Articles published by Kortlandt (1980) and Martirosyan (2013). Martirosyan (2010) in the “Etymological Dictionary of the Armenian Inherited Lexicon”, gives a list of 49 Albanian words that are similar to Armenian, my notes show that there are 30 more words that can be considered similar…. I think that such a study would shed more light on the place of these isolated languages within the Indo-European language family and on their respective histories
by Marika Butskhrikidze
Language is the most democratic institution that surrounds us. Language carries information about our past and present, as individuals but also as nations, in the greatest truth. Albanian, Armenian and Greek are the only “living”, isolated branches of the Indo-European language family. We all know the other large groups of Indo-European languages such as: Germanic, Indo-Iranian and Slavic.
I have always been intrigued by the fact that Albanian and Armenian (leaving aside the case of Greek) are isolated, but still have enough characteristics to belong to the Indo-European language family. The questions that have preoccupied me for a long time were: what are the characteristics that make these Indo-European languages and at the same time distinct enough to make them isolated?
And why, they do not have “sisters” like other languages, for example Polish or French? Although I don’t have all the answers yet, I can at least tell you about the striking similarities I’ve found between the Albanian and Armenian languages.
Here’s how it all started.
Last academic year, from September 2012 to May 2013, I was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The project I was supposed to research was titled: “The Role of Morphology and Segmental Complexity in the Study of Consonant Phonotactics” (which was a case study for Albanian, Armenian, Persian, and Russian).
Armenian was the only language for which I had no first-hand information (only what I had from grammar books and scientific journals). My personal experience has often convinced me that this is not enough. One who does research must listen and experiment with the language first-hand, and so I contacted an excellent scholar – Professor James Russell (a scholar with encyclopedic knowledge), who taught Armenian at Harvard University, and asked him to give me the opportunity to attend his lectures.
During the spring semester, Professor Russell was teaching a course on “grabar” (ancient Armenian). I realized how lucky I was that the course was specifically about ancient Armenian and not modern Armenian. I was very excited that this gave me the opportunity to learn a new writing system (Armenian has its own writing system) and complex grammar.
And finally, I found myself sitting in Professor Russell’s class waiting to hear something that was both familiar and unfamiliar to me. Familiar because Armenian, as I mentioned earlier, is an Indo-European language (I had prior knowledge of other Indo-European languages such as English, Russian, Dutch, Persian, and Albanian), and unfamiliar because I was expecting to hear something special, something that distinguished it from all other Indo-European languages.
And as you can guess, I was not disappointed at all. What I didn’t expect was to find myself bursting out loud every 5 minutes saying: “Yes, the same word in Albanian has the same meaning!” By the end of the first class, I realized that I was annoying Professor Russell. Although quite quietly, he said: “Yes, there are similarities between Armenian and Albanian,” without adding any other comment.
I decided not to draw his attention too much and started taking notes. By the end of the course, I had collected so many notes that I decided it was worth exploring in more detail the lexical correspondences I had found between Armenian and Albanian. And where else would I go but to the “Widener”, which is the best bookstore in the world, located in the “Harvard Yard” (there is no book I needed that I didn’t find there).
Since I was not an expert in the field of Historical Comparative Linguistics of Indo-European languages, I learned some lessons from my years of study from a prominent scholar in that field, Academician Thomas Gamkrelidze, where he said:“In order to convincingly prove genetic similarities between two languages, it must be demonstrated through regular phonetic correspondences in lexical elements, which have similar (or semantically close) meaning”.
At that stage, I realized that I was very far from being able to prove it, but I was only dealing with the material, the lexical correspondences that I had found so far, which were a potential basis for deeper research, leading to other more serious claims about genetic affinities, etc. So I would not like to speculate anything about the genetic affinities between Albanian and Armenian, but rather I would bring the material to the attention of scholars in the relevant fields, to continue research in this area.
Having at my disposal various etymological dictionaries of Albanian and Armenian, as well as scientific journals, I realized that the first to pay attention and write about the closeness between the Albanian and Armenian languages were H. Pedersen (1906) and V. Pisani (1950, 1959).
The most recent published articles on this issue were by Kortlandt (1980) and Martirosyan (2013). Martirosyan (2010) in the dictionary “Etymological Dictionary of the Armenian Inherited Lexicon”, gives a list of 49 Albanian words that are similar to Armenian. These words are:
bee , world , fir , dal , sheep , dell , door , sea , buttermilk , goat , ten , cheese , sweat , hand , trick , grain , wood / drũ , end / ẽn(d) , dream , word , butter , gogël , herdhë , garlic , im , lerë , mat , meat , honey , beard , mo , mother , nine , one , bride , root , crow , father , – a , thërí / th(ë)ní , thjër(r ) , thur , trishe , road , wine / vàysënë , verrë , ear , steal , bird .
Many lexical correspondences are scattered throughout etymological journals and dictionaries. In addition to the already well-known similarities between Albanian and Armenian such as: e.g.
arm. ǰ erm / ǰ em ‘warm’ shq. zjarm , arm . atamn shq . dhembë , arm . anur ǰ , shq. ëndër (Gheg anerr ) , arm. asem shq. them/thom , arm. ar ǰ shq. ari , etc., my notes show that there are 30 other words that can be considered similar, for example:
Armenian a ƚ uēs Albanian fox
Arm. a ƚ bewr/a ƚ biwr Shq. source
Arm. gold Shq. mar
Arm. astowac (ast(ow)-ac) Sq. Providence
Arm. eran Shq. eran
Arm. erek Shq. err
Arm. ǝ mpem Shq. (me) pi
Arm. cownr Shq. gju- gjû
Arm. cuc Shq. cucla
Arm. has ƚǰ in Shq. clay
Arm. helmet-en Shq. chestnut
Arm. kov Shq. ka
Arm. yev Shq. and/and
Arm. ǰ ur Shq. water
Arm. lk’nem Shq. me lan
Arm. mêg Shq. fog
Arm. mnam Shq. me nejt
Arm. mozi ‘viq’ Shq. barely
Arm. pagow Shq. puth/kiss
Arm. tam Shq. me dhana
Arm. to ṙ amim / to ṙ šamim Shq. with terë
There are many other lexical correspondences that await further in-depth analysis. Of course, some of these also have correspondences with other Indo-European languages. We have left them aside in the interest of being as brief as possible.
Apart from a few fragmentary studies on this subject, I have not yet come across any in-depth, systematic studies of the similarities between Armenian and Albanian. I believe that such a study would shed more light on the place of these isolated languages within the Indo-European language family and their respective histories.
Bio : Prof. Dr. Marika Butskhrikidze received her doctorate from Tbilisi University – Georgia on the topic “Typology of stationary accent” in 1998, and her second doctorate from Leiden University (Netherlands) on the topic “Phonotactics of Georgian consonants” in 2002. She worked as a scientific researcher at Leiden University until 2005. Since 2005, she has lived in Kosovo where she has worked as a lecturer at private universities and is engaged in scientific research.
Photo caption: The rosette known as the “Eternal Flower” is a symbol of Armenian antiquity. It has been found in churches, on stone crosses, on the pages of Enlightenment manuscripts as well as in contemporary art, filigree and decorations. It represents eternal life, constant rebirth; it illustrates that there is no end but transformation. The same symbol (which also symbolizes the sun) is found in Albania and Kosovo (Albanian territories) on the entrance doors of houses. It has also been seen as a decorative detail in folk costumes.
Biography
Prof. Dr. Marika Butskhrikidze received her doctorate from Tbilisi University – Georgia on the topic “Typology of stationary accent” in 1998, and her second doctorate from Leiden University (Netherlands) on the topic “Phonotactics of Georgian consonants” in 2002. She worked as a scientific researcher at Leiden University until 2005. Since 2005, she has lived in Kosovo where she has worked as a lecturer at private universities and is engaged in scientific research.
Photo caption: The rosette known as the “Eternal Flower” is a symbol of Armenian antiquity. It has been found in churches, on stone crosses, on the pages of Enlightenment manuscripts as well as in contemporary art, filigree and decorations. It represents eternal life, constant rebirth; it illustrates that there is no end but transformation. The same symbol (which also symbolizes the sun) is found in Albania and Kosovo (Albanian territories) on the entrance doors of houses. It has also been seen as a decorative detail in folk costumes.
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