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Armenian alphabet
The Armenian alphabet (Armenian: Հայոց գրեր, romanized: Hayocʼ grer or Հայոց այբուբեն, Hayocʼ aybuben) or, more broadly, the Armenian script, is an alphabetic writing system developed for Armenian and occasionally used to write other languages. It is one of the three historical alphabets of the South Caucasus. It was developed around 405 AD by Mesrop Mashtots, an Armenian linguist and ecclesiastical leader. The script originally had 36 letters. Eventually, two more were adopted in the 13th century. In the reformed Armenian orthography (1920s), the ligature և, ev, is also treated as a letter, bringing the total number of letters to 39.
The Armenian word for 'alphabet' is այբուբեն, aybuben, named after the first two letters of the Armenian alphabet: ⟨Ա⟩ այբ, ayb, and ⟨Բ⟩ բեն, ben. Armenian is written horizontally, left to right.
One of the classical accounts of the existence of an Armenian alphabet before Mesrop Mashtots comes from Philo of Alexandria (20 BC – AD 50), who in his writings notes that the work of the Greek philosopher and historian Metrodorus of Scepsis (c. 145 BC – 70 BC), On Animals, was translated into Armenian.[citation needed] Metrodorus was a close friend and a court historian of the Armenian emperor Tigranes the Great and also wrote his biography. A third century Roman theologian, Hippolytus of Rome (170–235), in his Chronicle, while writing about his contemporary, Emperor Severus Alexander (r. 222–235), mentions that the Armenians are amongst those nations who have their own distinct alphabet.
Philostratus the Athenian, a sophist of the second and third centuries, wrote:
And they say that a leopardess was once caught in Pamphylia which was wearing a chain round its neck, and the chain was of gold, and on it was inscribed in Armenian lettering: "The king Arsaces to the Nysian god".
According to the fifth-century Armenian historian Movses Khorenatsi, Bardesanes of Edessa (AD 154–222), who founded the Gnostic current of the Bardaisanites, went to the Armenian castle of Ani and there read the work of a pre-Christian Armenian priest named Voghyump, written in the Mithraic script of the Armenian temples, named after Mihr, the Armenian national god of light, truth, and the sun. In Voghyump's work, amongst other histories, an episode was noted of the Armenian King Tigranes VII (who reigned from 144 to 161, and again from AD 164–186) erecting a monument on the tomb of his brother, the Mithraic High Priest of the Kingdom of Greater Armenia, Mazhan. Movses of Khoren notes that Bardesanes translated this Armenian book into Syriac (Aramaic), and later also into Greek.[citation needed] Another important evidence for the existence of a pre-Mashtotsian alphabet is the fact that the pantheon of the ancient Armenians included Tir, who was the patron god of writing and science.
A 13th-century Armenian historian, Vardan Areveltsi, in his History, notes "that an Armenian script existed of old is attested" during the reign of King Leo the Magnificent (r. 1187–1219), after coins naming idolatrous kings were found stamped with the script.
The evidence that the Armenian scholars of the Middle Ages knew about the existence of a pre-Mashtotsian alphabet can also be found in other medieval works, including the first book composed in the Mashtotsian alphabet by the pupil of Mashtots, Koriwn, in the first half of the fifth century. Koriwn notes that Mashtots was told of the existence of ancient Armenian letters which he was initially trying to integrate into his own alphabet.
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Armenian alphabet AI simulator
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Armenian alphabet
The Armenian alphabet (Armenian: Հայոց գրեր, romanized: Hayocʼ grer or Հայոց այբուբեն, Hayocʼ aybuben) or, more broadly, the Armenian script, is an alphabetic writing system developed for Armenian and occasionally used to write other languages. It is one of the three historical alphabets of the South Caucasus. It was developed around 405 AD by Mesrop Mashtots, an Armenian linguist and ecclesiastical leader. The script originally had 36 letters. Eventually, two more were adopted in the 13th century. In the reformed Armenian orthography (1920s), the ligature և, ev, is also treated as a letter, bringing the total number of letters to 39.
The Armenian word for 'alphabet' is այբուբեն, aybuben, named after the first two letters of the Armenian alphabet: ⟨Ա⟩ այբ, ayb, and ⟨Բ⟩ բեն, ben. Armenian is written horizontally, left to right.
One of the classical accounts of the existence of an Armenian alphabet before Mesrop Mashtots comes from Philo of Alexandria (20 BC – AD 50), who in his writings notes that the work of the Greek philosopher and historian Metrodorus of Scepsis (c. 145 BC – 70 BC), On Animals, was translated into Armenian.[citation needed] Metrodorus was a close friend and a court historian of the Armenian emperor Tigranes the Great and also wrote his biography. A third century Roman theologian, Hippolytus of Rome (170–235), in his Chronicle, while writing about his contemporary, Emperor Severus Alexander (r. 222–235), mentions that the Armenians are amongst those nations who have their own distinct alphabet.
Philostratus the Athenian, a sophist of the second and third centuries, wrote:
And they say that a leopardess was once caught in Pamphylia which was wearing a chain round its neck, and the chain was of gold, and on it was inscribed in Armenian lettering: "The king Arsaces to the Nysian god".
According to the fifth-century Armenian historian Movses Khorenatsi, Bardesanes of Edessa (AD 154–222), who founded the Gnostic current of the Bardaisanites, went to the Armenian castle of Ani and there read the work of a pre-Christian Armenian priest named Voghyump, written in the Mithraic script of the Armenian temples, named after Mihr, the Armenian national god of light, truth, and the sun. In Voghyump's work, amongst other histories, an episode was noted of the Armenian King Tigranes VII (who reigned from 144 to 161, and again from AD 164–186) erecting a monument on the tomb of his brother, the Mithraic High Priest of the Kingdom of Greater Armenia, Mazhan. Movses of Khoren notes that Bardesanes translated this Armenian book into Syriac (Aramaic), and later also into Greek.[citation needed] Another important evidence for the existence of a pre-Mashtotsian alphabet is the fact that the pantheon of the ancient Armenians included Tir, who was the patron god of writing and science.
A 13th-century Armenian historian, Vardan Areveltsi, in his History, notes "that an Armenian script existed of old is attested" during the reign of King Leo the Magnificent (r. 1187–1219), after coins naming idolatrous kings were found stamped with the script.
The evidence that the Armenian scholars of the Middle Ages knew about the existence of a pre-Mashtotsian alphabet can also be found in other medieval works, including the first book composed in the Mashtotsian alphabet by the pupil of Mashtots, Koriwn, in the first half of the fifth century. Koriwn notes that Mashtots was told of the existence of ancient Armenian letters which he was initially trying to integrate into his own alphabet.