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Abstract
The Persian Gospel codices of the Matenadaran collection, written in Armenian script in the eighteenth century in Shamakhi and Ganja, are important sources for the study of the interethnic, interfaith, and intercultural circumstances of historical Shirvan (located in Transcaucasia) of that period. These manuscripts are also considered to be essential sources for the study of inter-linguistic issues of Armenian and Persian, the Armenian orthographic rules of that period, and one of the local versions of Persian, spoken in Shirvan. In the eighteenth century, Persian was the interethnic contact language of this area and the manuscripts examined here were written for the Christian Armenians of the region. This article presents how the Armenian alphabet reflects the phonetic system of eighteenth century Persian spoken in Shirvan using the orthographic rules of Armenian.
Notes
1 The cataloging of Armeno-Persian fragments found in the Armenian manuscripts of the Matenadaran is in process.
2 The manuscript record numbers in this article refer to their numbering in the collection of Armenian codices of the Research Institute of Ancient Manuscripts of Yerevan—Matenadaran.
For descriptions, see Ms. 8492, Catalogue of Manuscripts of the Mesrop Mashtots Matenadaran, vol. 2, Yerevan (1970), col. 756; Ms. 3044, Catalogue of Manuscripts of the Mesrop Mashtots Matenadaran, vol. 1, Yerevan (1965), col. 927. On these manuscripts see: Gulbenkyan, The Translation of the Four Gospels into Persian, 70, n. 196; Anasian, Armenian Bibliography, col. 539–40. The current research was conducted mainly on Ms. 8492, aside from a few comparisons that were supplemented with Ms. 3044.
3 On the ethnic and political situations of the Ganja Khanate (1747–1804) see Mkhitaryan, The Administrative Political formations in Trancaucasia, 29–30, 59.
4 From the second half of sixteenth century to the eighteenth century the main part of northeastern Transcaucasia was in Shirvan beglarbegi (beglarbeg “governor-general”) with the centre Shamakhi in the Safavid state. On the frontiers of Shirvan see Tadhkirat al-muluk, 167–8.
5 Quoted passages from Armenian and Armenian script are fully transliterated using a version by Hübschmann-Meillet; the Persian passages are transliterated according to a simplified version of Encyclopedia of Islam EI 3.
6 The literal translations conveying the sense of the original texts are mine.
7 See A Unified Gospel in Persian, 51–81.
8 See Thomas, A Restless Search, 74–80.
9 For further details about the colophons of Ms. 8492 and Ms. 3044 and historical context of the writing of the codices see Kirakosian, “On the Colophons .”
10 For instance the European traveler J. Bell evidences (in the eighteenth century): “Shamachi is situated in about forty degrees north latitude … The greater part of the inhabitants are Persians. There is also a considerable number of Georgians and Armenians. The vulgar language is Turkish, but the people of distinction speak Persian.” See Bell, Travels from St. Petersburgh in Russia, 65–6. On the social history of the written and spoken Persian language and on Persian’s role as a transregional contact language see Spooner and Hanaway, Literacy in the Persianate World; Green, The Persianate World; Fragner, Die “Persophonie.”
11 See Aslanian, “Prepared in the Language of the Hagarites,” 68; Papazian, “On the Foreign Literature on Armenian characters,” 211.
12 The same appearance we can assume for Armenians in Ottoman Turkey where the education was circumscribed by the millet system boundaries: “The Armenian Patriarch governed over his millet and Armenian children were educated separately and it wasn’t necessary to learn Arabic script. Armenians went to Armenian schools and did not attend Quranic primary schools and have been educated in reading the Armenian script.” Aslanian, “Prepared in the Language of the Hagarites,” 70–1.
13 Many medieval Armenian sources and authors reveal the learning of Persian among Armenians since eleventh–twelfth centuries (see Chugaszyan, The Armenian and Iranian Literacy Interactions, 34–5).
14 Abegha was a monk, also a priest in the Armenian Church, who was involved in teaching.
15 For the description, see Ms. 10586, Catalogue of Manuscripts of the Mesrop Mashtots Matenadaran, vol. 3, Yerevan (2007), col. 127; Catalogue of Turkish materials written in Armenian letters of Armenian manuscripts and the Turkish manuscripts in Armenian letters (comp. by Stepanyan Hasmik) Yerevan (2008): 154 (in Armenian).
16 On the educational role of the medieval bilingual Persian–Ottoman Turkish dictionaries see Kirakosian and Sargsian, “The Educational Role .”
17 See Krstić, Contested Conversions to Islam, 38.
18 In the basis of the writing of Grabar and literary Ashkharhabar (western Armenian, eastern Armenian) in the eighteenth century were the same three principles: phonetic, etymological, and traditional or classical. In that period of the development of Armenian two processes were equally visible: the cultivating of the new literary Armenian and restoration of Grabar by using the mentioned forms of orthographical rules.
19 On the rules of eighteenth century Armenian orthography, see Gyulbudaghyan, The History of Armenian Orthography; Gyulbudaghyan, “On the 18th Century Armenian Orthography.”
20 Ms. 3044 and Ms. 8492 contain many oddities in their transcription that make it difficult to interpret the correct pronunciation of the word. For example, Pers. anǰir “fig,” which is transcribed անճիր [ančir] in Ms. 8492, f. 106r and Ms. 3044, f. 771v (Mark 11:13), անջիր [anǰir] in Ms. 8492, f. 25v (Matthew 7:16), and ինջիր [inǰir] in Ms. 8492, f. 138r, Ms. 3044, f. 90r (Luke 6:44).
21 About these vowels see p. 10, footnote 25.
22 This pronunciation and phonetic transcription could be also connected to developments within the Persian language itself. The development of the pronunciation of the short a phoneme and its stages of change in the course of the eighteenth to twentieth centuries occurred due to both internal and external influences. For details on this shift towards e, u, and, in between, ǎ > ǝ (which is written ը [ǝ] in these manuscripts) as well as its influence on Turkic adstrat, see Pisowicz, Origins of New and Middle Persian, 91.
23 In analyzing phonemes we don’t mention in more detail in which part or sentence of the manuscript the words appear, because we choose the forms which have high usage in the whole text.
24 In colloquial Persian this verb is also used in the form endāxtan.
25 In Middle Armenian, the difference between ե [e] and է [ê] had changed—they had lost their “closed” or “open” quality. Since there was no difference in their usage, they were quite often interchangeable in writing see Aghayan, On the History of Literary Middle Armenian, 27. The confusion that had arisen in the medieval period between these letters had been resolved in the eighteenth century, with word-initial ye- being transcribed with ե [e] and e- with է [ê]. On the diachronic analysis of orthography and phonetic values of Armenian vowels ê [է] and e [ե] see Katvalian, The Issues on the Armenian Dialectologies, 121–200. We often see the confusion of these letters in these manuscripts, for example Ms. p῾e/êƚambar [փե/էղամբար]—NP peyghambar “prophet” and Ms. mowne/ênt [մունե/էնտ]—NP mānand “similar,” etc. However, the main Armenian orthographic rules regarding ե [e]—է [ē] are preserved in these Armeno-Persian manuscripts.
26 This phonological feature is typical of Turkic languages and in the manuscript is quite well-integrated mainly for the Arabic origin words.
27 Cf. vowel harmony, which is typical for the Shamakhi dialect of Armenian also spoken by Ms. 8492’s scribe; see Baghramyan, The Shamakhi Dialect, 30–1. The vowel harmony mentioned in the paragraphs above refers to the Arabic origin words, which we assume, is the result of Turkic influence and these words in these forms were inserted in the Armenian dialect spoken by the manuscript’s scribe and the usage in these text was primarily linked by their existence in the Armenian dialects.
28 Cf. the use of the letter ը [ə] following the verbal prefix կ- [k-] in eighteenth century Armenian manuscripts: կը կարդացվի [kə kardacʻvi] “it will be read,” կը շինվի [kə šinvi] “it will be built,” կը հասկացնենք [kə haskacʻnenkʻ] “we will make them understand,” see Gyulbudaghyan, “On the 18th Century Armenian Orthography,” 88.
29 About this suffix see Durkin-Meisterernst, Westmitteliranischen (Partisch und Mettelpersisch), 171.
30 See Katvalian, The Issues on the Armenian Dialectologies, 221.
31 There are some scribal difficulties in definition of the letters ե [e], է [ê], ի [i].
32 See Gyulbudaghyan, “On the 18th Century Armenian Orthography,” 86.
33 In these Armeno-Persian manuscripts we find the elision of short vowels (փղմբր–փեյղամբար, խդայ–խոդա). In such cases the scribes would insert abbreviation marks.
34 For final -յ [-y] see next section.
35 It is interesting that according to the traditional Armenian orthography p proper nouns ending with ո [o] did not get the syllable-ending -յ [-y] and this feature distinguished the proper and common nouns in general, see Gyulbudaghyan, “On the 18th Century Armenian Orthography,” 88.
36 This word’s ending -e is only typical for contemporary Persian. In ENP, colloquial Persian, Tajiki, the dialects of Khorasan, and others, the ending -a is expected; see Taj. hama which originates from *a.
37 The addition of non-etymological -y- after -ā- is also attested in ENP texts, specifically in those words that have their own suffixes. For example, juδāygāna “separately” < juδā(y) “separate” < MP yutāk + -gāna suffix or khδāyvand “Lord,” which has been incorrectly interpreted as deriving from khδā(y)- + -vand with the addition of the y semivowel. It is apparent that this word’s etymology is ENP khδāvand < khatāvan- or khatāvani-. See Lazard, La langue des plus anciens monuments, 73. Let us note that in the manuscripts under discussion, this -y- is written with the -յ- semivowel. This can be observed in the transcription of խուդայվանտ for the term “lord” (the translator has used the term khdāy [խուդայ] to mean “God”).
38 See Lazard, La langue des plus anciens monuments, 192.
39 See Pisowicz, Origins of the New and Middle Persian , 24–7.
40 See Mahootian, Persian, 230.
41 Pisowicz, Origins of the New and Middle Persian, 59. Pisowicz also discusses the -ai- → ai/-ei-/-e → /ey/ historical development from the thirteenth to twentieth centuries. The transcription of է- [ê] in the manuscripts reflects the stage of development of this diphthong in the eighteenth century (ibid., 89). Let us also note that similar transcription of words of Arabic origin in these manuscripts is a result of the adopted style of Persian orthography.
42 We also found the form ղեյր [łeyr] in Ms. 3044, f. 73r.
43 Aghayan, On the History of Literary Middle Armenian, 123.
44 Eighteenth century Armenian scribes often transcribed foreign voiced phonemes with Armenian unvoiced letters see Gyulbudaghyan, “On the 18th Century Armenian Orthography,” 91.
45 The shift of unvoiced consonants is also attested in the Armeno-Persian dictionary of the sixteenth–seventeenth century by the Armenian philosopher-theologian Hovhannes Mrkuz of Jugha in a few forms. See Mirzoyan, “An Unstudied Monument of Armenian Dictionary Writing.”
46 The basic structural dialect of the contemporary eastern Armenian.
47 Jahukyan notes a special trait of the Armenian of the eighteenth century which was a four-level stop consonant system, where the partially aspirated stops բ̔ bh, գ̔ gh, դ̔ dh, ձ̔ jh, ջ̔ ǰh were not distinct phonemes, but were dependent on that voiced consonant’s position see Jahukyan, The Development and Structure of the Armenian Language, 53.
48 See the aspiration of initial voiced plosives in the dialect of Nor-Jugha and the consonants’ rank բ̔ bh, գ̔ gh, դ̔ dh, ձ̔ jh, ջ̔ ǰh: “the voiced consonants of old Armenian carry many changes [in Nor-Jugha dialect]: the trilled consonants in the word-initial position and after r- aspirated, after h- and in foreign dialects stay trilled, after x- unvoiced or aspirated trilled, and in word-end position these consonants aspirated, unvoiced.” See Acharian, The Analysis of the Nor-Jugha Dialect ; Sukiasean, The Dictionary of the dialect of Nor-Jugha.
49 For more on the origin of the scribe Hakim Yaghub see Kirakosian, “On the Colophons,”53.
50 In general, in colloquial Persian the voiced stops partially devoice after a voiceless segment. See Mahootian, Persian, 325.
51 No differences in the t and ṭ phonemes’ rendering.
52 The transcription of taraqi “growth” as “թարախկի” (Ms. 8492, f. 159v, also Ms. 3044, f. 100r [Luke 13:19]) is worthy of note.
53 The phonemes kh, z (dh, ẓ, ḍ), s (th, ṣ), sh, f, v were not discussed separately in the article because they do not change phonetically and are written with their Armenian counterpart sound markers: x, z, s, š, f, v.
54 We also rarely find this feature in colloquial Persian, and ǰ–ž are considered the allophone of the same phoneme. See Pisowicz, Origins of the New and Middle Persian, 31.
55 The dropping of the endings -r, -d, and -st in word-end position, typical of colloquial Persian, is not attested in these Armeno-Persian manuscripts. However, the phoneme -h is dropped. For example: Ms. դիկար—NP digar—Coll. Persian dige, Ms. ակար—NP agar—Coll. Persian age, Ms. աստ—NP ast—Coll. Persian -e, etc. This observation allows us to state that the former drops in word-end position occurred at a later date than the dropping of word-end -h, while Pisowicz believes the opposite. See Pisowicz, Origins of the New and Middle Persian, 63. In the manuscripts, we find the dropping of the -t element in word-end -st in a few cases. See Ms. դուս դաշտ [dows dašt]—NP dūst dāsht “he/she/it loved,” and once Ms. as—NP ast “is.”
56 See Gyulbudaghyan, “On the 18th century Armenian Orthography,” 87.
57 See Katvalian, “The Correspondence of the H-X Phonemes in Armenian Dialects.”
58 See Acharian, “Armenian Dialectology,” 88.
59 See Acharian, Dictionary of Armenian Roots, 658.