The Armenian Alphabet


The Armenian Alphabet (tapestry) by G. Khandjian, 1980	*By Minas Minassian*


THE EVOLUTION OF ARMENIAN AND WORLD ALPHABETS
By MELKON ARMEN KHANDJIAN
'In the beginning wee the Word, end the Word was with God, end the Word was God." So professes St. John, the disciple of Jesus.
Since the early days of Christianity, this mystic sentence in the Scriptures has puzzled scholars and ecclesiastics of all ages. Only recent biological and scientific research has succeeded in the revelation of the hidden meaning of this axiom.
The tool by which this 'Word' -- that is human speech, feelings, and thought -- is captured and frozen into tangible and visual form is the ALPHABET. Rightfully, alphabetic writing has been acclaimed as the noblest and the most beneficial invention of mankind, without which modern civilization -- material, spiritual, and mental -- could not have possibly been accomplished.
Modern scientific investigations bear testimony that human voice has biological and physical origins and the form of each sound is a function of its frequency measurable in microwatts. The phonetic alphabet is a group of symbols representing these basic vibration patterns, the combination of which forms a specific word possessing a certain power. Furthermore, biological research discloses that linguistic and genetic structures evolve and develop in similar patterns. Just as the genetic structure of DNA spirals carry the coded message of a race (physical, marital, emotional traits) through the chromosomes, so also the alphabetic system rules and governs the dissemination and materialization of the mental abstract thoughts. Human beings, among all animals, have evolved into higher species because their unique genetic potentials can be transformed into material civilization through language and the written word. Thus, race, language, and culture are inseparable and interdependent. Herein then lies the secret of the WORD which is the embodiment and fulfillment of GOD.
The ancients considered writing the gift of the gods and ascribed to it divine powers. For thousands of years, the sacred knowledge of writing was a well-guarded secret of the temple priests and the ruling class. It remained to the creation of the alphabetic writing to open the gates of enlightenment to the ignorant masses and propel humanity to technological, social, and cultural supremacy.
The process of writing is the product of millennia of gradual evolution of man's attempt to record his thoughts and feelings. True writing begins with Paleolithic man drawing and carving on cave walls and rocks pictures of his contemporary animals, peoples, plants, and later geometric patterns and signs. The development of writing has progressed through several stages. The first is the pictographic writing, whereby the picture of an object is simply drawn.
The second is ideographic writing, where ideas end non-picturable attributes are associated with pictures and symbols. The third is Syllabic writing, which uses symbols to represent different human sound combinations. The fourth is the Alphabetic, a unique system using a single symbol to stand for a single sound, which when combined can form a word. Alphabetic writing is the simplest and the most efficient form of writing through which knowledge became universal.
But by who or whom, when, where, and how did this blessing gift originate? Learned men through antiquity to the present have sought the origins of the alphabet in Sumerian-Babylonian cuneiform, in Egyptian hieroglyphs, in Cretan scripts, and other writing systems including the mythical Atlantean. Many theories have been advanced based or. Fragmentary evidence, but all have met eventual rejection under the revelation of new discoveries and scientific investigations. Thus, to this day the origin of the alphabet is yet shrouded in obscurity.
It is the purpose of this treatise to put forward the theory that the original homeland of the ALPHABET was ARMENIA and the initiators her ancient ARMENID inhabitants. And to substantiate this revolutionary claim and support the conclusions, authoritative historical, linguistic, traditional, archaeological, and anthropological evidences are briefly presented.
Astounding archaeological discoveries and scientific research of the post two decades in Soviet Armenia and in lesser degree in Turkish occupied western Armenia, have come to establish the Armenian Highlands as the cradle of human civilization. With a unique and indigenous culture, her contributions of universal magnitude have decisively shaped the course of history and human destiny.
After two billion years of evolutionary progress from pre-human species, the modern physical man appeared about 50,000 years ago. Although the origins of civilization are complex, yet modern investigations agree that the foundations of civilization building began about 9000 BC. Through the Neolithic Revolution in the highlands of Armenia and Kurdistan. Here for the first time man cultivated wheat and barley and domesticated the goat, sheep, and cattle: species of plants and animals the wild ancestors of which were native to this region. Thus, the savage hunting and food-gathering man transformed into sedentary village-city life, and through the control of his food production and acquisition of more leisure time, mankind diverted his energy and intellect to civilization making through economic, technological, religious, social, and political developments,
Following the Agricultural and Animal Husbandry Revolutions, major developments followed. First, pottery making was discovered in western Armenia about 7000 BC, making possible the storage of surplus foodstuff. Next emerged the Technological Revolution, in the vicinity of Lake Van in Armenia, when after a million and a half years of stone age subculture, the native volcanic gloss known as obsidian was used and later exported as a material from which sharp edged and superior tools were manufactured Between 6500 and 4000 before Christ, Armenian tribesmen carried on a thriving trade by supplying obsidian to Near Eastern lands. This traffic set in motion the beginnings of trade and commerce, and o communication system, which initiated the diffusion, and exchange of economic. Cultural, and urban advances among the ancients.
Thereafter, in the metalliferous Armenian highlands emerged the Metallurgical Age, when natives discovered the technique of cold working with (8000 BC) and smelting of (5000 BC) copper, and later the manufacture of bronze by addition of tin. All evidences confirm Armenia was also the birthplace for silver, brass, and iron, and her riverbeds and mines source for ancient gold. Although meteoric iron had been in use since 2500 BC the true Iron Age begins about 1400 BC, when some Armenian smelters learned how to make steel from wrought iron: a secret closely guarded for centuries. In 1963, the world's oldest metallurgical factory was excavated at Metzamor, in Soviet Armenia, doted beyond 4000 years ago and containing over 200 furnaces.
Although wheels and carriages had been known for some time, the invention of the first practical wheeled vehicles -- the cart and the chariot -- seem to have token place in the vicinity of Lake Sevan in Soviet Armenia circa 3000 BC. After taming of the horse around 2500 BC, probably in Eurasia, this swift animal replaced the slower moving oxen as the driving power. The development of the lightweight, horse drown chariot revolutionized long distance transport and warfare, which under the Hyksos in 1730 BC, made possible the establishment of the world's first empire.
Of paramount importance to the evolution of religion and political and social order is the birth of astrology the understanding of the movements of the heavenly bodies and their relationship to earth and its life cycles. Modern research concludes that since the Zodiac signs represent animals native only to ancient Armenia and east Asia Minor, and that the arrangement of the stars in the constellation are such as if viewed from an area around the 40th parallel; therefore, the sciences of astrology, as well as alchemy and medicine, have their origins in Armenia. The recent discovery in Soviet Armenia of 5000-year-old triangular, three story astronomical observatory where the star Sirius was worshipped (just as in Egypt) adds strength to the above conclusion.
Ancient peoples believed that mankind evolved in Armenia, built a high civilization, but was destroyed by o great flood, offer which the remnants spread to Oil directions Modern geology supports the view of o catastrophic local flood. Mythology and traditions of nations of antiquity confirm this belief. The Holy Bible places the Garden of Eden in Armenia and the genesis of human races around Mount Ararat upon which landed Noah’s Ark.
But, probably, the greatest contribution of the Armenian highlanders to mankind has been the creation of the ALPHABETIC writing, synthesized from the "iron age" Armenian scripts (Metzamor) end "sacred writing" Egyptian glyphs. It was this revolutionary concept of phonetic script that was destined to become the foundation from which ell ancient and modern alphabet evolved.
Prominent scholars agree that the alphabet was invented by the historic Hyksos people during their domination of the Near East between 18-16th centuries before Christ. But who were these enigmatic Hyksos?
Recent scholarship has identified the Hyksos with the coalition of the powerful north Armenian State of Haiasa-Azzi and south Armenian indigenous Subarian inhabitants. The historic and the modern Armenians are the direct descendants of both 'Aryan' Haiasian (2000 BC) and 'Armenid' Subarian (4000 B C) peoples To this day the Armenians call themselves Hai, their nation Haikazian and their land Haiastan or Haik. The Bible recognizes them as the people of Ai (Haiasa) or Ashkenoz (Azzi). The remotest known autochthonous inhabitants of Armenia emerge into history as the Subaru. Due to tribal ascendencies and Indo-European-Aryan invasions circa 2000 BC, the name and the boundaries of Armenia change, but the Armenid racial characteristics come down to this day remarkably unchanged and genetically uniform. Armenian highlanders have been known through history as Hattian (2000 BC,), Hurrian (2000 B, C, Horites of the Bible) Mitannian (2000 BC), Nairian (1200 BC), Urartian (900 B.C, Biblical Ararat) and Armenian (600 BC, Biblical Minni)
Around 1900 BC a group of these Armenian tribesman burst out of their homeland and carved out a powerful empire encompassing Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. Known to the Egyptians as Hiku-Khasu (i.e. Haikaz) and to the classical Greeks as Hyksos, they ruled over Egypt for 150 years -from 1730 BC until their expulsion by a resurgent Egypt in 1580 BC. Under the hawk-nosed Hyksos princes, the entire Semitic world came under the cultural and military dominance of the Armenids. Well disciplined and trained warriors, the Hyksos introduced the horse, and the spoke-wheeled war chariot, bronze and iron weapons and hardware, scale armor and war helmet, the composite bow, a complete calendar, and the building of walled cities fortified by glacis and moat. They brought to Egypt improved methods of spinning and weaving, new musical instruments, the hump-backed bull, the olive and the pomegranate trees. As the ruling aristocracy they supplanted feudalism over the democratic patriarchal system of the Semitic tribes and cost the seeds of primitive monotheism by introducing the worship of the One Universal Sun God. The Hyksos founded Jerusalem, the Holy City.
Skeletal remains and anthropological evidence of the past and the present attest that in the Armenian highlands evolved an indigenous racial type with unique physical and mental capacity. This race, known in generic terms as Armenoid or Armenid, is chero-teristically sturdy, round headed, often long-faced, full-tipped, abundantly bearded, with backward sloping forehead, receding chin and adorned with prominent aquiline nose. Interestingly, the latter traits are noted among the remains of the Cro-Megnon Man, the ancestor of modern man. Furthermore the most typical skeletons of the White Race have been found in the Caucasus, after which this race is called Caucasian Indications that Armenian and Georgian mountains of Caucasus were the birthland of the white race are very strong.
Following the Agricultural and Metallurgical Revolutions, and the opening up of the obsidian trade routes, the Armenids periodically ventured out of their homeland in search for new farmlands and sources of metals. Whether as formers, metal prospectors, or tradesman, these gifted people and their progenies reached the far corners of the world mainly by peaceful penetration and rarely by military conquest. Wherever the Armenids migrated, they left a legacy of higher civilization and a trail of genetic racial hallmark among the natives with whom they gradually assimilated. The impact of these culture bearing people and their civilizing influence left such a deep impression among the ancients, that a prominent, high-bridged nose became the universal sign for intelligence, nobility, and even deity. And where the direct genetic trait was not available through its Armenid producer, the local inhabitants in time developed the peculiar and unnatural practice of artificial distortion of the skull and prominence of the nose m an attempt to imitate the outstanding features of their Armenid superiors. This custom practiced on newborn babies, spread throughout Asia, Africa, Europe, and America, and among races widely separated from each other by space and time.
Bronze working prospectors m search for copper and tin, slowly pushed their way into the Balkans, Danube Valley to central Europe, Denmark, and Sweden. Others moved southwards following the obsidian trade routes into Syria, Mesopotamia, Palestine and Egypt
The monuments left by the Suzerains, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Phoenicians, Persians and Indic Valley civilizations indicate that the roots of these states were culturally and ethnically Armenid. The so-called 'Jewish nose', prominent among modern Jews, Syrians, and Arabs is evidence of transfusion of Armenid (Hurrian) genes into the Semitic races. In Europe the Armenid type was omnipotent among the Celtic colonists of Britain and Ireland, and the Etruscans of Italy. The Anglo Saxons, the Swiss, the Scandinavians, the French and the Scythians in Asia practiced skull deformation; Turkic tribes of Avers and Hans considered it a badge of nobility. The ruling classes of the Ottoman Turks were basically Armenid.
The painted priestly heads and surviving mummies of the pharaohs and their queens indicate that for generations Egyptian royalty belonged to the hawk nosed Armenids. Further away in Melanesian, Polynesian and Pacific islands especially among the negrids of New Guinea, the salient nose is a testimony of the past presence of the Armenids. But, surprisingly it is among the distant peoples of Amerindians that head deformation and veneration of the hooked nose was most prevalent
The unearthed skulls and the stone carved features of the Aztec, Inca, and Maya kings and priests are naturally Armenid Their supreme gods Votan, Quatzquatl, and Kukulkan are represented as bearded white men with most hawkish noses The Mayas, especially, tried to outnose their civilizing superiors by widespread custom of cranial distortion and wearing of artificial noses and beards. This ornamental custom was also practiced by north American 'Flat head' tribes of Chinook, Clatshop, and Salishan, as o distinctive mark of aristocracy. Among the Algonquin, such as the black-feet tribe, the hawk nose was of natural birth. So was it also among the Middle American Arawaks and Caribs.
It is of great significance to note that Ptolemy’s map of "Geography of Asia Minor", 140
A D lists five cities in Armenia, which have their counterparts in Mayan Central America: i.e., Chol/Cholula, Colua/Coluacan, Zuivana/Zuivon, Choilima/Colima, and Zalissa/Xalisco!
A strong, hooked nose was a sign of leadership among the Romans whose many prominent men possessed such members. Then there are the beak nosed fairy tale witches, possessors of supernatural and magical powers, who can fly, brew medicine, and have power over life and death. This veneration of the high bridged nose has come down to our present days and has materialized in the symbol of the United States the Uncle Sam -- who is adorned with a prominent Armenid nose.
The theory that Sumer or Egypt was the earliest civilizations must be discarded. Both used high skills in metallurgy where there were no metals to mine Both show high skill in writing but left no trace of pie recorded precedence. Both had their civilization bloom suddenly. Recent findings of earliest Sumerian Egyptian, and Assyrian remains indeed attest their Armenid-Caucasian origins.
Thus, ancient monuments, skeletal remains, historic and traditional records, and modern archeological, geological, and anthropological studies conclude that the Armenian Highlands was the cradle of human civilization. And the source of a biological gene pool of a unique race whose migrations contributed greatly to the cultural evolution and genetic make-up of major European, Asian, African, and American nations.
As stated above, the alphabetic writing was the product of the genius of the vibrant Hyksos. This 'Hyksosian" alphabet became the single common source from which all past and present international scripts descended After their expulsion from Egypt, the Hyksos carried their alphabetic writing system to Sinai and Palestine where they reinforced their military strength against the growing Egyptian empire. Here the new concept of writing developed into two main branches, First the South Semitic, of which African and present Ethiopian sprang up. And, second the North Semitic, which gave rise to Canaanite and Aramaic. The Canaanite developed into early Hebrew and Phoenician. From the latter evolved some North African and the Greek alphabets. The Greeks finalized the alphabet by addition of vowels, which the former lacked. After the simplification of the Greek script the Romans passed it on to European nations who introduced changes to meet local sounds and traditions. The Aramaic branch evolved into all the alphabets of Asia and the Near East.
By proclaiming Christianity as state religion in 301 AD, Armenia became the first Christian nation In 387 AD the land was partitioned between the Roman and Persian empires. Under foreign domination, divided into rival alien spheres of influence, and the evangelization of the masses hampered by the use of Greek and Syriac liturgy, the need for a national alphabet became urgent. The constant foreign invasions, the subsequent political turmoil, and the destruction of ancient pagan literature by the zealots of the new faith had almost obliterated the ancient Armenian scripts and replaced them by Greek, Persian, and Aramaic, The Armenian Church lacked a national alphabet. It became the task of a humble yet taught monk, St. Mesrob Mashtots, to devise the Armenian alphabet between 404-406 AD after years of travel, studies, and searches. Modern scholarship agrees that Mesrob neither invented nor borrowed the characters, but using the remnants of ancient Armenian scripts and inscriptions he completed and put them in order. To the 22 old Armenian (Haikazian) consonants in existence he added 6 vowels and another 8 signs to give the alphabet a total of 36 distinct characters. Mesrob synthesized the many Armenian dialects and gave to each distinct sound a single sign. The new alphabet met adequately the needs of the fully developed and most correct phonetics of the language No other language, living or dead, has achieved this near perfection.
Mesrob also invented an alphabet for the neighboring Georgians and the Alvans. In the ninth century, St. Cyril, a student and missionary of the Armenian philosopher and Byzantine Patriarch Photius, formulated an alphabet for the Russians and the Slavs. And it is interesting to note that even in the 20th century soviet Armenian linguists devised an alphabet for the Kurdish people
The Mesrobian alphabet is fiercely nationalistic. Traditionally, the script is called "yergatagir" or "iron age script" by the Armenians, thus echoing the remote origins associated with the iron smelting technological age which began before 2000 BC it embodies the ageless history of its people. It was and is the emancipator and the guardian of her people's culture and inheritance against foreign influence.
Certain scholars have tried to find the origins of Mesrobian alphabet in Greek, Aramaic, Persian, and other scripts All have failed due to the great discrepancy between the signs The Armenian alphabet, therefore, is considered to be an independent script based on ancient Armenian characters, signs, and symbols
Following the decline of Armenid power and the rising supremacy of the Indo-European-Aryan newcomers, the old Armenian alphabetic writing system was gradually obliterated. In time it became necessary and fashionable by the Urartian Armenians to use the Mesopotamian cuneiform m conjunction with native hieroglyphs. Inscriptions found in Armavir and Cholagerd, Soviet Armenia, reveal the remains of a strange cyllabic writing system.
Although in the Armenian heartland the old alphabets were almost completely lost, yet their counterpart survived in Armenian pagan temples of Sinai, Palestine, and Syria, where Hyksos had left behind remnant colonists from their empirical days.
In 1830 AD. in the Armenian monastery of St. Lazar, in Odessa, Russia, there existed an ancient Armenian leather-bound book which was originally found in the Sinai peninsula. Of its 32 pages the printed reproduction of only two pages have survived Dated between 5th and 4th centuries before Christ, these Odessian scripts are the direct link between the Hyksosian and Mesrobian letters. Dutch excavators have found similar Armenian scrolls a few years ago in Jordan, but as yet they have not been exposed. That the old Armenian scripts survived ages of neglect: sword, and fire, is illustrated by the fact that in the Middle Ages bloomed the revival of the ancient characters. Known as the "Neshanagir" these unusual scripts were mainly used in astrological. Medical, magical, mathematical, and alchemic literature.
Human speech has generally about 40 to 44 phonemes or distracts sounds. Modern Armemian alphabet with its 38 or 40 unique and individual signs is closest to perfection in representing mankind's speech. Although the Latin alphabet is probably the simplest and most widespread, yet it lacks the ability to meet speech habits and sound changes of different nationalities. On the other hand, the Armenian alphabet and its corresponding sounds can be adapted to any human speech without the use of subsidiary characters, marks, dots, and dashes. The Armenian is the only living language: with absolute symbol-for-sound alphabet. And it is the only alphabet traceable beck to its indigenous origins through orderly and unbroken succession of phases of development. Unlike Sumerian, Egyptian, Akkadian, or Semitic writings which appear. Suddenly, the Armenian writing system has a recorded history, of step-by-step evolution from Paleolithic, to Pictographic, to Hieroglyphic, to Syllabic, to Phonetic Alphabet.
That all ancient and present alphabets evolved from a common graphic source is indisputable The statistical probability is noel that peoples in all continents could invent an alphabetic system independently and yet come up with the same identical signs and above all the some character far 1he same sound.
In conclusion, this theory affirms that in the highlands of Armenia, evolved a human race that transformed the savage migratory man into sedentary life. Advanced him from the brute stone age to the age of technology and metallurgy, and through the concept of alphabetic writing progressed humanity from darkness to mental and spiritual enlightenment.
That such a small race could contribute so much to human civilization is astounding. How and under what natural processes and genetic selection did this race advance so highly in comparison to his fellow men? Could it be they were the survivors of the mythical Atlantean. superrace? Were they possibly the remnants of outer space "sons of gods" who mingled with the "daughters of men" as the Bible relates? Perhaps time and science will one day reveal the full secret of Armenia where once Adam and Eve walked in bliss and later Noah regenerated the annihilated mankind. Perhaps, But until then glory and more power to the Magnificent Armenid Nose!