Armenians in the Balkans

[Arsenium DeLight]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVsAv7c6ym4

[Arsenium DeLight]

Language is the most democratic institution there is around us. It carries information on past and present of us, as individuals and as nations, the most truthfully. Albanian, Armenian and Greek are the only "living" isolated branches of the Indo-European language family. We all know the other, quite large Indo-European language groups like: Germanic, Romance, Indo-Iranian or Slavic. I was always intrigued by the fact that Albanian and Armenian (leaving aside the case of Greek for now) stand in isolation, but still have enough features to belong to the Indo-European language family. Questions that were puzzling me for quite some time were: what are the characteristics that make these languages Indo-European, and at the same time distinct to make them stand in isolation? And why they do not have 'sisters', just like other languages, as for example Polish or French? While I still do not have all the answers for now, I can at least tell you about remarkable similarities, I found between Albanian and Armenian. This is how it all started. The last academic year, September 2012-May 2013, I have spent as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. The project I intended to do research on was entitled: "The Role of Morphology and Segmental Complexity for Studying Consonant Phonotactics (A Case Study of Albanian, Armenian, Persian and Russian)". Armenian was the only language I had no first hand knowledge (only from grammar books and scholarly papers). As my own experience has often proven to me, that is never enough. One has to hear and experience language at first hand and I kindly approached a brilliant scholar, Prof. James Russell (a man of encyclopedic knowledge), lecturing Armenian at the Harvard University to allow me to attend his classes. During the spring semester prof. Russell was teaching a course on Grabar (Old Armenian). I realize now how lucky I was that the class was exactly on Old, not on Modern Armenian. I was extremely excited for having this opportunity, learning one more script, writing system (Armenian has its own writing system) and complex grammar. And here I am sitting in the prof. Russell's class in anticipation of hearing something known and unknown to me. Known because Armenian, as I mentioned already, is an Indo-European language (I had previous knowledge of other Indo-European language like English, Russian, Dutch, Persian and Albanian) and unknown, because I was expecting to hear something distinct, distinguishing it from all the other Indo-European languages. And yes, as my reader can guess very well, I was not disappointed at all. What I was not expecting though is to find myself bursting aloud every 5 minutes "yes, the same word in Albanian has similar meaning!" At the end of the very first class, I have noticed I really annoyed Prof. Russell. He quietly uttered though: "yes, there are similarities between Armenian and Albanian", without adding any extra comment.

[Arsenium DeLight]

Out of the eight branches of the Indo-European languages (we’ve profiled Germanic and a family of Italic languages so far) three of them (Albanian, Armenian, and Hellenic) contain only one language. These languages are believed not to be related to any other language in the world, including each other, although they have enough slight similarities that some linguists propose a branch containing all three, to be called the Balkan languages.

Greek, in its ancient form, has been spoken since the late third millennium BC, although its oldest surviving text was written in 1400 BC. Despite this later date, Greek is still the oldest recorded living language and longest documented Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries. Many important works of Western literature, including the Iliad, the Odyssey, the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, and the New Testament, were originally written in Greek. This ancient language may possibly be related to ancient Macedonian (spoken before AD) and Phrygian (extinct by the 5th century), but there is not enough documentation of either language to make a strong argument.

The oldest evidence of Albanian is from 1285, and its oldest text is from 1462. It most likely evolved from an extinct Paleo-Balkan language, but today, it has many loanwords from Greek and 236+ loanwords from Latin. It is thought to have been formed in the mountainous region of present-day Albania around the Mat River from such now-extinct languages as Illyrian, Dacian, and Thracian.

Armenian’s oldest surviving text is a translation of the Bible from the 5th century, just after the invention of its alphabet in 405 AD. Like Albanian, Armenian also has many loanwords from Greek and Latin, as well as from Arabic, Persian, and Turkish and the extinct languages of Syriac (once spoken by Assyrians), Parthian (once spoken in Iran), and Urartian (once spoken in modern-day Turkey). Armenian is actually sometimes grouped with Greek because they share these similarities. It has the most similar vocabulary to Greek than to any other language.

Greek

75th most spoken native language in the world
13.1 million speakers total
Official language in Cyprus and Greece
Alphabet: Greek


Albanian

98th most spoken native language in the world
7.4 million speakers total
Official language in Albania, Kosovo, and Montenegro
Alphabet: Latin-based with additional letters

Albanian is spoken mostly in Albania and Kosovo, where it is an official language, and parts of Macedonia and Serbia.

To the lonely languages making in borders of an Indo-European family independent groups, the Albanian concerns. Scientists assume that language of Albanians is a successor of the Illyrian language in the ancient time sounding on the Balkans. However in structure of the Albanian language the lines which are pulling together it with more northern neighbours, in particular are traced by Baltic and slavic languages also.


Armenian

106th most spoken native language in the world
> 6 million speakers total
Official language in Armenia
Alphabet: Armenian

Over 50,000 words in the English language today are derived from Greek. Has learning the meanings of these roots (e.g., ante- or -phobia) ever helped you to understand a new word?

The Isolated place in an Indo-European family takes the Armenian language which carriers live not only in Armenia, but also in Iran, Syria, Lebanon and other countries. Its original writing has arisen in the beginning of V century the Drevnearmjansky literary language known more of one and a half millenia, till now is saved as cult. Under strong influence of the next not Indo-European classic languages the phonetics, grammatical system and lexicon of the Armenian language were considerably changed. However its data essentially helps scientists to solve some important problems.

[Arsenium DeLight]

The Armenians in Greece (Greek: Αρμένιοι, Arménioi) are Greek citizens of Armenian descent. The Armenian presence in Greece began centuries ago when Armenians, for various reasons, left Armenia and settled in the wider area of Thessaly, Macedonia and Thrace. Traces of Armenians can also be found on the Greek islands of Crete and Kerkyra (Corfu). The Armenians in Greece however, acquired the character of a community after the 1920s, when 70,000 to 80,000 survivors of the Armenian Genocide fled to Greece from Cilicia, Smyrna, Ionia, Constantinople and other regions of Asia Minor, scattering all over Greece.

Today, immigration to North America has diminished the Armenian population of Greece. The number now counts for roughly 20,000-35,000 Greco-Armenians.

The presence of Armenians in Greece dates back centuries when Armenians settled in Thessalia, Macedonia, Thrace and the islands of Crete and Kerkyra for various reasons such as war and business. Proof of their presence in Greece can be found in several historical testimonies, the genealogical history of certain old Armenian families and the names of some towns or villages that have Armenian names, such as an old village of Thessalia that was named Armenos, a village between the cities of Larissa and Volos that is called Armenio and other settlements in various places of mainland Greece and in the islands.

In 1890, there was a small community of Armenians in Athens and in Piraeus of about 150 people which turned into 600 after the incorporation of Thessalonica and some cities of Macedonia after the Balkan Wars. During the Hamidian massacres, Armenians that managed to escape and who were saved from the slaughters were given shelter at the harbour of Piraeus. More than 1,000 Armenians enjoyed the hospitality of the Greeks. At that time the Prime Minister of Greece, Theodoros Deligiannis, showed fatherly affection to them. After the genocidal campaign of the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians and Greeks, Greece welcomed a large influx of refugees consisting of about 80,000 Armenians and 1,500,000 Greeks into its country. The refugees mostly came from Cilicia, Smyrna, Ionia, Constantinople and other regions of Asia Minor. The Greco-Armenians were very active in art and commerce producing painters like Edouard Sakayan.

[Arsenium DeLight]

Armenians (Bulgarian: арменци, armentsi) are the fourth largest minority in Bulgaria, numbering 6,552 according to the 2011 census, down from 10,832 in 2001, while Armenian organizations estimate up to 22,000. They have been inhabiting the Balkans (including the territory of modern Bulgaria) since no later than the 5th century, when they moved there as part of the Byzantine cavalry. Since then, the Armenians have had a continuous presence in the Bulgarian lands and have played an often considerable part in the history of Bulgaria from early Medieval times until the present day.

The Armenians that settled between the 6th and the 11th century in the Rhodopes, Thrace and Macedonia were several thousand in number and were mostly Paulicians and Tondrakians. They had very strong ties and influenced the Bulgarian sect of the Bogomils and were later assimilated into it, Bulgarianized and later converted to Roman Catholicism (see Roman Catholicism in Bulgaria) or Islam (see Pomaks). The mother of 11th-century Bulgarian tsar Samuil was the daughter of the Armenian king, Ashot II and 10th-century Tsar Peter I's wife was the granddaughter of Byzantine emperor of Armenian origin Romanos I Lekapenos, Maria. Another Byzantine emperor—Basil I, the founder of the Macedonian dynasty and an Armenian from Thrace—spent his early years as a captive in the First Bulgarian Empire in the 9th century.