agricultural products, body parts, numbers... The final 2 or so % comes from other languages, mostly Aramaic.

The reason 80% of our lexicon comes from Iranian languages is because we were ruled for 1000 years, from 600BC to 400AD, by Iranians. Their soldiers lived on our lands, many married our women, but the women raised their children to speak Armenian. Religion (Zoroastrianism) was imported, together with Old Persian for the majority of Religious/Cosmological terminology (e.g. Hreshdag, Haroutiun, Ashkhar, etc...)and names (e.g. Vahagn, Zare, Anahit, Mher, etc...). Being vassals of Parthia and Persia, all official documents prior to Classical Armenian were in their languages, not a shred of Armenian appears, so naturally Armenians used this as a lingua franca, and when they found their own independence, simply adopted all the official terminology for things, rather than scratch their heads and try to remember how Urartians used to call things 1000 years ago, which still wouldn't help because it's not Armenian, Armenia simply did not develop its own terminology for administration without borrowing.

When Classical Armenian finally burst onto the scene, it was a cry of independence and pro-West, towards Greeks and Christianity. Armenia, after 1000 years of being under the Iranian yoke, found herself naked of national identity... The only thing that was Armenian about her was household language, not statesmanship, not even religion. That is why Armenia so aggressively tried to publish her own authenticity as an ancient people worthy of honor and glory with stories such as Noah's Ark landing in Ararat, Khorenatsi's History of Armenians identified pre-Zoroastrian deities such as Ara and Hayk, and the Church, which normally opposes paganism, supported this because they were desperate to find any means to distinguish Armenians from an Iranian cultural heritage.

This said... Armenians, though heavily influenced by Iranian people, religion and statesmanship, are still not an Iranian people, because this category is a linguistic one. One does not enter a language family by borrowing heavily from it, but by being a descendant of it, which Armenian was shown to be not, by Heinrich Hubschmann in 1877. Prior to his finding, Armenian was considered to be a funny variety of Iranian, funny because while the 80% of the lexicon could be shown to be derived from Iranian, that 18% that was clearly Indo-European, when attempted to be traced from an Iranian root word, produced a hypothetical proto-form which could not be found in Iranian lexicon. So this 18% was ignored for a while, and people just said "Armenian is a funny variety of the Iranian family, 80% of its lexicon fits perfectly, but we don't know what's going on with that 18%).

But it is not the 80% Iranian lexicon being the majority that can be trusted to categorize our language as of that family... it is the 18%, specifically because it represents a distinct branch of Indo-European. That minority of our lexicon is what makes us escape classification as Iranian, despite the immense lasting influence it has had on us culturally, linguistically and politically. In fact, our language preserves all too many elements of old Iranian customs, names and words that in Iran and Iranian languages today, have been replaced by Arabic counterparts (due to Iran's departure from Zoroastrianism and strong embrace of Shiite Islam, with its terminology coming from Classical Arabic).

You need to recheck your history. There has been evidence to show that Armenian was written in foreign scripts. Before Persian rule, Armenia was independent, and proto-Armenian tribes can be attested to living in the area by 2000BC and even earlier. Because Urartuian/Hurrian was the language of the court, at least we assume so since the suriving documents are in that language, does not mean that the vernacular was Urartuian as well. Linguistics is just one factor in determining a peoples history, but it is not the end all be all, and I think you may be attaching too much weight to it. If 1000 years from now researchers found documents in Mali written in French, would they now assume that the people of Mali were related to the French? Would they also assume that Mali had no other languages?

The prefix AR appears in Armenian more than any other IE language. And some historians and linguists consider it one of the main PIE prefixes.

As for Noah's ark, it was the Hebrews who made that claim. And and the fact that the Armenian Highlands has been considered to be where the Gods live even by the Sumerians, attests to the special significance that area had for the ancient peoples of the wider Near East.

Finally, Classical Armenian was not pro anything other than pro-Armenian. Again, it is illogical to believe that there was no spoken Armenian language prior to Classical Armenian just because we have not found documents in that language. As a student of linguistics you should be well of aware of how many languages have died out and left no trace. Most of those have been spoken by few people and also never developed a writing system. With each passing year we are finding that Khorenatsi was indeed telling the truth, as far as he knew, in his histories, and that he was anything but a pseudo-historian like Herodotus.

[jgk3]

Re: Are Iranian-Armenians Iranian? What is Armenian Assimilation?

The concept of an "Iranian people" that we all take for granted today comes from linguistic classification. Kurds, Ossetians, Sogdians, Bactrians... these are all Iranian linguistically. They themselves probably would not have known better to classify themselves as such if it were left up to them, without being aware of the linguistic academia from 19th century Europe that made the link loud and clear for the entire world to begin to take for granted.

Armenian vocabulary (by the time Classical Armenian is first attested) shows up with 80% of its lexicon (meaning, 80% of root words, which can subsequently be used to generate a vast size of vocabulary several times the lexicon size through word constructions) being derived from Iranian loanwords, mostly from Old Persian and Pahlavi, particularly religious (together with all proper names associated with them) and administrative language.

Another 18% comes from Indo-European, which represents a distinct "Armenian daughter" from the ancestor, which is the core vocabulary used in households, for names of many animals and agricultural products, body parts, numbers... The final 2 or so % comes from other languages, mostly Aramaic.

The reason 80% of our lexicon comes from Iranian languages is because we were ruled for 1000 years, from 600BC to 400AD, by Iranians. Their soldiers lived on our lands, many married our women, but the women raised their children to speak Armenian. Religion (Zoroastrianism) was imported, together with Old Persian for the majority of Religious/Cosmological terminology (e.g. Hreshdag, Haroutiun, Ashkhar, etc...)and names (e.g. Vahagn, Zare, Anahit, Mher, etc...). Being vassals of Parthia and Persia, all official documents prior to Classical Armenian were in their languages, not a shred of Armenian appears, so naturally Armenians used this as a lingua franca, and when they found their own independence, simply adopted all the official terminology for things, rather than scratch their heads and try to remember how Urartians used to call things 1000 years ago, which still wouldn't help because it's not Armenian, Armenia simply did not develop its own terminology for administration without borrowing.

When Classical Armenian finally burst onto the scene, it was a cry of independence and pro-West, towards Greeks and Christianity. Armenia, after 1000 years of being under the Iranian yoke, found herself naked of national identity... The only thing that was Armenian about her was household language, not statesmanship, not even religion. That is why Armenia so aggressively tried to publish her own authenticity as an ancient people worthy of honor and glory with stories such as Noah's Ark landing in Ararat, Khorenatsi's History of Armenians identified pre-Zoroastrian deities such as Ara and Hayk, and the Church, which normally opposes paganism, supported this because they were desperate to find any means to distinguish Armenians from an Iranian cultural heritage.

This said... Armenians, though heavily influenced by Iranian people, religion and statesmanship, are still not an Iranian people, because this category is a linguistic one. One does not enter a language family by borrowing heavily from it, but by being a descendant of it, which Armenian was shown to be not, by Heinrich Hubschmann in 1877. Prior to his finding, Armenian was considered to be a funny variety of Iranian, funny because while the 80% of the lexicon could be shown to be derived from Iranian, that 18% that was clearly Indo-European, when attempted to be traced from an Iranian root word, produced a hypothetical proto-form which could not be found in Iranian lexicon. So this 18% was ignored for a while, and people just said "Armenian is a funny variety of the Iranian family, 80% of its lexicon fits perfectly, but we don't know what's going on with that 18%).

But it is not the 80% Iranian lexicon being the majority that can be trusted to categorize our language as of that family... it is the 18%, specifically because it represents a distinct branch of Indo-European. That minority of our lexicon is what makes us escape classification as Iranian, despite the immense lasting influence it has had on us culturally, linguistically and politically. In fact, our language preserves all too many elements of old Iranian customs, names and words that in Iran and Iranian languages today, have been replaced by Arabic counterparts (due to Iran's departure from Zoroastrianism and strong embrace of Shiite Islam, with its terminology coming from Classical Arabic).

[Mos]

Re: Are Iranian-Armenians Iranian? What is Armenian Assimilation?

Armenian genetics varies from region to region. Since many armenians are from what is today eastern turky they do indeed share genes with many turcks. We lived with turcks for hundreds of years so many western armenians share genes either via intermarriage or because many armenian orphans were adopted by turckish families and raised as turcks and many women were taken by turcks..The story is different in the east in places like kharabagh which has a very distinct genetic make up which is different from turckish and western armenian genetic makeup.

Yes but most Haystancis for example are mixes of Western Armenians and Eastern Armenians, so that uniqueness has really decreased. You had many Armenians flee from Western Armenia to Eastern Armenia during Genocide. Karabakh Armenians do differ in terms of genetics and so do Armenians from Syunik. Yerevancis and Armenians living in centre tend to be more mixed (Western/Eastern). But in my view, trying to separate Armenians based on regional genetics is stupid. We have to stop dividing ourselves and unite.

[Haykakan]

Re: Are Iranian-Armenians Iranian? What is Armenian Assimilation?

Armenoid again is found a lot in Georgians, Syrians, Lebanese, Sicilians. One stark example is that none of Armenia's Presidents have had Armenoid phenotype. Believe it or not, genetics of Armenians is close to Turks and Azeris than Iranians. Though obviously we have closer cultural/historical relations with Iranians.

Armenian genetics varies from region to region. Since many armenians are from what is today eastern turky they do indeed share genes with many turcks. We lived with turcks for hundreds of years so many western armenians share genes either via intermarriage or because many armenian orphans were adopted by turckish families and raised as turcks and many women were taken by turcks..The story is different in the east in places like kharabagh which has a very distinct genetic make up which is different from turckish and western armenian genetic makeup.

[Mos]

Re: Are Iranian-Armenians Iranian? What is Armenian Assimilation?

Of course Armenoid characteristics are found in quite some areas, like Iranid characteristics are found almost everywhere. But I do think the Armenoid phenotype is primarly found among Armenians. By the way, phenotype is someway correlated with genetics. Kurds are indeed a Iranian people, but quite mixed and different to each other. Iranian Kurds are closer to Persians and other Iranian groups, while Turkish Kurds not.

Armenoid again is found a lot in Georgians, Syrians, Lebanese, Sicilians. One stark example is that none of Armenia's Presidents have had Armenoid phenotype. Believe it or not, genetics of Armenians is close to Turks and Azeris than Iranians. Though obviously we have closer cultural/historical relations with Iranians.

[Surenas]

Re: Are Iranian-Armenians Iranian? What is Armenian Assimilation?

Before there were cities or civilization in the Iranian plateau, there were already advanced cities in the Armenian Highlands. We can call them proto-Armenians if you like, but the fact remains that the agricultural revolution began in Asia Minor, specifically the eastern part, which is the heartland of the Armenian home.

It is widely believeds that the agricultural revolution (neolithic) began in Mesopotamia, Sumeria. But lately there are also reports that the first civilizations are started in Iran (jiroft). This civilization is older than the proto-Armenian or the Mestopotamic ones.