Caucasian Albanian script

Last updated
Caucasian Albanian
Alban-script.jpg
Matenadaran MS No. 7117, fol. 142r
Script type
Creator Mesrop Mashtots
Time period
5th – 12th century AD
DirectionLeft-to-right  OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Related scripts
Parent systems
Unknown
ISO 15924
ISO 15924 Aghb(239),Caucasian Albanian
Unicode
Unicode alias
Caucasian Albanian
U+10530–U+1056F
Final Accepted Script Proposal

The Caucasian Albanian script was an alphabetic writing system used by the Caucasian Albanians, one of the ancient Northeast Caucasian peoples whose territory comprised parts of the present-day Republic of Azerbaijan and Dagestan.

Contents

It was used to write the Caucasian Albanian language and was one of only two native scripts ever developed for speakers of an indigenous Caucasian language (i.e., a language that has no genealogical relationship to other languages outside the Caucasus), the other being the Georgian scripts. [1] The Armenian language, the third language of the Caucasus and Armenian Highlands with its own native script, is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family.

History

Armenian monk Mesrop Mashtots invented the Caucasian Albanian script in the early 5th century after creating the Armenian script. Painting: Maggiotto (1750-1805). Mesrop Mashtots by Francesco Maggiotto.jpg
Armenian monk Mesrop Mashtots invented the Caucasian Albanian script in the early 5th century after creating the Armenian script. Painting: Maggiotto (1750–1805).

According to Movses Kaghankatvatsi, the Caucasian Albanian script was created by Mesrop Mashtots, [3] [4] [5] the Armenian monk, theologian and translator who is also credited with creating the Armenian and—by some scholars—the Georgian scripts. [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]

Koriun, a pupil of Mesrop Mashtots, in his book The Life of Mashtots, wrote about the circumstances of its creation:

Then there came and visited them an elderly man, an Albanian named Benjamin. And he, Mesrop Mashtots, inquired and examined the barbaric diction of the Albanian language, and then through his usual God-given keenness of mind invented an alphabet, which he, through the grace of Christ, successfully organized and put in order. [11]

The alphabet was in use from its creation in the early 5th century through the 12th century, and was used not only formally by the Church of Caucasian Albania, but also for secular purposes. [12]

Rediscovery

A capital from a 5th-century church with an inscription using Caucasian Albanian lettering, found at Mingachevir in 1949 Caucasian albanian stone azerbaijan mingechaur2.jpg
A capital from a 5th-century church with an inscription using Caucasian Albanian lettering, found at Mingachevir in 1949

Although mentioned in early sources, no examples of it were known to exist until its rediscovery in 1937 by a Georgian scholar, Professor Ilia Abuladze, [13] in Matenadaran MS No. 7117, a manual from the 15th century. This manual presents different alphabets for comparison: Armenian, Greek, Latin, Syriac, Georgian, Coptic, and Caucasian Albanian among them.

Between 1947 and 1952, archaeological excavations at Mingachevir under the guidance of S. Kaziev found a number of artifacts with Caucasian Albanian writing — a stone altar post with an inscription around its border that consisted of 70 letters, and another 6 artifacts with brief texts (containing from 5 to 50 letters), including candlesticks, a tile fragment, and a vessel fragment. [14]

The first literary work in the Caucasian Albanian alphabet was discovered on a palimpsest in Saint Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai in 2003 by Zaza Aleksidze; it is a fragmentary lectionary dating to the late 4th or early 5th century AD, containing verses from 2 Corinthians 11, with a Georgian Patericon written over it. [15] [16] Jost Gippert, professor of Comparative Linguistics at the University of Frankfurt am Main, and others have published this palimpsest that contains also liturgical readings taken from the Gospel of John. [17]

Legacy

Bust of Zinobi Silikashvili in Zinobiani with Caucasian Albanian inscriptions on it. Text reads  (Zinobi). zinobi silikashvilis skulptura.jpg
Bust of Zinobi Silikashvili in Zinobiani with Caucasian Albanian inscriptions on it. Text reads 𐔵𐔼𐕎𐕒𐔱𐔼 (Zinobi).

The Udi language, spoken by some 8,000 people, mostly in the Republic of Azerbaijan but also in Georgia and Armenia, [18] is considered to be the last direct continuator of the Caucasian Albanian language. [19] [20]

Characters

The script consists of 52 characters, all of which can also represent numerals from 1 to 700,000 when a combining mark is added above, below, or both above and below them, described as similar to Coptic. 49 of the characters are found in the Sinai palimpsests. [21] Several punctuation marks are also present, including a middle dot, a separating colon, an apostrophe, paragraph marks, and citation marks.

Letters

Caucasian Albanian
Sinai Palimpsest Matenadaran Manuscript 7117 UnicodeNumeric valueLetter NamePronunciation
Caucasian Albanian letter alt.svg Caucasian Albanian letter Alt - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐔰1Alt/a/
Caucasian Albanian letter Bet - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Bet - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐔱2Bet/b/
Caucasian Albanian letter Gim - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Gim - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐔲3Gim/g/
Caucasian Albanian letter Dat - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Dat - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐔳4Dat/d/
Caucasian Albanian letter Eb - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Eb - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐔴5Eb/e/
Caucasian Albanian letter Zarl - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Zarl - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐔵6Zarl/z/
Caucasian Albanian letter Eyn - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Eyn - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐔶7Eyn/eː/
Caucasian Albanian letter Zhil - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Zhil - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐔷8Zhil/ʒ/
Caucasian Albanian letter Tas - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Tas - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐔸9Tas/t/
Caucasian Albanian letter Zha - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Zha - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐔹10Cha/t͡ɕʼ/
Caucasian Albanian letter Yowd - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Yowd - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐔺20Yowd/j/
Caucasian Albanian letter Zha- Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Zha- Matenadaran version.jpg 𐔻30Zha/ʑ/
Caucasian Albanian letter Irb - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Irb - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐔼40Irb/i/
Caucasian Albanian letter Sha - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Sha - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐔽50Sha/ˤ/
Caucasian Albanian letter Lan - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Lan - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐔾60Lan/l/
Caucasian Albanian letter Inya - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Inya - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐔿70Inya/nʲ/
Caucasian Albanian letter Xeyn - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Xeyn - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕀80Xeyn/x/
Caucasian Albanian letter Dyan - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Dyan - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕁90Dyan/dʲ/
Caucasian Albanian letter Car - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Car - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕂100Car/t͡sʼ/
Caucasian Albanian letter Jhox - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Jhox - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕃200Jhox/d͡ʑ/
Caucasian Albanian letter Kar - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Kar - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕄300Kar/k'/
Caucasian Albanian letter Lyit - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Lyit - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕅400Lyit/lʲ/
Caucasian Albanian letter Heyt - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Heyt - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕆500Heyt/h/
Caucasian Albanian letter Qay - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Qay - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕇600Qay/q/
Caucasian Albanian letter Aor - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Aor - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕈700Aor/ɒ/
Caucasian Albanian letter Choy - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Choy - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕉800Choy/t͡ɕ/
Caucasian Albanian letter Chi - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Chi - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕊900Chi/t͡ʃʼ/
Caucasian Albanian letter Cyay - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Cyay - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕋1000Cyay/t͡sʲ/
Caucasian Albanian letter Maq - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Maq - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕌2000Mak/m/
Caucasian Albanian letter Qar - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Qar - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕍3000Qar/q'/
Caucasian Albanian letter Nowc - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Nowc - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕎4000Nowc/n/
Caucasian Albanian letter Dzyay - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Dzyay - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕏5000Dzyay/d͡zʲ/
Caucasian Albanian letter Shak - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Shak - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕐6000Shak/ʃ/
Caucasian Albanian letter Jayn - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Jayn - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕑7000Jayn/d͡ʒ/
Caucasian Albanian letter On - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter On - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕒8000On/o/
Caucasian Albanian letter Tyay - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Tyay - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕓9000Tyay/tʲʼ/
Caucasian Albanian letter Fam - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Fam - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕔10000Fam/f/
Caucasian Albanian letter Dzay - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Dzay - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕕20000Dzay/d͡z/
Caucasian Albanian letter Chat - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Chat - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕖30000Chat/t͡ʃ/
Caucasian Albanian letter Pen - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Pen - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕗40000Pen/p'/
Caucasian Albanian letter Gheys - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Gheys - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕘50000Gheys/ɣ/
Caucasian Albanian letter Rat - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Rat - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕙60000Rat/r/
Caucasian Albanian letter Seyk - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Seyk - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕚70000Seyk/s/
Caucasian Albanian letter Veyz - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Veyz - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕛80000Veyz/v/
Caucasian Albanian letter Tiwr - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Tiwr - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕜90000Tiwr/t'/
Caucasian Albanian letter Shoy - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Shoy - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕝100000Shoy/ɕ/
Caucasian Albanian letter Iwn - Reconstructed Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Iwn - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕞200000Iwn/y/
Caucasian Albanian letter Cyaw - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Cyaw - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕟300000Cyaw/t͡sʲʼ/
Caucasian Albanian letter Cayn - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Cayn - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕠400000Cayn/t͡s/
Caucasian Albanian letter Yayd - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Yayd - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕡500000Yayd/w/
Caucasian Albanian letter Piwr - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Piwr - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕢600000Piwr/p/
Caucasian Albanian letter Kiw - Sinai version.png Caucasian Albanian letter Kiw - Matenadaran version.jpg 𐕣700000Kiw/k/

Unicode

The Caucasian Albanian alphabet was added to the Unicode Standard in June, 2014 with the release of version 7.0.

The Unicode block for Caucasian Albanian is U+10530–1056F:

Caucasian Albanian [1] [2]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
 0123456789ABCDEF
U+1053x𐔰𐔱𐔲𐔳𐔴𐔵𐔶𐔷𐔸𐔹𐔺𐔻𐔼𐔽𐔾𐔿
U+1054x𐕀𐕁𐕂𐕃𐕄𐕅𐕆𐕇𐕈𐕉𐕊𐕋𐕌𐕍𐕎𐕏
U+1055x𐕐𐕑𐕒𐕓𐕔𐕕𐕖𐕗𐕘𐕙𐕚𐕛𐕜𐕝𐕞𐕟
U+1056x𐕠𐕡𐕢𐕣𐕯
Notes
1. ^ As of Unicode version 15.1
2. ^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

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References

  1. Catford, J.C. (1977). "Mountain of Tongues:The Languages of the Caucasus". Annual Review of Anthropology. 6: 283–314 [296]. doi:10.1146/annurev.an.06.100177.001435.
  2. Peter R. Ackroyd. The Cambridge history of the Bible. — Cambridge University Press, 1963. — vol. 2. — p. 368:"The third Caucasian people, the Albanians, also received an alphabet from Mesrop, to supply scripture for their Christian church. This church did not survive beyond the conquests of Islam, and all but few traces of the script have been lost..."
  3. Gippert, Jost; Wolfgang Schulze (2007). "Some Remarks on the Caucasian Albanian Palimpsests". Iran and the Caucasus. 11 (2): 201–212 [210]. doi:10.1163/157338407X265441. "Rather, we have to assume that Old Udi corresponds to the language of the ancient Gargars (cf. Movsēs Kałankatuac‘i who tells us that Mesrop Maštoc‘ (362-440) created with the help [of the bishop Ananian and the translator Benjamin] an alphabet for the guttural, harsh, barbarous, and rough language of the Gargarac‘ik‘)."
  4. К. В. Тревер. Очерки по истории и культуре Кавказской Албании. М—Л., 1959:"Как известно, в V в. Месроп Маштоц, создавая албанский алфавит, в основу его положил гаргарское наречие албанского языка («создал письмена гаргарского языка, богатого горловыми звуками»). Это последнее обстоятельство позволяет высказать предположение, что именно гаргары являлись наиболее культурным и ведущим албанским племенем."
  5. Peter R. Ackroyd. The Cambridge history of the Bible. — Cambridge University Press, 1963. — vol. 2. — p. 368:"The third Caucasian people, the Albanians, also received an alphabet from Mesrop, to supply scripture for their Christian church. This church did not survive beyond the conquests of Islam, and all but few traces of the script have been lost, and there are no remains of the version known."
  6. Donald Rayfield "The Literature of Georgia: A History (Caucasus World). RoutledgeCurzon. ISBN   0-7007-1163-5. P. 19. "The Georgian alphabet seems unlikely to have a pre-Christian origin, for the major archaeological monument of the first century 4IX the bilingual Armazi gravestone commemorating Serafua, daughter of the Georgian viceroy of Mtskheta, is inscribed in Greek and Aramaic only. It has been believed, and not only in Armenia, that all the Caucasian alphabets — Armenian, Georgian and Caucaso-Albanian — were invented in the fourth century by the Armenian scholar Mesrop Mashtots.<...> The Georgian chronicles The Life of Kanli – assert that a Georgian script was invented two centuries before Christ, an assertion unsupported by archaeology. There is a possibility that the Georgians, like many minor nations of the area, wrote in a foreign language — Persian, Aramaic, or Greek — and translated back as they read."
  7. Glen Warren Bowersock; Peter Robert Lamont Brown; Oleg Grabar, eds. (1999). Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World . Harvard University Press. ISBN   0-674-51173-5.
  8. Grenoble, Lenore A. (2003). Language policy in the Soviet Union. Dordrecht [u.a.]: Kluwer Acad. Publ. p. 116. ISBN   1402012985.
  9. Bowersock, G.W.; Brown, Peter; Grabar, Oleg, eds. (1999). Late antiquity: a guide to the postclassical world (2nd ed.). Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press. p.  289. ISBN   0-674-51173-5.
  10. Jost, Gippert (2011). "The script of the Caucasian Albanians in the light of the Sinai palimpsests". Die Entstehung der kaukasischen Alphabete als kulturhistorisches Phänomen: Referate des internationalen Symposions (Wien, 1.-4. Dezember 2005) = The creation of the Caucasian alphabets as phenomenon of cultural history. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press. pp. 39–50. ISBN   9783700170884.
  11. Koriun, The life of Mashtots, Ch. 16.
  12. Schulze, Wolfgang (2005). "Towards a History of Udi" (PDF). International Journal of Diachronic Linguistics: 1–27 [12]. Retrieved 4 July 2012. "In addition, a small number of inscriptions on candleholders, roofing tiles and on a pedestal found since 1947 in Central and Northern Azerbaijan illustrate that the Aluan alphabet had in fact been in practical use."
  13. Ilia Abuladze. "About the discovery of the alphabet of the Caucasian Aghbanians". In the Bulletin of the Institute of Language, History and Material Culture (ENIMK), Vol. 4, Ch. I, Tbilisi, 1938.
  14. Philip L. Kohl, Mara Kozelsky, Nachman Ben-Yehuda. Selective Remembrances: Archaeology in the Construction, Commemoration, and Consecration of National Pasts. University of Chicago Press, 2007. ISBN   0-226-45058-9, ISBN   978-0-226-45058-2
  15. Zaza Alexidze; Discovery and Decipherment of Caucasian Albanian Writing "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-21. Retrieved 2011-01-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  16. Aleksidze, Zaza; Blair, Betty (2003). "Caucasian Albanian Alphabet: Ancient Script Discovered in the Ashes". Azerbaijan International.
  17. Gippert, Jost / Schulze, Wolfgang / Aleksidze, Zaza / Mahé, Jean-Pierre: The Caucasian Albanian Palimpsests of Mount Sinai, 2 vols., XXIV + 530 pp.; Turnhout: Brepols 2009
  18. Wolfgang Schulze, "The Udi Language", "Udi Grammar Contents". Archived from the original on 2009-08-26. Retrieved 2010-02-24.
  19. The Arab geographers refer to the Arranian language as still spoken in the neighbourhood of Barda'a (Persian: Peroz-Abadh, Armenian Partav), but now only the two villages inhabited by the Udi are considered as the direct continuators of the Albanian linguistic tradition. V. Minorsky. Caucasica IV. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 15, No. 3. (1953), pp. 504–529.
  20. "Caucasian Albanian Script. The Significance of Decipherment" (2003) by Dr. Zaza Alexidze.
  21. Everson, Michael; Gippert, Jost (2011-10-28). "N4131R: Proposal for encoding the Caucasian Albanian script in the SMP of the UCS" (PDF). Working Group Document, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2.