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Caucasian Albanian | |
---|---|
Script type | |
Creator | Mesrop Mashtots |
Time period | 5th – 12th century AD |
Direction | Left-to-right |
Related scripts | |
Parent systems | |
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. It is one of the three historical alphabets of the South Caucasus.
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. [2] 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.
According to Movses Kaghankatvatsi, the Caucasian Albanian script was created by Mesrop Mashtots, [4] [5] [6] the Armenian monk, theologian and translator who is also credited with creating the Armenian and—by some scholars—the Georgian scripts. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]
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. [12]
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. [13]
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, [14] 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. [15]
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. [16] [17] 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. [18]
The Udi language, spoken by some 8,000 people, mostly in the Republic of Azerbaijan but also in Georgia and Armenia, [19] is considered to be the last direct continuator of the Caucasian Albanian language. [20] [21]
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. [22] Several punctuation marks are also present, including a middle dot, a separating colon, an apostrophe, paragraph marks, and citation marks.
Caucasian Albanian | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sinai Palimpsest | Matenadaran Manuscript 7117 | Unicode | Numeric value | Letter Name | Pronunciation |
𐔰 | 1 | Alt | /a/ | ||
𐔱 | 2 | Bet | /b/ | ||
𐔲 | 3 | Gim | /g/ | ||
𐔳 | 4 | Dat | /d/ | ||
𐔴 | 5 | Eb | /e/ | ||
𐔵 | 6 | Zarl | /z/ | ||
𐔶 | 7 | Eyn | /eː/ | ||
𐔷 | 8 | Zhil | /ʒ/ | ||
𐔸 | 9 | Tas | /t/ | ||
𐔹 | 10 | Cha | /t͡ɕʼ/ | ||
𐔺 | 20 | Yowd | /j/ | ||
𐔻 | 30 | Zha | /ʑ/ | ||
𐔼 | 40 | Irb | /i/ | ||
𐔽 | 50 | Sha | /ˤ/ | ||
𐔾 | 60 | Lan | /l/ | ||
𐔿 | 70 | Inya | /nʲ/ | ||
𐕀 | 80 | Xeyn | /x/ | ||
𐕁 | 90 | Dyan | /dʲ/ | ||
𐕂 | 100 | Car | /t͡sʼ/ | ||
𐕃 | 200 | Jhox | /d͡ʑ/ | ||
𐕄 | 300 | Kar | /k'/ | ||
𐕅 | 400 | Lyit | /lʲ/ | ||
𐕆 | 500 | Heyt | /h/ | ||
𐕇 | 600 | Qay | /q/ | ||
𐕈 | 700 | Aor | /ɒ/ | ||
𐕉 | 800 | Choy | /t͡ɕ/ | ||
𐕊 | 900 | Chi | /t͡ʃʼ/ | ||
𐕋 | 1000 | Cyay | /t͡sʲ/ | ||
𐕌 | 2000 | Mak | /m/ | ||
𐕍 | 3000 | Qar | /q'/ | ||
𐕎 | 4000 | Nowc | /n/ | ||
𐕏 | 5000 | Dzyay | /d͡zʲ/ | ||
𐕐 | 6000 | Shak | /ʃ/ | ||
𐕑 | 7000 | Jayn | /d͡ʒ/ | ||
𐕒 | 8000 | On | /o/ | ||
𐕓 | 9000 | Tyay | /tʲʼ/ | ||
𐕔 | 10000 | Fam | /f/ | ||
𐕕 | 20000 | Dzay | /d͡z/ | ||
𐕖 | 30000 | Chat | /t͡ʃ/ | ||
𐕗 | 40000 | Pen | /p'/ | ||
𐕘 | 50000 | Gheys | /ɣ/ | ||
𐕙 | 60000 | Rat | /r/ | ||
𐕚 | 70000 | Seyk | /s/ | ||
𐕛 | 80000 | Veyz | /v/ | ||
𐕜 | 90000 | Tiwr | /t'/ | ||
𐕝 | 100000 | Shoy | /ɕ/ | ||
𐕞 | 200000 | Iwn | /y/ | ||
𐕟 | 300000 | Cyaw | /t͡sʲʼ/ | ||
𐕠 | 400000 | Cayn | /t͡s/ | ||
𐕡 | 500000 | Yayd | /w/ | ||
𐕢 | 600000 | Piwr | /p/ | ||
𐕣 | 700000 | Kiw | /k/ |
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) | ||||||||||||||||
0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | |
U+1053x | 𐔰 | 𐔱 | 𐔲 | 𐔳 | 𐔴 | 𐔵 | 𐔶 | 𐔷 | 𐔸 | 𐔹 | 𐔺 | 𐔻 | 𐔼 | 𐔽 | 𐔾 | 𐔿 |
U+1054x | 𐕀 | 𐕁 | 𐕂 | 𐕃 | 𐕄 | 𐕅 | 𐕆 | 𐕇 | 𐕈 | 𐕉 | 𐕊 | 𐕋 | 𐕌 | 𐕍 | 𐕎 | 𐕏 |
U+1055x | 𐕐 | 𐕑 | 𐕒 | 𐕓 | 𐕔 | 𐕕 | 𐕖 | 𐕗 | 𐕘 | 𐕙 | 𐕚 | 𐕛 | 𐕜 | 𐕝 | 𐕞 | 𐕟 |
U+1056x | 𐕠 | 𐕡 | 𐕢 | 𐕣 | 𐕯 | |||||||||||
Notes |
Caucasian Albania is a modern exonym for a former state located in ancient times in the Caucasus, mostly in what is now Azerbaijan. The modern endonyms for the area are Aghwank and Aluank, among the Udi people, who regard themselves as descended from the inhabitants of Caucasian Albania. However, its original endonym is unknown.
The Georgian scripts are the three writing systems used to write the Georgian language: Asomtavruli, Nuskhuri and Mkhedruli. Although the systems differ in appearance, their letters share the same names and alphabetical order and are written horizontally from left to right. Of the three scripts, Mkhedruli, once the civilian royal script of the Kingdom of Georgia and mostly used for the royal charters, is now the standard script for modern Georgian and its related Kartvelian languages, whereas Asomtavruli and Nuskhuri are used only by the Georgian Orthodox Church, in ceremonial religious texts and iconography. It is one of the three historical alphabets of the South Caucasus.
The Caucasian languages comprise a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than ten million people in and around the Caucasus Mountains, which lie between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.
Mesrop Mashtots was an Armenian linguist, composer, theologian, statesman, and hymnologist in the Sasanian Empire. He is venerated as a saint in the Armenian Apostolic Church.
Udi is a language spoken by the Udi people and a member of the Lezgic branch of the Northeast Caucasian language family. It is believed an earlier form of it was the main language of Caucasian Albania, which stretched from south Dagestan to current day Azerbaijan. The Old Udi language is also called the Caucasian Albanian language and possibly corresponds to the "Gargarian" language identified by medieval Armenian historians. Modern Udi is known simply as Udi.
Udis are a native people of the Caucasus that currently live mainly in Russia and Azerbaijan, with smaller populations in Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and other countries. Their total number is about 10,000 people. They speak the Udi language, which belongs to the Northeast Caucasian language family. Some also speak Azerbaijani, Russian, Georgian, or Armenian, depending on where they reside. Their religion is Christianity.
Utik, also known as Uti, was a historical province and principality within the Kingdom of Armenia. It was ceded to Caucasian Albania following the partition of Armenia between Sassanid Persia and the Eastern Roman Empire in 387 AD. Most of the region is located within present-day Azerbaijan immediately west of the Kura River, while a part of it lies within the Tavush province of present-day northeastern Armenia.
Azerbaijan International is a magazine that discusses issues related to Azerbaijanis around the world. It was established in 1993 shortly after the dissolution of the Soviet Union when Azerbaijan gained its independence. Since then, it has been published quarterly in English with occasional articles in the Azerbaijani language in Latin and Arabic scripts. The magazine has offices in Los Angeles and Baku.
The Matenadaran MS 7117 is a manuscript from Matenadaran which contains apologetic texts as well as codex of different alphabets such as Armenian, Greek, Latin, Syriac, Georgian, Coptic and Caucasian Albanian alphabet manual of the 15th century. It is also noted for including most ancient Kurdish language document transcribed in Armenian letters.
Sanesan or Sanatruk was the king of Maskut in the early 4th century. Sanesan's people, the Mazk'kut'k, have variously been identified as the Massagetae or as the Meskheti.
The Church of Albania or the Albanian Apostolic Church was an ancient, briefly autocephalous church established in the 5th century. In 705, it fell under the religious jurisdiction of the Armenian Apostolic Church as the Catholicosate of Aghvank centered in Caucasian Albania, a region spanning present-day northern Azerbaijan and southern Dagestan.
The Armenian alphabet or, more broadly, the Armenian script, is an alphabetic writing system developed for Armenian and occasionally used to write other languages. It is one of the three historical alphabets of the South Caucasus. It was developed around 405 CE by Mesrop Mashtots, an Armenian linguist and ecclesiastical leader. The script originally had 36 letters. Eventually, two more were adopted in the 13th century. In reformed Armenian orthography (1920s), the ligature ևev is also treated as a letter, bringing the total number of letters to 39.
Caucasian Albanian is an extinct member of the Northeast Caucasian languages. It was spoken in Caucasian Albania, which stretched from current day south Dagestan to Azerbaijan. Linguists believe it is an early linguistic predecessor to the endangered Northeast Caucasian Udi language. The distinct Caucasian Albanian alphabet used 52 letters.
Grigoris was the Catholicos of the Church of Caucasian Albania ca. 325–330 AD. He is considered a saint martyr by the Armenian Apostolic Church.
Urnayr was the third Arsacid king of Caucasian Albania from approximately 350 to 375. He was the successor of Vache I.
Saint Elisæus, Ełišay, Yeghishe, Elishe or Ełišē was the first patriarch of the Church of Caucasian Albania by local tradition.
Jost Gippert is a German linguist, Caucasiologist, author, and the professor for Comparative Linguistics at the Institute of Empirical Linguistics at the Goethe University of Frankfurt.
Zaza Aleksidze was a Georgian historian and linguist who specialized in Armenian and Oriental studies. He is best known internationally for deciphering the Caucasian Albanian script.
The Life of Mashtots is the only known work by the Armenian writer Koriun about the creator of the Armenian alphabet Mesrop Mashtots. It is the earliest known original work written in Armenian and other scholars place it after Agathangelos - The Lives of Saint Gregory.
The historical alphabets of the South Caucasus are the Caucasian Albanian, Armenian and Georgian. Armenian and Georgian alphabets are in use today and Caucasian Albanian is not and it was rediscovered in 1937.
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