URARTIAN LANGUAGE


'Urartian' (also called 'Chaldean', or 'Vannic') is the conventional name for the language spoken by the inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Urartu in the region of Lake Van in modern-day Turkey in the highlands of Armenia. [1]
Urartian was an agglutinative language, which belongs to neither the Semitic nor the Indo-European families but to the Hurro-Urartian family.[2] It survives in many inscriptions found in the area of the Urartu kingdom, written in the Assyrian cuneiform script. The Urartians also possessed a native hieroglyphic script, but in later Urartu this script was restricted to use in accounting and religion.

Contents
History
Relations with Hurrian
See also
Books
References

History


Urartian cuneiform tablet on display at the Erebuni Museum in Yerevan. The inscription reads: ''For the God Khaldi, the lord, Argishti, son of Menua, built this temple and this mighty fortress. I proclaimed it Irbuni (Erebuni) for the glory of the countries of Biai (=Urartu) and for holding the Lului (=enemy) countries in awe. By the greatness of God Khaldi, this is Argishti, son of Menua, the mighty king, the king of the countries of Biai, ruler of the city of Tushpa''

The oldest delivered texts originate from the reign from Sarduri I, from the late 9th Century. [3] With the fall of the realm of Urartu approximately 200 years later disappeared the written sources from his time.
Approximately two hundred inscriptions written in the Urartian language, which adopted and modified the cuneiform script, have been discovered in the past. [4]
Relations with Hurrian

The Urartian language is a direct development of earlier Hurrian, and that we might understand some sociocultural elements of Mitanni better by comparison with what we know about later Urartu. [5] However, although Urartian and Hurrian are related in that they are both Caucasian languages, it is now fairly clear that the two languages developed quite independently from the third millenium onwards. [6] Urartian is closely related to Hurrian, though not derived from it. [7]

See also



★ Urartu

★ Hurrians

★ Hurrian language

★ Armenian language

Books



★ C. B. F. Walker: section ''Cuneiform'' in ''Reading the Past''. Published by British Museum Press, 1996, ISBN 0-7141-8077-7.

★ J. Friedrich: ''Urartäisch'', in ''Handbuch der Orientalistik I'', ii, 1-2, pp. 31-53. Leiden, 1969.

★ Gernot Wilhelm: ''Urartian'', in R. Woodard (ed.), ''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World’s Ancient Languages''. Cambridge, 2004.

★ Mirjo Salvini: ''Geschichte und Kultur der Urartäer''. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, 1995.

References


1. People of Ancient Assyria: Their Inscriptions and Correspondence - Page 89 by Jørgen Laessøe
2. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East - Page 292 by Eric M. Meyers, American Schools of Oriental Research
3. Urartu - Page 65 by Boris Borisovich Piotrovskiĭ
4. The international standard Bible encyclopedia - Page 234 by Geoffrey William Bromiley
5. The Ancient Near East: C.3000-330 B.C. - Page 288 by Amélie Kuhrt
6. Wilhelm 1982: 5
7. Academic American Encyclopedia - Page 198


This article provided by Wikipedia. To edit the contents of this article, click here for original source.

psst.. try this: add to faves
©2009 TripAtlas.com