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55-632: Sevan Botanical Garden ( Armenian : Սևանի բուսաբանական այգի ), is a botanical garden founded in 1944 in the northern Armenian town of Sevan , near the Tsamakaberd neighbourhood. The garden is operating as a satellite of the Yerevan Botanical Garden under the supervision of the Armenian National Academy of Sciences . Located at a height of 2000 meters above sea level and having a dry, continental climate,

110-520: A consistent Proto-Indo-European pattern distinct from Iranian, and that the inflectional morphology was different from that of Iranian languages. The hypothesis that Greek is Armenian's closest living relative originates with Holger Pedersen (1924), who noted that the number of Greek-Armenian lexical cognates is greater than that of agreements between Armenian and any other Indo-European language. Antoine Meillet (1925, 1927) further investigated morphological and phonological agreement and postulated that

165-468: A loan from Armenian (compare to Armenian եւ yev , ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁epi ). Other loans from Armenian into Urartian includes personal names, toponyms, and names of deities. Loan words from Iranian languages , along with the other ancient accounts such as that of Xenophon above, initially led some linguists to erroneously classify Armenian as an Iranian language. Scholars such as Paul de Lagarde and F. Müller believed that

220-425: A network of schools where modern Armenian was taught, dramatically increased the rate of literacy (in spite of the obstacles by the colonial administrators), even in remote rural areas. The emergence of literary works entirely written in the modern versions increasingly legitimized the language's existence. By the turn of the 20th century both varieties of the one modern Armenian language prevailed over Grabar and opened

275-717: A tactical victory at Cunaxa in Babylon (401 BC), Cyrus was killed, rendering the actions of the Greeks irrelevant and the expedition a failure. Stranded deep in Persia, the Spartan general Clearchus and the other Greek senior officers were then killed or captured by treachery on the part of the Persian satrap Tissaphernes . Xenophon, one of three remaining leaders elected by the soldiers, played an instrumental role in encouraging

330-552: Is an independent branch of the Indo-European languages . It is of interest to linguists for its distinctive phonological changes within that family. Armenian exhibits more satemization than centumization , although it is not classified as belonging to either of these subgroups. Some linguists tentatively conclude that Armenian, Greek (and Phrygian ), Albanian and Indo-Iranian were dialectally close to each other; within this hypothetical dialect group, Proto-Armenian

385-561: Is clearly the dialect to be most closely related to Armenian. Eric P. Hamp (1976, 91) supports the Graeco-Armenian thesis and even anticipates a time "when we should speak of Helleno-Armenian" (meaning the postulate of a Graeco-Armenian proto-language). Armenian shares the augment and a negator derived from the set phrase in the Proto-Indo-European language * ne h₂oyu kʷid ("never anything" or "always nothing"),

440-474: Is derived from Proto-Indo-European *h₂r̥ǵipyós , with cognates in Sanskrit (ऋजिप्य, ṛjipyá ), Avestan ( ərəzifiia ), and Greek (αἰγίπιος, aigípios ). Hrach Martirosyan and Armen Petrosyan propose additional borrowed words of Armenian origin loaned into Urartian and vice versa, including grammatical words and parts of speech, such as Urartian eue ("and"), attested in the earliest Urartian texts and likely

495-483: Is no authority for there being a contemporary Anabasis written by "Themistogenes of Syracuse" and no mention of such a person in any other context. By the end of the 1st century , Plutarch had said, in his Glory of the Athenians , that Xenophon had attributed Anabasis to a third party to distance himself as a subject from himself as a writer. While the attribution to Themistogenes has been raised many times,

550-471: Is not considered conclusive evidence of a period of common isolated development. There are words used in Armenian that are generally believed to have been borrowed from Anatolian languages, particularly from Luwian , although some researchers have identified possible Hittite loanwords as well. One notable loanword from Anatolian is Armenian xalam , "skull", cognate to Hittite ḫalanta , "head". In 1985,

605-716: Is the most famous work of the Ancient Greek professional soldier and writer Xenophon . It gives an account of the expedition of the Ten Thousand , an army of Greek mercenaries hired by Cyrus the Younger to help him seize the throne of Persia from his brother, Artaxerxes II , in 401 BC. The seven books making up the Anabasis were composed c.  370 BC . Although as an Ancient Greek vocabulary word, ᾰ̓νᾰ́βᾰσῐς means "embarkation", "ascent", or "mounting up",

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660-580: Is the working language. Armenian (without reference to a specific variety) is officially recognized as a minority language in Cyprus , Hungary , Iraq , Poland , Romania , and Ukraine . It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . Anabasis (Xenophon) Anabasis ( / ə ˈ n æ b ə s ɪ s / ; ‹See Tfd› Greek : Ἀνάβασις [anábasis] ; an "expedition up from")

715-466: The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia (11–14th centuries) resulted in the addition of two more characters to the alphabet (" օ " and " ֆ "), bringing the total number to 38. The Book of Lamentations by Gregory of Narek (951–1003) is an example of the development of a literature and writing style of Old Armenian by the 10th century. In addition to elevating the literary style and vocabulary of

770-563: The Armenian genocide , mostly in the diaspora ). The differences between them are considerable but they are mutually intelligible after significant exposure. Some subdialects such as Homshetsi are not mutually intelligible with other varieties. Although Armenians were known to history much earlier (for example, they were mentioned in the 6th-century BC Behistun Inscription and in Xenophon 's 4th century BC history, The Anabasis ),

825-641: The Greek language , the Armenian language, and the Indo-Iranian languages . Graeco-Aryan unity would have become divided into Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian by the mid-3rd millennium BC. Conceivably, Proto-Armenian would have been located between Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian, consistent with the fact that Armenian shares certain features only with Indo-Iranian (the satem change) but others only with Greek ( s > h ). Graeco-Aryan has comparatively wide support among Indo-Europeanists who believe

880-643: The Indo-European homeland to be located in the Armenian Highlands , the " Armenian hypothesis ". Early and strong evidence was given by Euler's 1979 examination on shared features in Greek and Sanskrit nominal flection. Used in tandem with the Graeco-Armenian hypothesis, the Armenian language would also be included under the label Aryano-Greco-Armenic , splitting into Proto-Greek/Phrygian and "Armeno-Aryan" (ancestor of Armenian and Indo-Iranian ). Classical Armenian (Arm: grabar ), attested from

935-542: The Mekhitarists . The first Armenian periodical, Azdarar , was published in grabar in 1794. The classical form borrowed numerous words from Middle Iranian languages , primarily Parthian , and contains smaller inventories of loanwords from Greek, Syriac, Aramaic, Arabic, Mongol, Persian, and indigenous languages such as Urartian . An effort to modernize the language in Bagratid Armenia and

990-452: The Oracle of Delphi . Xenophon's account of the exploit resounded through Greece, where, two generations later, some surmise, it may have inspired Philip of Macedon to believe that a lean and disciplined Hellene army might be relied upon to defeat a Persian army many times its size. Besides military history, the Anabasis has found use as a tool for the teaching of classical philosophy ;

1045-644: The Umayyad emir Abd ar-Rahman I . Shane Brennan's memoir In the Tracks of the Ten Thousand: A Journey on Foot through Turkey, Syria and Iraq (2005) recounts his 2000 journey to re-trace the steps of the Ten Thousand . Valerio Massimo Manfredi 's 2007 novel L'armata perduta ( The Lost Army ) tells the story of the army through Abira, a Syrian girl, who decides to follow a Greek warrior named Xeno (Xenophon). The cry of Xenophon's soldiers when they reach

1100-532: The third person . Since the narrative mainly concerns a marching army, a common term used in Anabasis is ἐξελαύνω ( exelauno ), meaning "march out, march forth". Throughout the work, this term is used 23 times in the 3rd person singular present indicative active (ἐξελαύνει) and five additional times in other forms. In the late 19th century, a tongue-in-cheek tradition arose among American students of Greek who were all too familiar with Xenophon's usage of this vocabulary item: March 4th (a date phonetically similar to

1155-500: The 10,000 to march north across foodless deserts and snow-filled mountain passes, towards the Black Sea and the comparative security of its Greek coastal cities. Abandoned in northern Mesopotamia , without supplies other than what they could obtain by force or diplomacy, the 10,000 had to fight their way northwards through Corduene and Armenia , making ad hoc decisions about their leaders, tactics, food supplies, and destiny, while

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1210-408: The 5th century to the 19th century as the literary standard (up to the 11th century also as a spoken language with different varieties), was partially superseded by Middle Armenian , attested from the 12th century to the 18th century. Specialized literature prefers "Old Armenian" for grabar as a whole, and designates as "Classical" the language used in the 5th century literature, "Post-Classical" from

1265-481: The Armenian language by adding well above a thousand new words, through his other hymns and poems Gregory paved the way for his successors to include secular themes and vernacular language in their writings. The thematic shift from mainly religious texts to writings with secular outlooks further enhanced and enriched the vocabulary. "A Word of Wisdom", a poem by Hovhannes Sargavak devoted to a starling, legitimizes poetry devoted to nature, love, or female beauty. Gradually,

1320-467: The Hurro-Urartian and Northeast Caucasian origins for these words and instead suggest native Armenian etymologies, leaving the possibility that these words may have been loaned into Hurro-Urartian and Caucasian languages from Armenian, and not vice versa. A notable example is arciv , meaning "eagle", believed to have been the origin of Urartian Arṣibi and Northeast Caucasian arzu . This word

1375-583: The King's army and hostile natives barred their way and attacked their flanks. Ultimately this "marching republic" managed to reach the Black Sea at Trabzon (Trebizond), a destination they greeted with their famous cry of exultation on the mountain of Theches (now Madur ) in Hyssos (now Sürmene ): " Thalatta! Thalatta! " , "The sea, the sea!". "The sea" meant that they were at last among Greek cities but it

1430-669: The Russian Empire), removed almost all of their Turkish lexical influences in the 20th century, primarily following the Armenian genocide . In addition to Armenia and Turkey, where it is indigenous , Armenian is spoken among the diaspora . According to Ethnologue , globally there are 1.6 million Western Armenian speakers and 3.7 million Eastern Armenian speakers, totalling 5.3 million Armenian speakers. In Georgia, Armenian speakers are concentrated in Ninotsminda and Akhalkalaki districts where they represent over 90% of

1485-459: The Russian and Ottoman empires led to creation of two separate and different environments under which Armenians lived. Halfway through the 19th century, two important concentrations of Armenian communities were further consolidated. Because of persecutions or the search for better economic opportunities, many Armenians living under Ottoman rule gradually moved to Istanbul , whereas Tbilisi became

1540-833: The Soviet linguist Igor M. Diakonoff noted the presence in Classical Armenian of what he calls a "Caucasian substratum" identified by earlier scholars, consisting of loans from the Kartvelian and Northeast Caucasian languages . Noting that Hurro-Urartian-speaking peoples inhabited the Armenian homeland in the second millennium BC, Diakonoff identifies in Armenian a Hurro-Urartian substratum of social, cultural, and animal and plant terms such as ałaxin "slave girl" ( ← Hurr. al(l)a(e)ḫḫenne ), cov "sea" ( ← Urart. ṣûǝ "(inland) sea"), ułt "camel" ( ← Hurr. uḷtu ), and xnjor "apple (tree)" ( ← Hurr. ḫinzuri ). Some of

1595-863: The area is characterized by cold winters and hot summers. The garden is home to around 650 species (including 225 species of trees), from Armenia, North America , Asia , Central and Eastern Europe , the Mediterranean and the Himalayas . In 2015, a green house was opened within the garden. Armenian language Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European Armenian

1650-778: The campaigns of Alexander the Great , specifically his conquest of the Persian Empire between 334 and 323 BC. The Akhbār majmūʿa fī fatḥ al-Andalus ("Collection of Anecdotes on the Conquest of al-Andalus"), compiled in 11th-century Al-Andalus, makes use of the Anabasis as a literary embellishment, recording how, during the Abbasid Revolution , an army of ten thousand under a certain Balj marched to al-Andalus to support

1705-434: The center of Armenians living under Russian rule. These two cosmopolitan cities very soon became the primary poles of Armenian intellectual and cultural life. The introduction of new literary forms and styles, as well as many new ideas sweeping Europe, reached Armenians living in both regions. This created an ever-growing need to elevate the vernacular, Ashkharhabar, to the dignity of a modern literary language, in contrast to

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1760-525: The eastern coast of the Aegean Sea, to the interior of Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, most of Xenophon's narrative is taken up with the return march of Xenophon and the Ten Thousand, from the interior of Babylon to the coast of the Black Sea . Socrates makes a cameo appearance, when Xenophon asks whether he ought to accompany the expedition. The short episode demonstrates the reverence of Socrates for

1815-580: The existence of the two modern versions of the same language was sanctioned even more clearly. The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (1920–1990) used Eastern Armenian as its official language, whereas the diaspora created after the Armenian genocide preserved the Western Armenian dialect. The two modern literary dialects, Western (originally associated with writers in the Ottoman Empire) and Eastern (originally associated with writers in

1870-425: The hypothetical Mushki language may have been a (now extinct) Armenic language. W. M. Austin (1942) concluded that there was early contact between Armenian and Anatolian languages , based on what he considered common archaisms, such as the lack of a feminine gender and the absence of inherited long vowels. Unlike shared innovations (or synapomorphies ), the common retention of archaisms (or symplesiomorphy )

1925-470: The interests of the population at large were reflected in other literary works as well. Konsdantin Yerzinkatsi and several others took the unusual step of criticizing the ecclesiastic establishment and addressing the social issues of the Armenian homeland. These changes represented the nature of the literary style and syntax, but they did not constitute immense changes to the fundamentals of the grammar or

1980-434: The late 5th to 8th centuries, and "Late Grabar" that of the period covering the 8th to 11th centuries. Later, it was used mainly in religious and specialized literature, with the exception of a revival during the early modern period, when attempts were made to establish it as the language of a literary renaissance, with neoclassical inclinations, through the creation and dissemination of literature in varied genres, especially by

2035-567: The morphology of the language. Often, when writers codify a spoken dialect, other language users are then encouraged to imitate that structure through the literary device known as parallelism . In the 19th century, the traditional Armenian homeland was once again divided. This time Eastern Armenia was conquered from Qajar Iran by the Russian Empire , while Western Armenia , containing two thirds of historical Armenia, remained under Ottoman control. The antagonistic relationship between

2090-403: The now-anachronistic Grabar. Numerous dialects existed in the traditional Armenian regions, which, different as they were, had certain morphological and phonetic features in common. On the basis of these features two major standards emerged: Both centers vigorously pursued the promotion of Ashkharhabar. The proliferation of newspapers in both versions (Eastern & Western) and the development of

2145-541: The official status of the Armenian language. Eastern Armenian is the official variant used, making it the prestige variety while other variants have been excluded from national institutions. Indeed, Western Armenian is perceived by some as a mere dialect. Armenian was also official in the Republic of Artsakh . It is recognized as an official language of the Eurasian Economic Union although Russian

2200-639: The oldest surviving Armenian-language writing is etched in stone on Armenian temples and is called Mehenagir . The Armenian alphabet was created by Mesrop Mashtots in 405, at which time it had 36 letters. He is also credited by some with the creation of the Georgian alphabet and the Caucasian Albanian alphabet . While Armenian constitutes the sole member of the Armenian branch of the Indo-European family, Aram Kossian has suggested that

2255-483: The parent languages of Greek and Armenian were dialects in immediate geographical proximity during the Proto-Indo-European period. Meillet's hypothesis became popular in the wake of his book Esquisse d'une histoire de la langue latine (1936). Georg Renatus Solta (1960) does not go as far as postulating a Proto-Graeco-Armenian stage, but he concludes that considering both the lexicon and morphology, Greek

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2310-407: The path to a new and simplified grammatical structure of the language in the two different cultural spheres. Apart from several morphological, phonetic, and grammatical differences, the largely common vocabulary and generally analogous rules of grammatical fundamentals allows users of one variant to understand the other as long as they are fluent in one of the literary standards. After World War I ,

2365-544: The phrase "march forth") became known as "Exelauno Day". The origin of this niche holiday is connected with the Roxbury Latin School in Massachusetts . Xenophon's book has inspired many literary and audio-visual works, both non-fiction and fiction. Non-fiction books inspired by Anabasis include: The Anabasis of Alexander , by the Greek historian Arrian (86 – after 146 AD), is a history of

2420-570: The population. The short-lived First Republic of Armenia declared Armenian its official language. Eastern Armenian was then dominating in institutions and among the population. When Armenia was incorporated into the USSR, the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic made Eastern Armenian the language of the courts, government institutions and schools. Armenia was also russified . The current Republic of Armenia upholds

2475-476: The principles of statesmanship and politics exhibited by the army can be seen as exemplifying Socratic philosophy. Traditionally, Anabasis is one of the first unabridged texts studied by students of classical Greek, because of its clear and unadorned prose style in relatively pure Attic dialect —not unlike Caesar 's Commentarii de Bello Gallico for Latin students. Perhaps not coincidentally, they are both autobiographical tales of military adventure, told in

2530-436: The representation of word-initial laryngeals by prothetic vowels, and other phonological and morphological peculiarities with Greek. Nevertheless, as Fortson (2004) comments, "by the time we reach our earliest Armenian records in the 5th century AD, the evidence of any such early kinship has been reduced to a few tantalizing pieces". Graeco-(Armeno)-Aryan is a hypothetical clade within the Indo-European family , ancestral to

2585-662: The sea (" Thalatta! Thalatta! ") is mentioned in the second English translation of Jules Verne 's Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) when the expedition discovers an underground ocean (though the reference is absent from the original French text ). The Paul Davies novella Grace: A Story (1996) is a fantasy that details the progress of Xenophon's army through Armenia to Trabzon. Michael Curtis Ford wrote The Ten Thousand (2001); it follows Xenophon from his childhood until death. The Sol Yurick novel The Warriors (1965)

2640-468: The similarities between the two languages meant that Armenian belonged to the Iranian language family . The distinctness of Armenian was recognized when philologist Heinrich Hübschmann (1875) used the comparative method to distinguish two layers of Iranian words from the older Armenian vocabulary . He showed that Armenian often had two morphemes for one concept, that the non-Iranian components yielded

2695-519: The terms he gives admittedly have an Akkadian or Sumerian provenance, but he suggests they were borrowed through Hurrian or Urartian. Given that these borrowings do not undergo sound changes characteristic of the development of Armenian from Proto-Indo-European , he dates their borrowing to a time before the written record but after the Proto-Armenian language stage. Contemporary linguists, such as Hrach Martirosyan , have rejected many of

2750-491: The title Anabasis has been rendered by some translators as The March Up Country or as The March of the Ten Thousand . The story of the army's journey across Asia Minor and Mesopotamia is Xenophon's best known work and "one of the great adventures in human history". Xenophon, in his Hellenica , did not cover the retreat of Cyrus but instead referred the reader to the Anabasis by "Themistogenes of Syracuse" —the tenth-century Suda also describes Anabasis as being

2805-399: The view of most scholars aligns substantially with that of Plutarch and certainly that all the volumes were written by Xenophon himself. Xenophon accompanied the Ten Thousand (words that Xenophon does not use), a large army of Greek mercenaries hired by Cyrus the Younger , who intended to seize the throne of Persia from his brother, Artaxerxes II . Although Cyrus' mixed army fought to

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2860-514: The work of Themistogenes, "preserved among the works of Xenophon", in the entry Θεμιστογένεης. (Θεμιστογένης, Συρακούσιος, ἱστορικός. Κύρου ἀνάβασιν, ἥτις ἐν τοῖς Ξενοφῶντος φέρεται: καὶ ἄλλα τινὰ περὶ τῆς ἑαυτοῦ πατρίδος. J.S. Watson in his Remarks on the Authorship of Anabasis refers to the various interpretations of the word "φέρεται", which give rise to different interpretations and different problems. ) Aside from these two references, there

2915-464: Was not the end of their journey, which included a period fighting for Seuthes II of Thrace and ended with their recruitment into the army of the Spartan general Thibron . Xenophon related this story in Anabasis in a simple and direct manner. The Greek term anabasis referred to an expedition from a coastline into the interior of a country. While the journey of Cyrus is an anabasis from Ionia on

2970-405: Was situated between Proto-Greek ( centum subgroup) and Proto-Indo-Iranian ( satem subgroup). Ronald I. Kim has noted unique morphological developments connecting Armenian to Balto-Slavic languages . The Armenian language has a long literary history, with a 5th-century Bible translation as its oldest surviving text. Another text translated into Armenian early on, and also in the 5th-century,

3025-682: Was the Armenian Alexander Romance . The vocabulary of the language has historically been influenced by Western Middle Iranian languages , particularly Parthian ; its derivational morphology and syntax were also affected by language contact with Parthian, but to a lesser extent. Contact with Greek, Persian , and Syriac also resulted in a number of loanwords. There are two standardized modern literary forms, Eastern Armenian (spoken mainly in Armenia) and Western Armenian (spoken originally mainly in modern-day Turkey and, since

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