ISSN 1829-4618

ON POSSIBLE ARMENIAN NATURE OF INTRODUCTORY FORMULAS IN URARTIAN INSCRIPTIONS

By: Jahukyan Gevork, Academician of NAS RA

The Armenian nature of introductory formulas in the “Urartian” inscriptions is rather convincingly proved: their vocabulary is mainly Armenian, the grammatical peculiarities can be explained by the grammatical characteristics of the period preceding the grabar (Classical Armenian). These formulas give an opportunity to make lexical reconstructions of the Armenian of the pre-grabar period in order to ascertain the proper Armenian equivalents of the future borrowings (especially of Iranian origin) on the basis of comparison of the IE preforms and forms in the inscriptions called “Urartian”. The words in the mentioned formulas are found also in other inscriptions, thus the verification of relevant contexts and comprehensive comparison of their language and the language of the analyzed word forms are strictly necessary. A certain standard has been marked out of versions of the cuneiform characters’ reading and it has been used for the available texts. Further examination of those versions, comparison and more precise definition of the reconstructed standard, as well as the skilled analysis of the extralinguistic trend of the cuneiform texts connected with it, along with great contribution, can actually have a revolutionary significance. 

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