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THE ALPHABET P. Pelliot, Les systèmes d'écriture en tisage chez les ancient Mongols, Asia MAJOR," II, Leipsic, 1925.
A. N. T. Whymant, A Mongolian Grammar, etc., London, 1926. F. Lessing, Mongolen, etc., Berlin, 1935. 0. Lattimore, The Mongols of Manchuria, and ed., London, 1935
H. Bernard, S. J., La Découverte de Néstoriens Mongols aux Ordos et l'Histoire ancienne du Christianisme en Extrême-Orient, Tientsin, 1935.
W. Heissig and R. Bleichsteiner, Worterbuch der heutigen mongolischen Sprache, etc., Vienna and Peking, 1941.
G. N. Rorich, in "JOURN. OF THE Roy. ASIAT. SOCIETY OF BENGAL," 1945.
PROBABLE OFFSHOOTS OF ARAMAIC BRANCH
ARMENIAN SCRIPTS
A script for the Armenian language, philologically a most important and independent member of the Indo-European family, was not introduced until the spread of Christianity in Armenia and after the Armenian Church became independent or autocephalic in 369. In fact, about A.D. 400, St. Mesrop or Mashtotz (the "saint"), in collaboration with St. Sahak and a Greck from Samosata called Rufanos, was the creator of this script so excellently suited to the Armenian speech. The fifth century was also the Golden Age of Armenian literature. A famous school of translators (thargmanitchk' or surb thargmanitchk, "holy translators"), founded by St. Sahak, produced versions of the Bible from Syriac and Greek and of the masterpieces of Greece and Rome. The early Armenian codices extant generally belong to the twelfth century A.D. although-as Professor Bailey kindly informs me—there are a few earlier ones; for instance, the facsimile of a Gospel MS. of A.D. $87 was published at Moscow in 1899. and E. Mader published the facsimile of a manuscript of 989.
Armenian
Armenian---the same language which Lord Byron considered as a rich language which would amply repay anyone the trouble of learning it"-can now be divided into (1) early or classic Armenian, termed Grabar (from grel, "to write"), the "written language,” which is still used as the learned and liturgical language; and (2) the "vulgar" speech, the modern Armenian employed since about the middle of the present millennium. The latter, termed Ashksarhabar or Ashksarlik (from ashksarh,"world"), is the language of the modern Armenian literature and of the newspapers. It has two main dialects, the eastern Armenian, which is nearer to the Grabar and is spoken principally in the mother country, and the western dialect spoken elsewhere. Eastern Armenian is the more correct. The differences are chiefly grammatical and in the pronunciation of the consonants
- P -k, and d. I. The Armenian scripts are used both for classic Armenian and for the vulgar forms of speech.
