History of the Armenian alphabet

Background Some researchers posit that the origins of the classification of handwritten scripts can be traced back to the earliest discussions on the art of writing, as documented in the earliest Armenian works on grammar. Towards the end of the 5th century, the Art of Grammar by Dionysius Thrax was translated into Armenian by the Hellenizing School. A number of medieval Armenian commentaries address this grammar and the broader field of grammar. The authors of these commentaries are David the Invincible, Anonymous, Movses Kertog, Stepanos Syunetsi, Grigor Hamam, and Grigor Magistros, who lived between the 6th and 11th centuries. The sixth section of Dionysius' work is entitled Writings. All Armenian commentators dedicated this section to the letters of the alphabet as well, titling it On the Writings (). The sections vary in length, ranging from one to six pages, and all address phonetic and other aspects of the 36 letters of the Armenian alphabet. Amam's commentary is the only one to provide a brief imaginative description of each of the Armenian letters. The most significant of the subsequent Armenian authors to engage with the subject of grammar were the 13th-century writers Vardan Areveltsi and Hovhannes Erznkatsi. The later scholars of the Armenian alphabet, Rivola, Schroeder and Anonymous, were influenced, though not always, by this section of Dionysius' grammar, as well as by his Armenian translators and commentators. In addition to the aforementioned standard list of letters, these later authors also provided brief comments on the various fonts used to write in Armenian. Tables depicting foreign alphabets were already a popular phenomenon in Europe by the 16th century, even before the formation of palaeography as a scientific discipline at the turn of the 17th-18th centuries. Among the earliest books to include references to the Armenian alphabet is ''Recueil d'anciennes écritures, compiled in 1566-1567 by , secretary to King Charles IX of France. The 21st sheet of this work contains an alphabet of Armenian origin, which Hamon states he copied from a collection at Fontainebleau. In 1623, the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith published a brief Alphabetum Armenum, which included poorly written Armenian subheadings. In this brief pamphlet, the alphabetical table occupies four pages, yet there is no mention of the font types used. of his work The Treasures of the Armenian Language. Schröder gave a one-page table of the different forms of Armenian script with comments. In 1730, an anonymous author prepared a grammar of the Armenian language in French, which also contains a section on Armenian writing styles under the title De l'orthographe. In 1823, in the section Des Lettres, des Syllables, et des Signes orthographiques of his voluminous Grammar'', the head of the Armenian language department of the School of Oriental Languages in Paris, , provided general data on the different types of Armenian writing and their use. The latter compared the evolution of the Armenian script with that of different types of Latin scripts. In a pioneering move, Jrpetian proposed a periodisation of the development of each type. Paleographic issues are also addressed in Mesrop Ter-Arutyunyan's Grammar of the Armenian Language, published in 1826. Mekhitarist Gukas Inchichian provides the most comprehensive analysis of the topic in the third volume of his Archaeological Description of the Armenian Land, published in 1835. Beginning of scientific study However, Armenian palaeography has been an autonomous discipline since the end of the 19th century. manual on Armenian palaeography. The impetus for its composition was the discovery of a Greek-Armenian papyrus in Egypt. The book provides a detailed account of medieval types of writings, including their historical nomenclature, chronology, and questions pertaining to palimpsests. Tashyan's classification of Armenian scripts has retained its scientific value to this day. This facsimile album contains 143 samples of Armenian writing from the 5th to 18th centuries, produced on soft materials such as parchment, stone, or metal. Hovsepian's work continues to be of significance to this day. Prior to the Soviet era, only two specialized works on Armenian palaeography were published. Hrachia Acharian's Armenian Letters (1928) offers a comprehensive analysis of the historical development of Armenian writing, from its origins to its graphic evolution. The book is a significant contribution to the field of palaeography. In his book, Acharyan makes use of the works of Tashyan and Hovsepyan. A. Abrahamyan made a significant contribution to the study of the history and graphic evolution of Armenian scripts with his 1959 monograph, The History of Armenian Writing and Script. The latter section of the text deals with the issues of abbreviations, ideograms, cryptograms, and so forth. Stepan Melik-Bakhshyan's Armenian Palaeography was published in 1987. An Armenian version of the album by Gohar Muradyan and Aram Topchyan was published in 2006. == Armenian script ==

The Armenian language employs the original Armenian alphabet, which was created in 405 by the scientist and priest Mesrop Mashtots. Initially, the alphabet consisted of 36 letters, 7 of which conveyed vowel sounds and 29 of which conveyed consonants. In this composition, the signs are presented in the Old Armenian translation of the Art of Grammar by Dionysius Thrax, which was completed in the second half of the 5th century. The same order and number are observed in the acrostics of the 7th-century poets Komitas Aghtsetsi and Davtak Kertogh. The Armenian alphabet precisely reflects the phoneme structure of the Armenian language, which has remained largely unchanged for over 1,600 years. Researchers such as Hübschmann, Meillet, Markwart and others have described it as "the most perfect phonetic writing for its time". The addition of two letters, Օ and Ֆ, occurred in the 11th century. Theories abound regarding the origins of the Armenian script. Middle Persian, scripts as a foundation for the Armenian script. Muller postulated that the Armenian script originated from the Semitic peoples and Avesta. Sevak proposed the possibility of a South Semitic origin. According to the aforementioned sources, the majority of scholars attribute Mashtots' alphabet to either the Pahlavi (Middle Persian) or Aramaic alphabets. Muravyov postulates the complete independence of the Armenian script. == The oldest monuments of the Armenian script ==

The earliest surviving monuments of Armenian writing are of significant importance for the development of a methodology for describing the evolution of Armenian writing. The earliest which places it at the latest in the period of time following the death of Mashtots, the inventor of Armenian script. The inscription is not clearly dated, but the second line mentions Catholicos John Mandakuni as the founder of the monastery, who held this position between 478 and 490. In addition, among the earliest Armenian inscriptions, scholars distinguish an inscription from Dvin of the 6th century and an inscription from the Saint Hripsime Church of 618. Additionally, an undated Armenian inscription from the 5th century and a mosaic from the 5th to 6th centuries have been preserved in the Holy Land. The earliest extant manuscripts on parchment date back to the 5th and 6th centuries. The oldest surviving examples of Armenian writing are also preserved in palimpsests, including the Sanasar Gospel, which was written on a 5th-century text. A Greco-Armenian papyrus discovered in Egypt at the end of the 19th century is dated to no later than 640. The papyrus contains a Greek text written in Armenian letters. The earliest surviving manuscript in Armenian that can be clearly dated is the Gospel of Queen Mlke, created in 862. The '', transcribed in 887, is also of significance for the field of Armenian palaeography. Prior to the composition of these Gospels, the undated Vehamor Gospel'' was created, which is typically dated by scholars to the 7th to 8th centuries. This manuscript is presumed to be the oldest surviving complete Armenian text. The earliest surviving Armenian manuscript on paper is dated to 981. The text is written in the Erkat'agir and Bolorgir scripts. The manuscript is also noteworthy for being the earliest known copy of the Bolorgir script. In the early stages of Armenian writing, parchment was the predominant writing material, with papyrus not being used in Armenia. The process of scientific cataloguing commenced in the 18th century. The majority of Armenian manuscripts are dated. Both the manuscripts and the lapidary inscriptions belonging to the first centuries of writing are characterised by a high degree of stability in the inscriptions. == Evolution of Armenian writing ==

One of the most significant palaeographic questions concerns the forms of letters that Mesrop Mashtots himself employed. The majority of scholars concur that Mashtots devised and employed a script analogous to the current designation of ''Mesrop's Erkat'agir''. This large, upright and rounded majuscule is a type of lettering that is found in early inscriptions. It is postulated that from this inaugural form of Erkat'agir, the rectilinear Erkat'agir and various permutations of all caps subsequently evolved. This script subsequently evolved into Bolorgir, which in turn gave rise to Notrgir and Shghagir. Consequently, the letterforms underwent a series of developmental stages. V. Calzolari and M. Stone propose that the original form of Erkat'agir must have been more skoropis and italicised, akin to the Greek and Syriac scripts of the period. It is considered implausible that Mashtots and his disciples could have employed the laborious method of Erkat'agir to translate the Bible, a task that would have taken decades. Medieval sources mention only three names: Erkat'agir, bolorgir and notrgir. In contrast, shghagir is a relatively new term. Erkat'agir Erkat'agir is the oldest of the Armenian scripts, Another version of the etymology suggests that the name originated from the iron oxide used in the ink. Russell considers it most probable that both species existed in the 5th century. Another variant of this script is the angular Erkat'agir. Similarly, the variant with a rounded profile was retained until the 13th century. The earliest dated monuments are from the 10th century. It is also known as the "middle Erkat'agir", In addition to the two principal types of Mayuskul script, the "small Erkat'agir" is also occasionally distinguished. In fact, it is a reduced in size rectilinear Erkat'agir. As it contains no constructive differences, the necessity of distinguishing it as an independent type of writing is open to question. Russell of Harvard University notes that Bolorgir as a type of script began to emerge in the 5th century. He further suggests that Mashtots' writing was probably originally distinct and universal. although samples of Bolorgir can already be found in the Lazarev Gospel of 887. It is likely that this graphic form emerged even earlier, as some letters of this form are found in the Greco-Armenian papyrus of the 6th-early 7th century, as well as in a number of early Christian inscriptions of the same period. The term itself is first recorded in a colophon of the late 12th century. Since the 16th century, In his analysis, Stone asserts that the differences between these two types of script are either insignificant or absent altogether. He identifies a select group of nine letters with the most disparate forms, namely: Ա-ա, Ձ-ձ, Մ-մ, Յ-յ, Շ-շ, Չ-չ, Պ-պ, Ջ-ջ, Ց-ց. The majority of researchers agree that the species can be subdivided into two categories: Eastern and Cilician. Typically, the letters were written with a slant to the right, although on occasion there is also writing with a vertical axis. It is evident that this typeface displays a proclivity towards connection. Initially, there is a discernible distance between groups of words, and subsequently, between individual words. Koyumjian presents an alternative interpretation, translating the term as "thin". Shghagir is found both in straight form and with a slant. Furthermore, there are similarities between some forms of Greek-Armenian papyrus script and Shghagir. Its prevalence was relatively limited to the 17th and 18th centuries, The term itself appears to have first appeared in the 18th century. Similarly to Shghagir, it is not subdivided types. File:Aakel of Siwnik. Adamagirk (Book of Adam). Page 2. Manuscript, copied 1653.jpg|Manuscript page of the poem Adamgirk by Arakel Syunetsi, 1653 File:Armenian document (1662).jpg|Document of Catholicos Hakob Jughayetsi addressed to the Polish Armenian diocese, 1662 File:Book of Homilies, 1710.jpg|A page from a collection of homilies, 1710 File:Notrgir manuscript.jpg|Page of an 18th-century manuscript File:Armenian document, 1734.jpg|Document from 1734 == Notes ==