Ancient Armenia gave faith an alphabet
October 29, 2005
The Boston Globe
By Rich Barlow
Few birthdays are cause for a global scholars' conference at Harvard, but they're raising a metaphorical glass in Cambridge to toast the Armenian alphabet. It's not just that at 1,600 years old the alphabet makes Methuselah look like a youngster. These three dozen letters gave a written language of faith to a pivotal country in Christian history
Years before the Roman emperor Constantine's famous conversion, Armenia was the first country to adopt Christianity as its state religion, in the year 301. At the time, Armenian was a spoken tongue only, meaning worshipers relied on translators during services to interpret a Bible that was written in other languages.
Years before the Roman emperor Constantine's famous conversion, Armenia was the first country to adopt Christianity as its state religion, in the year 301. At the time, Armenian was a spoken tongue only, meaning worshipers relied on translators during services to interpret a Bible that was written in other languages.
''Bare oral translations," an Armenian theologian later wrote, ''were insufficient to satisfy the aspirations of the heart."
A fifth-century priest, Mesrob Mashtotz, sated those aspirations, devising a 36-letter script (two more letters were added later) so the Old and New Testaments could be rendered in Armenian. For Armenians worldwide, including the Armenian Apostolic Church, religion and language would become intertwined as the life supports keeping the nation's culture and heritage alive outside the homeland, says James R. Russell, Mesrob Mashtotz professor of Armenian studies at Harvard.
[...]
The first words Mashtotz transcribed with his new alphabet were from the introduction to the Book of Proverbs, ''that men may appreciate wisdom." The alphabet gave birth not just to an Armenian-language Bible but to translations of other Christian texts and a voluminous scholarship.
The effects spilled over beyond Armenia's border; for example, Russell says that many works of Philo of Alexandria, the great Jewish theologian of the Greco-Roman era, have come down to us only because they survived in Armenian and subsequently were translated into Greek.
The language written by a holy man for religious purposes became the very muscle of Armenian national identity. [...].
[...]
Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.
The Boston Globe
By Rich Barlow
Few birthdays are cause for a global scholars' conference at Harvard, but they're raising a metaphorical glass in Cambridge to toast the Armenian alphabet. It's not just that at 1,600 years old the alphabet makes Methuselah look like a youngster. These three dozen letters gave a written language of faith to a pivotal country in Christian history
Years before the Roman emperor Constantine's famous conversion, Armenia was the first country to adopt Christianity as its state religion, in the year 301. At the time, Armenian was a spoken tongue only, meaning worshipers relied on translators during services to interpret a Bible that was written in other languages.
Years before the Roman emperor Constantine's famous conversion, Armenia was the first country to adopt Christianity as its state religion, in the year 301. At the time, Armenian was a spoken tongue only, meaning worshipers relied on translators during services to interpret a Bible that was written in other languages.
''Bare oral translations," an Armenian theologian later wrote, ''were insufficient to satisfy the aspirations of the heart."
A fifth-century priest, Mesrob Mashtotz, sated those aspirations, devising a 36-letter script (two more letters were added later) so the Old and New Testaments could be rendered in Armenian. For Armenians worldwide, including the Armenian Apostolic Church, religion and language would become intertwined as the life supports keeping the nation's culture and heritage alive outside the homeland, says James R. Russell, Mesrob Mashtotz professor of Armenian studies at Harvard.
[...]
The first words Mashtotz transcribed with his new alphabet were from the introduction to the Book of Proverbs, ''that men may appreciate wisdom." The alphabet gave birth not just to an Armenian-language Bible but to translations of other Christian texts and a voluminous scholarship.
The effects spilled over beyond Armenia's border; for example, Russell says that many works of Philo of Alexandria, the great Jewish theologian of the Greco-Roman era, have come down to us only because they survived in Armenian and subsequently were translated into Greek.
The language written by a holy man for religious purposes became the very muscle of Armenian national identity. [...].
[...]
Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.
posted by Vahe Balabanian at 6:35 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home