Peoples, Languages and Genes in the Caucasus: An Introduction

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Peoples, Languages and Genes in the Caucasus: An Introduction

Submitted by Asya Pereltsvaig on January 12, 2012 – 8:05 pm 78 Comments |

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http://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.com/ Maju

A nice article. Thanks, Asya.

Two precisions however:

1. Nakh appears to be considered one of many NE Caucasian branches nowadays.

2. How can you be sure that demographic data for “Armenia” in the late 19th century have any straightforward relation with modern borders. I could not find a map but I understand that there was no administrative division with the name of Armenia for most of the 19th century. You may mean the Erivan Governorate, which included Nakhichevan (or maybe its precursor the Armenian Oblast). The separation of Nakhichevan (incorporated to Azerbaijan) in Soviet times surely played a great role in that ethnic division. Notice that Nagorno Karabakh the “mirror equivalent” of Nakhichevan in Azerbaijan was not incorporated ever to Armenia, becoming the source of a modern ongoing armed conflict.
- http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
  
  Thank you for your comments, Maju!
  
  To answer the first one: there is a debate among linguists as to whether Nakh is a subgrouping of the NE Caucasian language family or a separate family. Even in the latter case, Nakh is more closely related to the NE Caucasian language family than to any other linguistic grouping. Still, I took the splitter approach here, which is a legitimate one…
  
  As for the demographic data for “Armenia”, you are correct in supposing that in the late 19th century it is the Erivan Governorate that is listed. However, it is specified explicitly that the data does not include the population of Nakhichevan (nor does the data from the subsequent censuses listed). This is the source of the data: http://www.ethno-kavkaz.narod.ru/rnarmenia.html
  
  As far as Azerbijan data is concerned, the earliest census specifies “for territories of the Russian Empire that were later included in the Azerbaijan SSR, not including Nagorno-Karabakh”: http://www.ethno-kavkaz.narod.ru/rnazerbaijan.html
  
  The data for Nagorno-Karabakh are, appropriately, listed separately: http://www.ethno-kavkaz.narod.ru/rnkarabax.html
  
  Overall, this site has a wealth of demographic data on the Caucasus, but (unfortunately for others, I suppose) it is all in Russian…
David Erschler

A curious feature of the second map is that Ossetians are absent from it. (And the territory of North Ossetia is represented as populated by the Ingush.)
- David Erschler
  
  Oops, of the third map.
  - http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
    
    Fourth map, actually, I think you mean. The one of languages in Dagestan. Good point, David!!! I never noticed as I always focused my attention further east on Dagestan. It’s a map from the Ethnologue site and they are usually quite accurate though this is a clear blunder. Thank you for pointing it out.
    - David Erschler
      
      Yes, of course it’s the 4th one. Actually, in their entry on Ossetic they list it as a language of Georgia, so they really mixed things up.
      - http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
        
        You are absolutely correct. I checked the Ethnologue entry for Ossetian too (or as they call it “Osetin”), where it is indeed listed as the language of Georgia though they do say it is also spoken in the Russian Federation (Asia) — Asia? Don’t you think it should be Russian Federation (Europe), Martin? Real mix up!
Martin W. Lewis

In regard to minority populations, I would like to add that the Armenian population in Georgia was very significant until the late 1800s. Ronald Suny, in his The Making of the Georgian Nation, writes that “The great majority of urban dwellers [in Georgia] were Armenian; in Tiflis [Tbilisi] they made up about three-quarters of the population at the time of annexation. In Georgia, from at least the sixteenth century and probably earlier, commercial capital was largely in the hands of the Armenian merchants of Tiflis and Gori.” (p. 88, second edition).
- http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
  
  Martin is absolutely correct: the Armenian population in Georgia remained significant till the end of the 19th century. According to the earliest census data that I found (1897), Armenians constituted about 30% of the population in Tiflis [Tbilisi], and up to 72.3% in the area surrounding the town of Akhalkalaki, to the southwest of Tiflis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhalkalaki)…
  
  But by 1926 (first Soviet census), the Armenian population in Georgia has dropped down to about 10% and has remained at that level until the breakdown of the Soviet Union. The latest census (2002) indicates only 5.7% Armenians in Georgia as a whole, though some areas still have rather high percentage of Armenian population, Tbilisi no longer does.
  - Harale
    
    Armenians moved to Georgia with the help of Russian Empire and even before that,the Georgian Kingdom was allowing armenians to live in Georgian lands,that was really a big mistake of them.In the time of Russian empire russians were helping armenians move deeper into the Caucasus,i dont know but your statistics seem little bit “englarged” dont trust so easily sources that have to do with armenians many of them are falsified or old mistakes in the period before and after the russian revolution fashism grow strong in armenia the dushkans made up half of the now called “history of armenia” to gain the trust of people and grow morale cause at that time armenia wanted to attack azerbaijan-turkey-georgia. do you understand why this statistics are false ?!
    - http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
      
      Respectfully, I have to disagree with you: census data is evidence, whereas someone’s (ideologically charged) opinions are not. Of course, like everything else census data may contain errors, but unless you have better evidence, that’s what we have to rely on. If you have better evidence of the demographic situation in Georgia throughout history, please share it with us!
      - Harale
        
        theres no better evidence then history of Georgia friend ! Y need to read carefuly what i write y will find the answers,someone with bright mind will always see the truth.Armenians were immigrants and they had a way to make the land they moved theirs if you understand what i mean Ilia Chavchavadze “armenians as they moved deeper to Georgia were changing the names of the graves and icons of local churches to armenian” you need to learn more about the people of caucasus friend.
Doctortiter

Such a shame that delusional pan-Turkic nationalists seized the minds of many Azerbaijanis and led them into believing that they have something in common with Mongols or Kazakhs, when in reality their blood and genes are closest to Armenians (and even Persians) than anyone else.

Elite dominance wouldn’t have occurred if it wasn’t for oppression committed by invaders, by trying to force the majority to speak their language or practice their religion.

The language that is probably truest to an Azerbaijani’s blood is the Armenian language, the very language they unfortunately happen to loathe.

That’s what oppression does over the years… makes people insecure…
- http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
  
  @22dc4da2d7cd9d6fafb13082dc81b8bc:disqus : Thank you for your comments! You are correct in that the Azeris are genetically closer to their Caucasian neighbors. However, genes/blood is not the only component of one’s ethnic identity: religion, language, cultural traditions play as important a role as genes. Linguistically, Azeris are closest to Turks; in terms of religion — to Iranians. A complex node of influences, as in many other instances in the Caucasus. By the way, I will examine the influences that formed Azeri cuisine in a later post this week, so stay tuned!
  
  As for the process of elite dominance, it happened all over the world. To bemoan “oppression committed by invaders” in this context is rather odd as without it the world would have been unimaginably different from what it is. Even English wouldn’t have been English without the “oppression committed by invaders”, Anglo-Saxon tribes in this instance.
  - Doctortiter
    
    Nevertheless, oppression is oppression, regardless of who it is at fault. And the example of English doesn’t quite work. When the English expanded to North America and Australia, for example, it could always be argued that there wasn’t much in those two vast continents to assimilate, as most of the land was unoccupied. It’s hardly a comparison to a group of Turks invading densely populated lands, as Azerbaijan and Anatolia always were, and force the absolute majority to drop their native tongues for the language of invaders. Nevertheless, it’s not like I’m going to be apologetic of the Anglo-Saxons either. They were all bad but in different degrees. Speaking as a Middle Easterner, I view Arabization and Turkification as far more catastrophic crimes to the richness and beauty of the ancient near east than Anglicization was to North America or Australia.
    
    It’s a fact that Azerbaijanis had their own language and identity, which they lost in favor of Turkic, after they were invaded and had their lands occupied by an elite group of Turkic warrior nomads for a couple of centuries. It’s not like they had a say in it. They were forced to drop their old languages and customs for something else. And poof, one of the native languages of ancient Azerbaijan goes to dust.
    
    Elite dominance is the reason behind all of our problems in the Middle East (and world) today. It’s the reason why some Arabs act more Arab than the Arab, it’s also the reason why some Turks act more Turkic than the Turkic. And from those very insecurities have stemmed ultra-nationalistic attitudes in our part of the world, which led to heinous crimes against humanity, such as the Armenian genocide and many more like it.
    
    If Elite dominance hadn’t occurred, the Middle East will be a richer and more diverse place. The Arab world wouldn’t be an Arab world; it would be a collection of nations that vary in languages and cultures, instead of one boring Arabic language being superimposed on everybody. I’d rather have diversity than the current world vision.
    
    Elite dominance is the reason why assimilated Turks, ala the Azeris and Anatolians, as well as assimilated Arabs, ala the Egyptians and Syrians, are having so much insecurities. And it’s because of those insecurities that they try to prove their loyalty to their ethno-linguistic nation. How would they prove it, if one asks? By becoming extremely prejudice toward their nationalistic vision and thereby exposing themselves to a path of hatred, racism and dare I say crimes against humanity.
    
    And because of that, no matter how many studies are made or how many books are published, Azeris today will most probably continually dismiss any genetic connections they have to Armenians and Persians. Instead, they will continue to live in the illusion that they are somehow direct descendants of Turkic nomads who migrated from Central Asia. The byproduct of Elite dominance will never give generational victims of elite dominance the chance to overcome their insecurities and start accepting that their genes go back to groups of people that their very linguistic nation is a nemesis of.
    
    In short, most Turkic people today and most Arabs today are unfortunately doomed. At least doomed in the academic sense and sense of reaching enlightenment, which basically means doomed in pretty much everything else. When one is insecure, he becomes prejudice. When he become prejudice, he will dismiss evidence he hates. When he dismisses it, he fabricates history. When he fabricates, he lies. When a society is built upon lies, the structure of those nations collapse. And that is probably why we’re ages behind other civilizations now that I think about it.
    - http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
      
      What other civilizations? If you can name one “civilization” or part of the world with no history of language shift (in most if not all cases due to elite dominance), please do so.
      - Doctortiter
        
        There are plenty. Just because they go unheard of in this modern world (which only seems to be interested in mundane things) doesn’t mean they never existed. Persian civilization, for instance, stretched as far west as the gates of Egypt and Greece and as far east as India and China. Yet during the First Persian Empire, there was a decree from Cyrus of Persia to his governors to allow locals in all provinces freely speak their own languages and practice their own customs. No language shift occurred and no elite dominance was imposed on anyone. And this mode of conduct was respected throughout the successive generations of Persian leaders.
        
        India is another classic example of a civilization that was in cohesion and harmony for thousands of years, without elite dominance shaping up the insecurities that exist in modern Arab and Turkic civilizations, even though many Indo-Aryan dynasties had their moments under the sun and could have made dramatic changes in their regional demography. But of course, “divide and conquer” became the modus operandi of foreign interests, and only then did extremist ultra-nationalist/religious ideologies pop up.
        
        And even in the current west, where English, French, Spanish and Portuguese dominate the “new world”, everybody recognizes that he/she merely speaks the language but doesn’t belong to its nation or race. The whole construct is entirely different than when it’s compared to the elitism that was superimposed by Turkic nomads. Azerbaijan or Turkey wasn’t invaded by Turks for the sake of making it a society of different nationalities under one rooftop or language. Rather, they plundered it, as nomads are accustomed to, and expressed their discrimination in such undesirable ways that eventually led many locals into changing lifestyles in order to be accepted. One of those changes of lifestyles meant they had to accept a fairytale about their family history going back to Central Asia.
        
        And once again, I must stress that I’m not going to be apologetic of other examples of elite dominance or language shifts throughout the world. But I seriously doubt that any other global examples of language shifts resulted in the same perverted results/consequences that are currently seen by Turkic or Arabic elite dominance. I doubt an assimilated American or Canadian would think he goes back to medieval England just because he speaks English. And I doubt Nigerians would identify with the British Isles just because their mother tongue is oftentimes, if not most of the times, English.
        
        Where in one example, a man goes to an English-speaking country and voluntarily accepts assimilating into the culture, while still maintaining the sense of autonomy and constitutionally given the dignity to proudly call out to his origin. That way his family lineage will know that they might speak English now, but that their origin heads back to somewhere that might have not been English-speaking at all. On the other hand, in our example in the Middle East, it is forced upon someone to assimilate or suffer grave consequences, and when they so wish to assimilate, they would fabricate their entire family history and claim to come from a place that they never belonged to. They’ll even be forced to take on Arabic names, for example.
        
        The fact of the matter is that, no matter how hard we try to avoid admitting it, there’s no place in the world that has the same mass delusion (and hence, anti-science movement) that exists in the Arabic-speaking and Turkic-speaking countries, as a result of elite dominance and nationalism which were caused by a millennium of insecurities.
        
        My concern is seeing why the Middle East is damaged, and it is downright damaged because of all perverted acts that occurred here throughout history. I doubt there’s another place in the world with the same catastrophic consequences of elite dominance as here, otherwise we’ll know them by their fruits. And if there are places in the word like this today, then shame on them as well.
      - http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
        
        As scientists, we care about both mundane and exotic things. However, it appears that language shift is rather mundane in the sense of having affected every civilization, continent or culture. In fact, Persian Empire, which you mention, has imposed its language on non-native speakers rather extensively, contrary to your statements. How do we know? Curiously, from the language itself: compared to its relatives such as Pashto, Persian is much less complex or “disheveled”, which is a result of massive adoption/learning by non-native speakers, who ignored/omitted the more intricate parts of the language. You can read more on this in John McWhorter’s recent book “What language is”.
        
        Another factual errors concerns English in Nigeria: only about 1% actually speak English natively there, and even non-native use is limited to the elite.
        
        Also, we’d appreciate it if you could tone down the offensive rhetoric of your comments.
      - Doctortiter
        
        I apologize if I came down as offensive to you. I assure you that wasn’t my intention. If you can give me some pointers on how I can avoid showing that, I’d appreciate it, because I hate to think my posts had an offensive tone, especially when it wasn’t my intention. Anyway, these are my feelings about the subject. I don’t mean to offend anybody. All I mean to say is that it’s a shame for language shifts to occur, especially when they were done so by force or through elite dominance.
        
        What interests me about our discussion was your first reply to me; specifically when you said that “to bemoan oppression due to elite dominance was odd”, simply because it happened elsewhere in the world as well. But my point was, just because it happened elsewhere certainly doesn’t justify it, wouldn’t you agree? I imagine as linguists, the very thing we find beautiful is diversity. Seeing as how language shifts and elite dominance almost always killed diversity, I cant see what was odd about me “bemoaning” the past oppression. I mean, what if we look at oppression committed today, by majorities over minorities? For example, the Turkish majority that has attempted for the past 80 years to suppress minority Kurds from speaking their own language? Should we as human beings simply step aside and allow modern-day elite dominance and language shifts to occur, simply because it has happened before or in other parts of the world? So that would suddenly justify it or make it normal? The answer is most likely no, we shouldn’t. In which case, it shouldn’t really be odd “bemoaning” about it in the historic context either. What’s clearly bad today was also bad before. If it’s bad for majorities today to impose their language by force on minorities, ala Turkey, then it was also bad doing the same behavior a thousand years ago.
        
        The Persian language has been affected by other civilizations due to force. When the Persians were overrun over a dozen times by various Arab and Turkic dynasties, it ultimately affected the structure of the Persian language. That’s why the Persian language isn’t similar to Pashto. It’s impure because of force. Thank goodness it wasn’t completely Arabized or Turkicized, which I imagine it would have been, if it wasn’t for the demise of the Turkic powers in the latter half of the 19th century. Otherwise we would have another language disappearing from thin air.
        I believe it’s well-known that the old Persian language was extremely pure and hardly influenced by any foreign language. And history also shows that the Persians barely imposed their will on nations that they conquered. Case in point, as soon as the First Persian Empire fragmented, the only Persian-speaking place was Persia proper and a few bits here and there in the Iranian plateau. The other vast amounts of lands that were once part of the Persian realm, e.g. Mesopotamia, Levant, Anatolia, etc, continued just as they were, as though no Persian rule ever existed.
        
        I apologize for the wrong thing I said about Nigeria. I was trying to make a point, so I used Nigeria as an example. Clearly it wasn’t an appropriate example, nevertheless I hope the point was made.
        
        Again, I apologize if I offended you in any way Ms. Pereltsvaig. I admire your work and I actually hope more people in this part of the world read these kind of things. Perhaps then they’ll liberate themselves from false beliefs. Especially Azerbaijanis and Armenians. If they can read this article, they’ll probably look at each other differently. Well, at least, I hope…
        
        – Uthman
MonikaLut

Your comments about the Ossetians being “recent” transplants to the region is incorrect.
- http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
  
  Perhaps I didn’t phrase this precisely enough, but Ossetians are *relatively* recent transplants. Not of course, if one compares them to Estonians or Moldavians or other even more recent transplants to the region. If you don’t agree with that statement, please provide supporting evidence.
  - Mushi
    
    And you base this on what? Supposed modern theories that they are of Iranic descent? Other propaganda? I am very disappointed in you!
    - http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
      
      Yes, I am a scientist and I base myself of modern scientific theories that have independent, evidentiary support, be it molecules in the people’s bodies or grammatical features in their language, not personal opinions of anyone, however great their authority might be. If you consider science to be propaganda or if you are disappointed in me for being a scientist, that says something about you, doesn’t it?
- Harale
  
  Ossets-Ossetians=Sarmatians/SCYTHIANS migrated to north caucasus then became known with the name Alans speak an iranic languege! NOT CAUCASIANS
  - Mushi
    
    This is a ridiculous comment and obviously stemming from ignorance. They are natives, unlike trans-Caucasians, aka Azeris, Armenians, Georgians (all of mixed Semitic, Persian, & Turkic descent). Please do not lie to suit your theories.
    - http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
      
      Please consider your language when participating in discussions on our site. I’ll refer you to our comments policy:
      http://geocurrents.info/about
      
      As for your claim about Trans-Caucasians, yes Azeris are Turkic-speaking, although genetically they have more affinity with other peoples of the Caucasus than with other Turkic-speaking groups (who actually vary quite a bit among themselves when it comes to DNA). However, there’s no evidence that Armenians or Georgians are Semitic, Persian or Turkic in origin, again, genetically or linguistically. In fact, Semitic is a linguistic but not a genetic designation, as is Turkic, as you probably know.
John little

I find it odd how you classified the Georgian languages. Kartvelian and Mingrelian are not related, and the ancestors of modern day Georgians are not from the Caucasus. Just thought you should know.
- http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
  
  If you have evidence to support your claims, please provide it.
  - Harale
    
    friend do you have brainproblem or something the things i write can be found in your google why saying that redicules phrase <> this is not so hard to find out y can do it yourself, i will not try to prove something that is already proven! i protect history and culture of my country and some of the sources i have might be unreachebly for you.
- Harale
  
  Kartvelian family=mingrelian-svan-laz-georgian there more but i dont remember. remember the ones that split georgians from megrelians are useally russians and russian propaganda to separate caucasian nations especialy republic of Georgia. Kartvelians are people of south caucasus like it or not its true the north Vainaks south Kartvelians both came to Caucasus 10.000BC from the crandle of civilizations many claim that they came from the garden of eden which in some theories was located near the persian gulf.Not even saying about the connections of ancient kartvelians with the first mediterranean civilizations.
Dcschwartz

I love your blog and I know that this is only a tangent, but I take issue with this statement:

“*As we can see, most ethnic groups listed in the census data are
associated with a particular language. However, censuses in this region
still list Jews as an ethnic (rather than religious) group, following
the common practice during the Soviet times.”

I was shocked that you would discount Jews as an ethnicity when the above post proves that identity and ethnicity are not necessarily based upon language, genetics, or a firm homeland.

I am not arguing that Jews are genetically “pure” ancient Israelites. There have been studies showing that modern Jews possess ancient Israelite genetics “plus” the genetics of converts (this includes the relatively low rate of intermarriage prior to the 20th century as well as mass converts such as Yemeni and Ethiopian Jews). There are also studies and books trying to prove the theory that Jews are nothing more than Khazar-converts and thus do not deserve a homeland of their own. The basis of “ethnicity” has nothing to do with genetics or language.

Jews used to have their own language and without their common religion, would likely have not survived as a “people.” But, they did! The fact that converts are allowed does not discount their claim to ethnic differentiation – this blog post proves that adopting a new language, religion, or culture causes one to acculturate and in effect, to adopt a new ethnicity.

I believe the correct terminology for Jews is that of “ethnoreligous group” – and yes it is true that Jews are not listed as an ethnic group in Western censuses – but that does not make it correct. Censuses in the USA use race as a classification system, so how correct can it be?
- Dcschwartz
  
  And upon a 3rd reading, I see that you didn’t at all endorse the idea that Jews are not an ethnic group. My mistake! I misread the passage. Maybe a future blog post?
  - http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
    
    Thank you for your kind words about the blog!
    
    I was just going to reply that I didn’t mean to make a definitive statement as to whether Jews are an ethnic or a religious group — it’s too thorny an issue to be decided in a passing statement like this, and neither definition works perfectly well for all groups. All I was saying is that unlike most other ethnic groups in the
    Caucasus, which are co-extensive with linguistic groups, Jews do not
    have their own language that differentiates them from others.
    
    I’ve written a bit more on different Jewish groups, like Ethiopian and Yemeni Jews, in my other blog: http://languagesoftheworld.info (just search for “Jews” there).
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Sarkis Lazar

Very
interesting and thought provoking article, thank you. Nevertheless in my
opinion it generates some confusion and I hope you don’t mind me expressing my
view. For instance I’d like to address the Armenian language. I’m also familiar
with Nasidze et. all. and I was not convinced by the suggestion of Armenian language
replacement. First of , in order to even suggest this as a possibility, one has
to prove that the IE originated somewhere removed from Armenian Highlands, which
to my knowledge has not been proven and in fact Indo-European speakers like the
Hittite and Hayasa have been known to have populated the area from the times immemorial.
Most of the theories concerning the IE urheimat have suggested areas in or
around the Armenian Highlands. I don’t see why one should result to “language
replacement” theories when IE has a strong and historic connection to the
Armenian Highlands. You assert correctly that the origins of the Armenian
language are obscure, but this is the more reason not to make bold assumptions
on the origin of the people and its language. The Armenian genetic resemblance
to their immediate neighbors only attests to Armenian indigenousness. As to the
language it has no equals outside of Armenian Highlands (as you again
rightfully noted) and there are no records of invading Armenians. Today increasingly
so genetic evidence supports this notion. For example (Rootsi et al., 2012) have recently showed
that haplogroup G (the indigenous Caucasian haplogroup) previously believed to
have originated among Georgians or Northern Caucasians, has now been shown to
have originated among the Armenians, as the largest diversity of haplogroup-G
is displayed among Armenians and some surrounding populations. Such evidence
should not be omitted for the convenience of politically motivated narratives
among some biased scholars out there. While there are no historic records of
migrating Armenians we do however have substantial knowledge of Tatar migration,
occupation and subjugation of indigenous Caucasian populations. The country of
Azerbaijan has been previously populated by Christian people known as Caucasian
Albanians. Their culture, language and religion now replaced with that of the Tatar-Turks.
From empirical standpoint we simply cannot equate the emergence of Armenians
with the emergence of Azeris.

Furthermore
the article reads that 120,000 Armenians still live in Azerbaijan. I assume it
concerns the breakaway republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), which is only
able to preserve the Armenian population by engaging in active military
self-defense. No Armenian if any left inside of modern Azerbaijan would dare to
speak about his/her ethnicity. When Azeri police interrogates even those who voted
for Armenian candidates in Eurovision what hope is left? Furthermore the
article reads: “but Azeris have been driven out of Armenia ….” I want to point
out that while during hostilities between Azrbaijan and Armenia the hostile
climate has certainly contributed to migration of Azeris away from Armenia,
there have not been a single pogrom or massacre within the Armenian borders.
The same courtesy has not been followed by the Azeris, as we know Armenians
were literally driven out of Azerbaijan by a series of pogroms and massacres.
To name a few: Kirovabad Pogrom, Marakhar massacre, Baku pogrom, Sumgait pogrom, etc… etc…
Furthermore the homogeneity of the population of Armenia is perfectly well
explained by the decreasing quantity and the economic and political hardship
Armenians have endured for the past 20 years. When increasing number of
Armenians leave their homeland what can be expected from other ethnics inside
of Armenia? No one is driving them out, yet the fact of reality is very few
wish to live inside a country in trouble. Besides the Armenian population according
to census already approached 90% with Azeris around 5% during the Soviet times.
I think some nuances in the phrasing
would have been appropriate, and again equating Armenians with Azeris is
misplaced even when it comes to the outflow of both groups from their previous
residence. But as you have noted
correctly the area is extremely complicated, from history to politics, from the
old days to the present, it’s a fascinating mix of flavors cramped together
between the crossroads of civilizations. I myself was born and raised in the
area (Abkhazia) and have been fortunate enough to have experienced the beauty
of the region. Thanks for reminding me and again I hope you don’t mind my review
of these few issues. Take care!
- http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
  
  Thank you for your detailed comment, Sarkis! It’s always great to hear from someone from the area that we write about. You made some excellent points here although I have to disagree on a number of things. First, whether or not IE originated in Armenian Highlands (still an open issue, yes, although the consensus appears to be that not) Armenians are expected to be genetically closer to their linguistic relatives than to their neighbors, everything else being equal. This is decidedly not the case though, hence “language replacement” theory.
  
  The figure of 120,000 Armenians still living in Azerbaijan is according to the 2009 census for the de jure territory of Azerbaijan: http://www.ethno-kavkaz.narod.ru/rnazerbaijan.html
  
  You are correct that Armenia became fairly homogeinized already in the Soviet times and that the outflow of people of various ethnic groups from Armenia, including Armenians is due to the difficult economic situation there.
  - Sarkis Lazar
    
    Thank you
    for the reply,
    
    Yes the IE
    urheimat is uncertain, yet there are quite a few academics placing it inside
    the AH. To name a few Atkinson, Gray, Ivanov, Gamkrelidze etc… propose some very convincing evidence.
    But even so the most accepted theory places the IE urheimat just above the
    Caucasus range which is not such a far stretch from the Armenian Highlands
    (just across the Black Sea). And since urheimat theories only suggest a “general”
    area and not specific locations, I think it is safe to say that IE is not
    foreign to the Caucasian/Anatolian region. Especially when ancient tribes and
    even empires such as the Hittites, Hayasa or the Luvians are known to have
    spoken IE related languages. But my main concern is that people are often quick
    to make assumptions regarding the Armenian migration, when in fact the origins
    of their language and nation remain undiscovered to date. And most importantly
    the formation of the Armenian nation (by a union of different proto-Armenian
    tribes) occurred only on AH, not anywhere else. Thus we can safely say that
    Armenians as a unitary entity emerged only on East Anatolia/Caucasus. Therefore
    I think it is inaccurate to speak of Armenian migration.
    
    About
    language replacement. I highly object the IF-THEN assumption, because it leaves
    too many extraneous factors. For example the only way this would apply is if it’s
    assumed that language replacement occurred to the Armenians as opposed to their
    linguistic relatives. But there is no evidence to suggest this, and one might
    just as easily argue that the language replacement occurred not with the Armenians
    but rather with the Europeans. It’s not
    uncommon for a language of a minority to spread around. For example the Spanish
    are not closely related to Mexicans, and many other South American peoples, yet
    they are also genetically closer to their neighbors as opposed to South Americans.
    And we all know who replaced who’s language. All I’m saying is, it’s not clear
    in what direction language replacement occurred therefore we cannot assume if
    Armenians are closer to their immediate neighbors therefore the Armenians must
    have undergone a language replacement. And keep in mind that Armenian neighbors,
    the Persians, are also IE speakers. And according to the same logic (since the
    IE urheimat is not placed in Iran) and Iranians are genetically closer to their
    neighbors than linguistic relatives in Europe, they must have undergone a language
    replacement as well, now haven’t they? Or does the “language replacement”
    theory conveniently only apply to the Armenians? My point is IE is not so
    foreign to the region, why so eager to dislocate the Armenian language from the
    area, when nothing is solid (yet), and so much contrary evidence also exists. For
    example the mere fact that no record of Armenian outside of AH is to be found. Either
    way I think it is safe to say that equating Armenian linguistic history (like Nasidze
    et. all. are eager to do) with that of the Azeri newcomers is simply inaccurate.
    And I think it is very interesting that the Armenian language is an Isolate
    within IE. I would like to see more research give this subject attention
    instead of clustering Armenian into IE in order to make unsubstantiated claims
    of migration. Why is it an isolate, when
    did it separate from the mother tongue, where did this separation happen? All
    very interesting questions, that could shed much needed light on the matter.
    
    And finally
    about the 120.000 Armenians still in Azerbaijan, the statement confirms my
    suspicion. Because Artsakh (Nagorni-Karabakh) is not recognized by Azerbaijan
    or any other country as a sovereign nation, the census considers Armenians from
    Karabagkh to be part of de jure Azerbaijan. In fact this roughly corresponds to
    the Karabakgh population as it is around 120.000 or 130.000. It’s significantly
    difference having 120.000 Armenians in Azeri controlled area walking around
    freely than 120.000 Armenians of Karabakh living in fear day in day out, forced
    to defend themselves with military means. The first scenario creates the
    illusion of Azeri tolerance, the second the grave reality of today.
    - Sarkis Lazar
      
      Hmm it seems my comment has changed form for some reason. Apologies for the inconvenience.
    - Sarkis Lazar
      
      To answer my own question about the split of Armenian language. I’ve read an interesting article placing the split of Armenian language from other IE members at around 7.500 years ago. Since then it has remained a language isolate which is another indication of language retention as opposed to replacement. Here is a chart from that article http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UK6uv6RZBlw/TZr4U1kHkKI/AAAAAAAADbY/jvqITDejMG0/s1600/nature.jpg Moreover with the development of new techniques within the research field of linguistics it appears that AH/Anatolian theory of IE urheimat is receiving more traction among modern scholars. Here is an interesting article explaining that AH/Anatolian hypothesis is still the best theory of IE origins. http://dienekes.blogspot.nl/2011/04/indo-european-origins-neolithic.html
      - http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
        
        The chart you linked to looks interesting, thanks for the link. However, it seems to put all the splits too early, compared to dates usually accepted by historical linguists. More evidence would need to be shown to support it.
        
        The last link above seems to be broken.
      - Sarkis Lazar
        
        this is the full link
        http://dienekes.blogspot.nl/2011/04/indo-european-origins-neolithic.html
      - http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
        
        Still doesn’t work. Says the page doesn’t exist.
      - Ani
        
        Dienekes link works perfectly well for me.
    - http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
      
      When it comes to the Armenian urheimat theory, it may have convinced some scholars but it is certainly not the consensus today. Ivanov and Gamkrelidze were behind the hypothesis in the first place, and Atkinson… do you mean this Atkinson:
      
      http://languagesoftheworld.info/historical-linguistics/atkinsons-theory-of-language-origins.html
      
      I’ve posted several rebuttals to his claims in my Languages of the World blog, as you can see from the link above, as well as published a formal critique with co-author Rory van Tuyl in Science.
      
      But more importantly, regardless of where IE originated, one has to explain why the genetic “relatives” of Armenians (including not only Azeris, but also Georgians, etc.) do not speak a related language. That’s what the replacement theory is for.
      
      When it comes to Iranians, I am glad you brought up this example. As discussed in detail in a recent book by John McWhorter’s “What language is?”, Persian has underwent significant linguistic changes that indicate massive (though not complete) language replacement. Iranian empire in its various historical permutations expanded at the expense of various (not necessarily genetically related) peoples, and the Persian language has been imposed on them. So unsurprisingly Persians/Iranians as a whole show a lot of non-IE DNA.
      - Sarkis Lazar
        
        Yes I was referring to Quentin Atkinson. The location of IE urheimat is important because it might very well be indigenous to the region and its people including Armenians. It certainly was for the Hittite, Hayasa etc… (on a side note, maybe a coincidence but curiously the native designation of Armenia is Hayastan and the name of the people Hay). The region is a mix of languages as you described, it’s not improbable at all that the region could have produced separate language families. Why Turks and Azeris speak a non-IE is pretty clear I suppose. Although Anatolian Turks prior to Seljuk invasion did speak many forms of IE to whom Armenians also display genetic kinship. The Armenian urheimat hypothesis might not be convincing to some, but as I understand the Anatolian hypothesis is still regarded as one of the major possibilities, as demonstrate by the link above. If it doesn’t work then just search for “Indo-European origins: Neolithic Anatolia still the best hypothesis” on Dienekes’s blog : Dienekes.blogspot.nl As we know historic Armenia (Armenian Highlands) stretched well into what is now called East Anatolia. All I’m saying is IE is not foreign to the region and therefore proto-Armenian tribes might’ve actually been among those very early IE speakers. Why Georgians and some other North-Caucasian people don’t speak IE while Armenians do is a matter of debate. Logic tells us at least 3 possibilities. 1) The region produced separate language families, even distantly related people have developed separate languages. 2) Georgians and North-Caucasians have undergone a language replacement. 3) Armenians have undergone a language replacement. What is the reason for considering only the 3rd possibility? If IE urheimat is as regarded by the majority located slightly above the Caucasus range spreading almost to all corners of the world, one might ask why it did not spread to the neighboring Georgians and North-Caucasians, when it transcended even into Anatolia, Europe, parts of the Caucasus, Mid-East and as far as India. Did they really reside so close to IE urheimat? As some already argue North-Caucasian might be related to Hurro-Urartian. Isn’t it possible and maybe even probable, they experienced a language replacement under the influence of the Hurrians and/or Urartians? Even medieval Georgian chronicles “The Conversion of Kartli”speak of a country called “Aryan Kartli” the place where Georgians are supposed to have migrated from. But even with all these diverging possibilities there are many nuances and even more diverging possibilities. Armenian language as an isolate in IE proves to have survived quite a long time within a single group, the Armenians. No other people speak it and no other branch emerged from it, which also attests to the bond of these people with the language. While IE might be the mother tongue, the Armenian branch is only spoken by Armenians. Moreover the fact that Kartvelian languages are separate from North-Caucasian emphasizes the ability of the region to hold and maybe even produce separate language families in close geographic approximation. Genetic kinship does not necessarily imply linguistic kinship and language replacement is not the only outcome. Especially not when the direction of replacement is a guess.
        
        Sure eventually all humans have undergone at least one or more probably many language replacements, as I assume Homo Sapiens did not spring forth with all these languages in place. The question remains when and where. I don’t see convincing evidence for Armenian language replacement. On the contrary there is evidence of IE speaking kin in the region (from ancient to the present), there is evidence of different language families spoken in geographical proximity. There is no historic record of even legendary accounts of Armenian language replacement, and the long-lasting exclusive isolation of the language displays a strong connection to Armenians. The idea of : genetic kin must speak similar language and if they don’t, it must mean ONE particular group (the Armenians) have experienced a language replacement, seems too arbitrary and far-fetched. Especially when in order to apply this to Armenians one has to neglect the fact that Armenians are not exactly Georgian and North-Caucasian kin, even if they are even further removed from most (not all) Europeans. Similarly Armenians are not exactly linguistic kin of other IE speakers. The fact of the matter is, Armenians are not at all removed from Armenian speakers, thus the date of separation from IE becomes equally important.
        
        As to Persians it’s an interesting notion. I too have suspected as such. If we look at nation formation in its historic context we almost always see the expansion of a nation often coinciding with assimilation of different ethnic populations. Most large nations emerged through similar assimilation.
      - http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
        
        Thank you for continuing the conversation!
        
        Quentin Atkinson’s understanding of historical linguistics, from what I’ve seen, is quite laughable, so I wouldn’t take his ideas too seriously.
        
        More importantly, on the language replacement issue: there are only two possible theories that account for the known facts about linguistic and genetic affinity of various groups: (1) Armenians speak an IE language due to language replacement, OR (2) Armenians have always spoke some form of Armenian, but their genetic “relatives”, other Caucasian groups, have switched to other, typologically very different languages, which simply fell to their lap from heavens, because they are not spoken anywhere else, AND many other IE-speaking groups too replaced their language to speak IE, which they got from Armenians who they are not even close to geographically. To me, the latter scenario, which you seem to defend for purely ideological reasons, seems rather ridiculous, because it’s a much more complicated scenario, with many unlikely events. As scientists, we look for the simplest theory that accounts for the most facts. The theory I outlined above as (1) is such a theory, in my humble opinion. Linguistic evidence, including both specific linguistic features of Armenian, and the fact that it is an isolate, suggests that Armenian is at the far end of the IE spread, namely that IE languages spread from some steppe location well north of the Caucasus both west (centum-languages) and east (satem-languages). The eastward migration of IE went around the east side of the Caspian, through Iran and from there to Anatolia and Armenia.
        
        Furthermore, an isolate status of the language does not suggest that the same group have spoken it throughout time. For example, Albanian is an IE isolate, but genetically Albanians are a mix of ethnic groups indigenous to the Balkans with Slavs, Phoenicians and even Vikings. Similarly, Armenians are likely a mix of IE-speakers with various groups indigenous to the Caucasus.
      - JJ
        
        Sorry, you make your conclusions considering only nowadays situation and absolutely ignoring the history of the region. It’s just a millenium that turk invaders cut Armenians from their IE speaking neighbors, Greeks. So, all this belt was connected – Persia, Armenia, Byzantium and so on to the Europe, – all speaking IE languages.
        What if you were writing such a work in those days? How would your “language replacement” theory work then?
      - http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
        
        In response to a comment by JJ:
        
        My language replacement theory takes into account the facts that you pointed out (the recent Turkic migration)—and more. Greek, together with Albanian and Armenian, are isolates with fairly unique typological properties and therefore likely developed at the far ends of the IE continuum. Although geographically they look close, linguistically Greek is probably an offshoot of western IE branch (centum languages), while Armenian and Albanian are of the eastern IE, or satem, branch. The two meet in the Balkans but come from different migrations. Greek is also unique in that it has interacted a lot more with other IE languages than did Albanian or Armenian, due to historical facts that had nothing to do with language (but everything to do with the history of Rome).
        
        The map below may help elucidate what I am talking about.
      - Sarkis Lazar
        
        I find the possible theories you present suggestive and incomplete. It’s not just either Armenians underwent a language replacement, or the others. It’s also possible both underwent replacement, or neither. Isn’t it possible they adopted a (now) dead language? The region is known for it. I’m not claiming it is, I’m simply pointing out another possibility. “…fell to their lap from heavens?” As I’ve already mentioned North-Caucasian is linked to Hurro-Urartian. Unless those were the kingdoms of heaven, I don’t think anything fell from anywhere. The only thing that seems to have fallen out of thin air is an isolated form of IE not spoken anywhere else, by anyone else upon a group of Armenians who “must” have spoken a prior language unrelated to their ancient IE speaking kin that historically have surrounded their nation.
        
        Another thing to keep in mind. Replacement always implies a change of language. In this case it is must be assumed that a nation is already formed, speaking a particular language and is later replaced by a different one. If a nation is not yet formed and language not yet adopted then by definition we cannot speak of replacement, but rather language formation.
        
        But ok, I’ve expressed my objection and shared my thoughts. Otherwise I’m going to fall in repetition. My motives have nothing to do with issues I raise. I’m not keen on discounting possibilities just because they seem ”complicated” to some. In any case I wish to thank you for you continuous conversation and apologies for any inconvenience. I guess receiving critiques is a part of the deal as you undoubtedly are aware of
      - http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
        
        In response to Sarkis:
        
        No problem expressing one’s opinion or theories. In this case, however, I am not sure that you have a theory or why it is preferrable to mine. You simply say “this is possible and that is possible”. Well, almost anything is possible, but as scientists we look for what’s probable or plausible, not just possible. We examine the facts and try to account for them with minimum stipulations and maximum explanatory force. I have laid out my arguments and the facts that support them. I also laid out why my theory (well, not mine really, but the one I defend) meets explanatory standards. You seem to prefer discussing what might have happened but for which we have no factual support. That’s fiction, not science.
        
        Also, for reasons that I don’t understand, you seem to find the language replacement theory offensive for Armenians — I have no idea why?! Most groups have undergone various language shifts and replacements. There is nothing pro- or anti-Armenian in saying that Armenians today speak a language different in nature from (and not just an evolutionary descendant of) the language of their ancestors.
        
        Also, I would be careful about the word “nation”. This concept is relatively recent. But even prior to being a nation, each ethnic group or tribe spoke some language or another. For example, the Gauls underwent a language replacement long before the French nation was formed.
      - Sarkis Lazar
        
        Well the theories I’ve mentioned from other colleagues you have discounted as laughable. Since you choose to hold on to a dogmatic view of Armenian language history I have tried to at least point out some possible extraneous factors which highly complicate the belief in this language replacement. I am not claiming anything and therefore I am not in the business of selling fiction. On the contrary I like to challenge a theory when it approaches fiction. In science we have to eliminate possibilities in order to have a meaningful probability. You can’t just ignore other possibilities and choose to cling to one best fitting your narrative. What factual support is there regarding the origins of the Armenian language? The if-then assumption you advocate here is hardly solid.
        As to the word nation. That is why I mentioned it. Because when you speak of the Armenians (who have experience language replacement) you seem to imply a formed nation. I suppose it is possible some proto-Armenian tribes to have spoken different languages, with eventually (an IE related) one rising to prominence during this formation. But a ready to go Armenian nation that has spoken a different language and later experienced a replacement seems highly unlikely to me. And even this is speculation based on a few bits of information. I believe such processes are much more complicated and I advocate caution, that’s all. How can we even speak of Armenian language replacement when we don’t even know when and how the Armenians formed? the ease with which this assumption is adopted is what is bothering me. I have never said anything about any of it being offensive to Armenians. I’m more concerned with not offending you with my critique. As a social scientist I’m well aware of the possible aggravation it could produce. However, I’ve yet to learn to overcome the urge to reply :p
      - http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
        
        In reply to Sarkis:
        
        I didn’t “discount” Atkinson “as laughable”, I’ve shown his so-called work to be so, as have others. There are at least three other replies to Atkinson’s paper in Science, and several others elsewhere, all showing fatal flaws in his work. I will not rehash the arguments here.
        
        Also, I do not “just ignore other possibilities”: I’ve laid out clear arguments to show why such possibilities are not likely/plausible. You have not shown any of the facts I had referred to to be wrong/mistaken. So which one of us is “clinging to one [possibility] best fitting [one's] narrative”? We at GeoCurrents have no narrative to fit, as we try to stay firmly based on facts.
        
        As for your assertion that I “seem to imply a formed nation”, I’m afraid you have read something into my words. Until you brought it up, I didn’t speak of “nations”. I am not even sure I would consider Armenians a nation today (let alone in the past), at least in the sense that I put into this word. Even if we assume that they are, the language replacement must have taken place centuries if not millenia before ANY nations started appearing on historical stage. I would consider Armenians an ethnic group, but its formation (as above the tribal level) is likely to have happened after language replacement too.
        
        “How can we even speak of Armenian language replacement when we don’t even know when and how the Armenians formed?” What I don’t see is what the formation of the Armenians (as an ethnic group) has to do with what language they spoke. Ethnic formation can proceed without a language replacement and vice versa. E.g. the French “formed” as such some 1000+ after undergoing language replacement of their own (from Celtic to Romance). The German “nation” was formed out of groups that spoke continuously the same (evolving) language, without language replacement, for over 2000 years! The Italians have been speaking (a version of) Latin since the days of Rome, but the Italian nation dates only from the 1860s. Why can’t the same scenario apply to Armenians?
- Teymur
  
  Mr. Lazar,
  
  You could be a little bit more honest about forceful expulsion of Azeris from Armenia in 1988 (many have died), before any Armenian left Azerbaijan and also about the wholesale ethnic cleansing of Azeris in Karabakh. In that war neither Azeri or Armenians were all that innocent, but whitewashing Armenian actions is beyond pale. Peace.
  - Ani
    
    Teymur,
    The only truth is no Azeri was killed in Armenia or Artsakh while Armenians experienced pogroms, massacres in Azerbaijan.
  - Aram
    
    Hey, Teymur, WTF you are talking about. ”forceful expulsion of Azeris from Armenia in 1988”, this is a bullshit, why don’t you speak about Sumgayit, Baku, where you killed many innocent Armenians before Artsakh war. And the name of our country is not Karabakh, it’s called Artsakh, and it has never been Azeri territory!!!!
Ani

Language theory is debunked by both historical and genetic facts.
Ancient Armenian Kingdoms of Armani and Hayasa (self designation names) are described in Sumerian,Akkadian and Hittie inscriptions.

A)

Some of very many proofs:

The Kingdom of Akkad

(2234-2154 BC)Naram-Sin recorded the Akkadian’s wars against the Armani or Armeni people
in Ararat. The Armeni is a reference to Armen who was the ruler of the
Armenian tribe (Armen’s followers, the Armenians [Uraštu in Akkadian
language], were referred to as Armeni or Armens at the time). It is also
unknown if Sargon, grandfather of Naram-Sin, and Manishtushu, father of
Naram-Sin, also fought against the Armeni people of Ararat during their
rule of the Akkadian Empire. It is highly probable however considering
that Naram-Sin recorded multiple wars with the Armeni people of Ararat.

It is still unknown at this time if the wars with the Armeni people of
Ararat contributed to the collapse of the Akkadian kingdom. However, the
Akkadian Empire was already starting to crumble during Shar-kali-sharri’s
reign, the son of Naram-Sin, and by the end of Shar-kali-sharri’s reign,
the Akkadian Empire collapsed outright from the invasion of barbarians of
the Zagros known as “Gutians”.http://www.swartzentrover.com/cotor/bible/timelines/Babylon/Akkad/Akkad.htm…..

E. Forrer, Hajasa-Azzi, “Caucasica”, 1931, p. 9: P. Krechmer, Der nationate name der Armenier Haikh, 1932, N 1-7
With the discovery of Hittite monuments
mentioning the country of Hayasa, Krechmer, and after him hundreds of
noted and not so researchers considered the obvious connection – hay,
Hayq and Hayasa…..^ Anne Elizabeth Redgate, The Armenians, Wiley-Blackwell, 2000 ISBN
9780631220374, p. 24. The name Hayk’ is from the earliest record
identified with Armenians from Sumerian inscriptions around 2700 BC, in
which the Armenians are referred to as the sons of Haya, after the
regional god of the Armenian Highlands.Genetic studies has conirmed it….B)According to various genetic researches Armenians originate from Armenian Hihgland…
1)
ALU INSERTION POLYMORPHISMS IN POPULATIONS
OF THE SOUTH CAUCASUS
“Armenians are a separate ethnic group,
which originated from Neolithic tribes of the Armenian Uplands”
Litvinov S*, Kutuev I, Yunusbayev B, Khusainova R, Valiev R,
Khusnutdinova E
2)
University of Tartu
Faculty of biology and geography
Institute of molecular and cell biology
Department of evolutionary biology
Urmas Roostalu
M Sc. Rva-Liis Loogvali
Prof Dr. Richard Villems
Tartu 2004
“In our study the ancestry of the Armenians was traced back to
different parts of Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey, illustrating
the fact that historic Armenia was a much larger territory than that of
the present Republic of Armenia”.
3)
–Banoei, Chaleshtori, Sanati, Shariati, Houshmand,Majidizadeh, Soltani &
Golalipour (2007) Variation of DAT1 VNTR Alleles and Genotypes Among Old
Ethnic Groups in Mesopotamia to the Oxus Region.
“The Armenians are a nation and an ethnic group originating from the Caucasus
and eastern Anatolia, where a large concentration of this community has
remained, especially in Armenia.”

I hope scientific proof will put to an end an assumptions of language change.
- http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
  
  1) Language replacement is a theory, a hypothesis, not an assumption. Difference: one proves a theory (as I tried to do here), but one doesn’t prove an assumption.
  
  2) So yes, Armenians are genetically close to their neighbors. I said so in the original post. It’s one of the facts that supports rather than disproves the language replacement theory. If you think otherwise, please provide arguments to support your view rather than facts we agree on to begin with.
  - Ani
    
    Thanks for the reply. First I will mention which territory of historical Armenia we are talking.
    
    Armenian Highland, Russian Armyanskoye Nagorye, also spelled Arm’anskoje Nagor’e,
    
    mountainous region of Transcaucasia. It lies mainly in Turkey,
    occupies all of Armenia, and includes southern Georgia, western
    Azerbaijan, and northwestern Iran.
    
    http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/35301/Armenian-Highland
    
    1)
    
    If Armenians genetically are proven to originate only from Armenian Highlands who then brought Armenian language to them?
    
    2)
    If Armenian language (Hayeren lezu in Armenian) replaced some previous language spoken there how come Sumerian,Akkadian,Hittite sources talk about Armani/Hayasa Kingdoms, peoples, and Gods of Armenian Hihgland?
    - http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
      
      1) Two possibilities here: either their neighbors (most of the region was once IE-speaking, as some readers here correctly pointed out) or a small group of invaders who became “dissolved” in the gene pool. The second situation is exemplified by Hungarians, who speak a Uralic language brought there by a small group of Magyars, but whose genes are not Uralic because the Magyars were too few superimpose their genes on the population’s pool:
      
      http://languagesoftheworld.info/language-families/on-magyar-migration.html
      
      2) None of those Sumerian,Akkadian,Hittite sources left us a grammatical description or dictionary of the language spoken by the Armani/Hayasa people, have they? Again, two possibilities here: first (and to me the likelier one) is that the replacement in question happened prior to these sources. Alternatively it is possible that the label for the people was preserved even though the actual language was replaced. Just as genes and languages of a group don’t always match (see #1 above), labels and languages/peoples don’t always match either. A good example is the French. The label comes from the Franks even though their influence on either the genes of the French or the actual language they speak was minimal, though some influence was there:
      
      http://geocurrents.info/geonotes/new-city-with-mini-quiz
      - Ani
        
        ”or a small group of invaders who became “dissolved” in the gene pool”.
        
        History of Armenian Hihgland/Anatolia is very well documented and there is no historical evidence of any invasion of any tribe. There is also no evidence of any proto Armenian speaking tribe in Europe. The theory of “invasion” of Mushki was invented to suit explanation of IE origin of Armenian language.
        
        But instead there is lots evidence of Armenians always speaking Armenian.
        
        For example:
        
        Quotes:
        
        The Armenian hypothesis of Indo-European origins connects the name with
        the Ar- Armenian root meaning light, sun, fire found in Arev (Sun), Arpi
        (Light of heaven), Ararich (God or Creator), Ararat (place of Arar),
        Aryan, Arta etc.
        
        The name (Armenia) is connected to the
        Indo-European root Ar- meaning “assemble/create” which is vastly used in
        names of or regarding the Sun, light, or fire, found in Ararat, Aryan,
        Arta etc.
        
        # ^ T. V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov, The Early
        History of Indo-European (aka Aryan) Languages, Scientific American,
        March 1990;[page needed] James P. Mallory, “Kuro-Araxes Culture”,
        Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997
        
        …
        
        It is important to understand crucial role of AR in Armenian language up to now. All Armenian language is literally full of most important words with root AR, menaing light, sun, most Armenians toponims and names are with AR…but to try to convey the importance of AR to non Armenian speakers I will mention 4 vital fofr us things:
        
        1) We swear/ give oath by AR/sun/light unlike all other nations.
        In English “I swear” (for example)
        in Armenian ” Papais ARev ( I swear with the Sun/AR of my father”…or I swear with the Sun/light/AR of my kid.
        
        The meaning of this aoth is if I lie or betray it the person I love the most will die thus this is ultimate oath and nobody can lie or deny. That is the ultimate meaning of AR…
        
        2) You probably heard Armenians call each other “ara”. The importance of God AR/ARA was so much that eventually it transeferred into meaning “person,warrior,high priest” and now is used as a “person”…
        
        3) We congratulate each other with AR/Sun/light
        
        In English “Congratulations”
        in Armenian ” Achkt luis/Sun/light to your eyes”.Interestingly enough it is used when a person tries to show how happy he is for another person, how much he wants to congratulate instead of oficial and non emotional “shnorhavorum em/congratulations”…
        
        4) The name Ararat in Armenian language comes from “ararel” (ultimately from AR) which means ” to create”.
        Ararich (Ar-AR-ich) in Armenian means “Creator”, Ararat- place o creation.
        
        All these can’t appear in the language later on, this is the very root of the language.
        
        “The first god in Armenia was one of the language’s first sounds, ‘AR’,
        which means sun or light. As the source of life, the sun became equated
        with power and the supreme god”.
      - Ani
        
        The meaning of this aoth is if I lie or betray it the person I love the
        most will die thus this is ultimate oath and nobody can lie or deny.
        That is the ultimate meaning of AR…I wil ltry to explain this in a betterway : we swear/give oath with Sun/Ar, if we lie or betray a person with whose Sun we gave oath with die…i.e will not see Sun…Sun/Arev/Ar…To make sure a person doesn’t lie we demand giving oath not by himself but by most loved people:kids and parents which in its turn is said to be against Bible but since it comes long before the Bible it is part of our language and tradition.Some devout Christians refuse to swear by Sun God.
      - Ani
        
        Ms,Pereltsvaig
        
        “how can there be any historical documents from a period when writing was yet non-existent?!”
        
        Via various Sumerian,Akkadian,Hittie inscriptions decipheredd by scholars.
        For example, evidence about existance of Hayasa, its wars,etc come from :
        
        Hittite inscriptions deciphered in the 1920s by the Swiss scholar Emil
        Forrer,Hugo Winckler (German archaeologist and historian) and Bedřich
        Hrozný(Czech orientalist and linguist) testify to the existence of a
        mountain country, the HAYasa, lying around the Lake of Van/Armenian
        Highland.
        
        If you are interested details on it:(although for some rwason blog changes format and many sentences appear as one, appologies)
        
        …
        
        The suffix sa of Hayasa corresponds to the stan, derivative of
        Hayasatan (Armenia). Greeks knew about this country (Hayasa) and their
        writers wrote about Armenians or hayers.
        …
        The Armenian people derive their self-designative name “Hay” from the
        Deity – HAY(A), whom they regarded as “the Creator of the Cosmos.”
        According to several scholars the name HAY(A) comes from the primordial
        root name AY or AYA which goes back all the way to the Neolithic Era
        and the early veneration of the cult of the Mother Goddess that also
        gave her name to later (masculine) God HAY(A).
        The God HAYA-EA was also venerated throughout Mesopotamia. The earliest
        surviving inscriptions that mention HAY(A) – the “God of Wisdom” and
        the “God of Cosmic Waters” are found in the Sumerian inscriptions dated
        to ca. 2,800 BCE.
        The God EA-HAYA was also later venerated by the Akkadians who knew him under the name of Enki.
        The Eblaic (an ancient city in Syria) inscriptions dated to ca. 2,600
        BCE also mention both a Deity and a people by the name of “HAY” who
        lived in the Armenian Highland.
        The name “Hay” was also used by the Hittites to refer to Armenia and the Armenian people.
        The Hittite inscriptions from around 1,500 BCE record the history of
        the kingdom of Hayasa (with the root word Hay and the Hittite ending –
        “asa,” connoting a place) situated in Armenian Highland.
        The name Hay also lived on in the name of Hayk, the traditional patriach
        of the Armenian people, as recorded by a number of medieval
        historians.
        Hayk was regarded by the Armenian people as the divine offspring of the primordial God of Essence – HAY(A).
        “Father of Armenian history”, an Armenian historian (5 th century)
        Movses Khorenatsi narrates the story of Japeth’s grandson (through
        Torgom), Hayk and his descendents, the Hays (as Armenians call
        themselves).
        The oldest known ancestors of modern Armenians, the Hayasa-Azzi tribes, also known as Proto-Armenians, were indigenous to the Armenian Highland.
        These tribes formed the Nairi tribal union, which existed until late 13th century BC.
        The legendary forefather of Armenians, Hayk, famous for his battles with
        Babylonian ruler Bel was one of the Hayasa tribal leaders.
        Հայք Hayk’ is the nominative plural in Classical Armenian of հայ (hay) and is also a popular Armenian name.
        The native Armenian name for the country is Hayk’. The name in the
        Middle Ages was extended to Hayastan,by addition of the Indo-European
        suffix -stan (land).
        
        There was a Bronze Age tribe of the Armens (Armans, Armani; Armenian:
        Արմեններ Armenner, Առամեններ Aṙamenner), either identical to or
        forming a subset of the Hayasa-Azzi.[11][12] In this case, Armenia
        would be an ethnonym rather than a toponym
        
        # ^ Elisabeth Bauer. Armenia: Past and Present (1981), p. 49
        
        ……………
        ^ Anne Elizabeth Redgate, The Armenians, Wiley-Blackwell, 2000 ISBN
        9780631220374, p. 24. The name Hayk’ is from the earliest record
        identified with Armenians from Sumerian inscriptions around 2700 BC, in
        which the Armenians are referred to as the sons of Haya, after the
        regional god of the Armenian Highlands.
        …….
        Luigi Villari
        FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS
        
        “The Land of Ararat”
        
        “We are now in the true Armenia, the original home of the Haik people.
      - http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
        
        Ani, “Via various Sumerian, Akkadian, Hittie inscriptions deciphered by scholars” — I am talking about the time BEFORE that.
      - http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
        
        You should really read carefully what I’ve written. I’ve already pointed out several times that the language replacement must have taken place in prehistoric times, before the invention of writing. Everything you say is besides the point. Are you having fun arguying with yourself?
      - Ani
        
        Ms Pereltsvaig,I am not arguying neither with myself, nor with you but trying to understand on what exactly you base your theory and trying to convey you points which I think you as a non Armenian speaker might have not known.
      - Ani
        
        ”prehistoric times, before the invention of writing”
        
        I am not talking about invention of writing either, only about the spoken language.
      - http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
        
        Ani, you said “History of Armenian Hihgland/Anatolia is very well documented and there is no historical evidence of any invasion of any tribe” — how can there be any historical documents from a period when writing was yet non-existent?!
Ani

Evolution of Armenian Alphabet…

http://armeniansworld.com/?p=21185
JJ

Quote : “My language replacement theory takes into account the facts that you pointed out (the recent Turkic migration)—and more.”

“Language replacement” means, that indigenous nation accept language of invaders. In case of Tirkish invaders no one nation accepted their language, though they keep trying assimilate all indigenious people both in Turkey or in artificcially formed in the 20th century Azerbaydjan. But in Turkey kurd still talk kurdish, Armenians still talk Armenian and even remnants of Assyrians talk their language. So, the “language replacement” didn’t take place in that region, just invation of other language speakers. No one indigenious nation, big enough to defend themselves, adopted the language of invaders as their own.

Quote : “Greek, together with Albanian and Armenian, are isolates with fairly unique typological properties and therefore likely developed at the far ends of the IE continuum. “

Why do you think the most old among IE languages look so “isolated” if not for tha sake of being formed much earlier than other IE languages of Europe. which were formed later.
So, those European languages were formed “at the far ends of the IE continuum”. Continuum, which geographically starts from far East in India. Thus, Greek and Armenian are right in the middle of that “Continuum”, not at the end.
I wonder, is it lack of knowledge or just deliberate distortion?

Quote : “Although geographically they look close, linguistically Greek is probably an offshoot of western IE branch (centum languages), while Armenian and Albanian are of the eastern IE, or satem, branch.”

Can’t older language be the offshoot of youngers. Vise versa, Western IE branch can be offshot of Greek, at least some of them.

Quote : “The two meet in the Balkans but come from different migrations. Greek is also unique in that it has interacted a lot more with other IE languages than did Albanian or Armenian, due to historical facts that had nothing to do with language (but everything to do with the history of Rome).”

Greek not only interacted, but gave the birth to those languages, as later did Latin for some other European languages.
- http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
  
  Quote: “In case of Tirkish invaders no one nation accepted their language”. Actually, present-day Turkish speakers are genetically closer to other peoples of the region (inlcuding Greeks, Kurds, and Armenians, though none of them like the fact!) than to other Turkic speakers, such as Central Asian groups, let alone the Yakut/Sakha. Check out our mini-series on the Yakut/Sakha for more information. This means that the Turkic-speaking invaders did absorb other indigenous groups.
  
  Quote: “Greek and Armenian are right in the middle of that “Continuum”, not at the end.” You didn’t read carefully what I said. These languages are at the ends of the migration continuum, not in the geographically most far-flung areas. They are in the middle if you draw direct lines, but human migrations rarely if ever follow such straight lines. So who is distorting now?
  
  Quote: “Can’t older language be the offshoot of youngers” — There is no such thing as older or younger languages, in the sense in which you use the word. Please read my detail post on this here:
  http://languagesoftheworld.info/historical-linguistics/which-language-is-the-oldest.html
  
  Quote: “Greek not only interacted, but gave the birth to those languages, as later did Latin for some other European languages.” Actually, Ancient Greek didn’t give rise to any other languages, except of course Modern Greek into which it evolved. It did interact with Latin, and less directly with later European languages, but none of the other European languages evolved from it. Germanic languages evolved from proto-Germanic, Romance languages evolved from Latin (you got that correctly!, Slavic languages evolved from Proto-Slavic, and Celtic languages from proto-Celtic. All of those proto-languages (including Latin were spoken during overlapping time periods).
  - JJ
    
    I see you keep substitute the terms.
    Absorbtion and assimilation others menas bring jeans of foreignors INTO the same nation, which continue talking its own language. There is no language raplascement here. Replacement,happen s when nation staying as it is start talking other language.
    I repeat – neither Armenians, Greeks, nor Kutrds changed their languages.
    So, language replacement didn’t happen/
    There was just ivation of turks, who absorbs any jeans on their way of invation.
    You can say theyu have some our jeans, but you can’t state they are close.
    If some part of jeans coinside, it daesn’t mean they are close.
    The word “close” sounds not correct, as requires futher clarification.
    Even with indigenous neighbouring nations, Georgians for instance, we have, of course, some coincidence in jeans. But even so we can’t say we are close, as the whole genetic picture for these two nations differ sufficiently.
    Moreover it is so for jeans of invaders.
    
    So.
    1. We are not close with turks, as you state.
    2. Tere was no language replacement within indigenous nations. Just newcomers/invaders with their language.
    
    Your theory can be considered as some abstract mathematitian model of the world languages flows, but has nothing in common with real history.
    
    It’s not scientific. But can be use well to distort the history and thus to serve certain dirty political games.,
    
    That’s real target of this work.
    
    You are just falsifier.
    
    Disrespect !!!
    - http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
      
      It is unfortunate that you choose to read hostile intentions into this discussion, instead of reading the post and the previous comments carefully, as you might have learned something from doing so. It is also unfortunate that you choose to be rude, in violation of our “Commenting guidelines” (see above the comment section), which state: “GeoCurrents is a forum for the respectful exchange of ideas, and loaded
      political commentary can detract from that. We ask that you as a reader
      keep this in mind when sharing your thoughts in the comments below.” Any further comments in such vein will be deleted without additional warning.
      
      While the tone of your comment does not justify a response, I will add a clarification for the benefit of our other readers, who might be confused by your comments.
      
      1) On the genetic closeness of Armenians to their geographic neighbors, read the references cited in the original post. If you have references to research that proves otherwise, please provide them. Your personal opinion does not count as a scientific argument.
      
      2) Nobody talks about a replacement of Armenian (IE language) by Turkish (Turkic language). Because of your political/ideological agenda, you don’t seem to be able to see beyond the Turks as invaders. The language replacement theory is about events that must have happened in the prehistoric period (otherwise we would have had historical mentions of it!), centuries, even millenia, before the arrival of the Turkic speaking groups.
Ani

“Again, two possibilities here: first (and to me the likelier one) is
that the replacement in question happened prior to these sources.

“Ani, “Via various Sumerian, Akkadian, Hittie inscriptions deciphered by scholars” — I am talking about the time BEFORE that.”And I am trying to understand based on what factual evidence. Genetic data shows genetic flow was from Armenian Hihgland/Anataoli/West Asia to other parts and not the opposite. Early inscriptions as noted never talk about any supposed invasion, genetic researches confirm no trace of Armenian origin outside of AH, no evidence of any proto-Armenain speaking tribe in Europe, yet, there is a theory of language replacement, especially prehistoric language shift put on the same level with known Azerbaijani shift in 20 century.
- http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
  
  Once again, you are reading your agenda into my words. Please find me a quote where I said anything to suggest putting Armenian language replacement “on the same level with known Azerbaijani shift in 20 century.” And not only do you repeatedly twist my words to fit your ideological agenda, but you keep repeating the same claims such as “early inscriptions as noted never talk about any supposed invasion”, when I already made it plenty clear that “early inscriptions” postdate the hypothesized language replacement by centuries and millenia, and therefore cannot possibly contain any mention of the said replacement.
  
  Since neither I nor our other readers can learn anything useful from this pointless discussion, I will no longer continue it.
Anuna

1.Explain for me the language families in the North Caucasus
2.Forced displacement. What period is the most difficult of the peoples of the North Caucasus.

Thank you
Galgay

the Nach ppl came from Urartus ….and are the first inhabitants of that region
Pingback: The Geography of Chechnya | GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION
TimUpham

A great deal of Armenian words got into Romany. Their words for wool, bread, bees wax, and yogurt all came from Armenian. It is believed when the Armenias went from the Caucasus down to the Mediterranean to get away from the Turks, the Roma went along with them. The Roma crossed over into Greece in the 13th century C.E., and there they picked up Greek words for their language. The Greek “droma” for road, because the Romany “drom.”
- http://www.pereltsvaig.com Asya Pereltsvaig
  
  Indeed, there are quite a few Armenian roots in Romany, thought those of the Greek origin are more numerous by far. There are different theories as to how the Roma might have picked up Armenian, Greek and indeed Persian/Kurdish vocabulary. One says that the Roma lived in what is now Iran for some time, then in Armenia (South Caucasus), then made it to Greece. However, it looks more likely that all three linguistic influences on the Romany happened at the same time in the same place: eastern Anatolia, which was then under the rule of Seljuks of Rum.
vejgriga

Pseudo-Caucasian culture? Please write facts only

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