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Hurro-Urartian languages
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Hurro-Urartian languages are an extinct language family of the Ancient Near East, which comprises only two languages, Hurrian and Urartian (Asia Minor and the Caucasus).
Little is known about these agglutinative languages, but they definitely do not belong to the Semitic or Indo-European language families. Scholars such as I. M. Diakonoff and Sergei Starostin see affinities between Hurro-Urartian and the Northeast Caucasian languages, and place them together in an Alarodian family, often thought to be part of a North Caucasian language family. As is typical of theories on linguistic groupings in the Caucasus region however, there is little evidence for a relationship of Hurro-Urartian to other language families that rises above what may be areal features, and it is prudent to view the group as an independent family at present.
Hurrian was the language of the Hurrians (occasionally called "Hurrites"), a people who invaded northern Mesopotamia from the Caucasus around 1750 BC, and whose apogee was the kingdom of Mitanni (1450–1270 BC). The language was probably extinct by 1000 BC.
Urartian was the language of Urartu, an ancient kingdom located around Lake Van (presently in Turkey) between 1200 BC or earlier and 580 BC. The region was populated by the Phrygians during that period, and then mixed with the Armenians.[1]
Armenian has many layers of loanwords and shows traces of long language contact with Hurro-Urartian.[2] There was a strong Hurrian cultural influence on Hittite in ancient times, and there may also be areal influence of Hurro-Urartian on the Kurdish language currently spoken in former Hurro-Urartian territories.[citation needed]
- ^ Martiros Kavoukjian, "The Genesis of Armenian People", Montreal, 1982; Hovick Nersessian, "Highlands of Armenia," Los Angeles, 1998; Vyacheslav V. Ivanov, and a number of other scholars, suggests that "Armenians are native to the Armenian Highland..."
- ^ Rafael Ishkhanyan, "Illustrated History of Armenia," Yerevan, 1989; Martiros Kavoukjian, "The Genesis of Armenian People", Montreal, 1982; Martiros Kavoukjian, "Armenia, Subartu and Sumer", Montreal, 1989; Hovick Nersessian, "Highlands of Armenia," Los Angeles, 1998
- Dʹi︠a︡konov, Igorʹ Mikhaĭlovich, and S. A. Starostin. 1986. Hurro-Urartian as an Eastern Caucasian language. München: R. Kitzinger. ISBN 3920645391