What other nations call Armenia

[Nvard]

Have you guys ever wondered how the other nations call us?It's clear that most of use ARM/ERM type of thing, but lots of our old neighbours have other variants, that can be very different, like:

Georgians:SOMEKHI

Kurds:FLA

I deffinitely like the Farsi one ARMANI

Any other variations?

[Harut]

Nvard jan, it is indeed interesting to think about this.

 

what i think is that, those, who call us something else than Armenia, have known us for loooong time.

i think those people call us with the name of the region that was nearest to their country.

for example, people north of Armenia, probably calls us Somekhi because there was a region in north-eastern Armenia that was named Somkheti.

 

again this is just my guess.

[Nvard]

Very true, Harut jan

Actually it was the Greeks that invented the Armen- name of us.I guess they used to call lots of nations with -men ending wich means LIKE (Nman).So considering that the AR thing comes from a Uratian word for Sun(Arev)...so.... Armen actually means LIKE-the-SUN

It looks very valid, considering that there were lots of redhead (Sunlike) Armenians.And this was very unusual for the Greeks, I guess.

 

I wonder how Chinese call us?

[Sip]

Very interesting stuff Nvard. I had no idea !!!

 

But I have to say I really like the Iranian version ... it sorta gives us "class". Armani ... I am Armani ... I wear Armani glasses ... I have Armani shoes .... Very very cool

 

What are you? Oh, I am Armani.

 

What kind of Jeans are those?! Oh, those are Armani.

 

I just can't get enough ... I feel so cool

[sdcheung]

There is no word for Armenian in Chinese.

we just call Armenia .. Ar-me-ni-A (Phonetically), and the Chiense characters for Armenia mean nothing at all.

 

for the people, it's Armenia plus.."Ren" or people

[Twilight Bark]

Dear Nvard,

Your "like sun" theory is not very convincing I am afraid. The name "Armenoi" basically appears out of thin air in the Greek sources, with no discernible meaning in Greek. It is impossible for the Greeks to come up with an Urartuan-Greek compound word. However, it is quite possible that Armenoi is a corrupted form of a name used by earlier cultures of Anatolia, namely the Luwians and Hittites. "Arma" is the moon god in ancient Anatolia, and the suffix -wanda was used to denote "people", the literal meaning being "of the kind" (the usual w-->k(g) tranformation also explains the origin of the -kan, -gan suffix in Armenian). Armawanda would mean "Moon People", indicating that the "Armenoi" were Moon worshippers. Armawanda --> Armanda --> Armana --> Armenoi is a natural progression of distortions. So a good case can be made for explaining the origin of the name "Armenian" by using Hittite-Luwian languages, witout resorting to the extremely unlikely mixture of Urartu+Greek.

 

As for the red-head Armenians, a red or blond haired Armenian of today is much more likely to have got these traits from the Galatian (Celts) invaders of antiquity and the European crusaders of the middle ages rather than some mythical red-haired Armens marching across Anatolia . If the motivation is to find the bearers of the indo-european Armenian language, no need for that. There is zero evidence that the red or blond haired populations formed the bulk of the indo-european speakers at the time of proto-indoeuropean (childish fantasies of self-absorbed German pseudo-scientists of late 19th and early 20th centuries nothwithstanding). In fact, it is likely that the nordic people adopted the indo-european languages along with the wave of innovations coming from their southeast.

Regards,

Twilight Bark

 

[ April 12, 2002, 12:27 PM: Message edited by: Twilight Bark ]

[Nvard]

Dear T.Bark,

 

Of course my theory was just my theory....lol..

But there are so many unbelievable things in the world that I wouldn't be surprised if it was true , considering the fact that it's not THAT unbelievable:)

As for the Redheads in Armenia, they existed long long before the Celtic crusaders..lol...(BTW,it's a proven fact that the Celts actually come from Middle Asia),the Urartians used to worship all the people that had "Sunlike" hair.All the Kings used to dye their hair and beards RED, to be more like the pagan god Vahagn.

As for the dumb "We were blondes before the Turks came" theory, I HATE IT!!!!!!!!and all the Armenians repeat it day by day, just like Hayr mer!

It's like we're cripples or something!

[Twilight Bark]

The Celtic invaders came a lot earlier than the crusaders. They eventually melted in the indigenous population.

Hm. Can you point me to the proof? Sounds interesting.

Perhaps they learned their fighting skills from one odd "barbarian" from the north where they lived to fight. Worshipping red haired persons would get really old really fast if there were an appreciable number of them among the Urartians I imagine. So it is safe to say that red hair was rather rare (vanishingly so?) among them.

Unlike what one certain "sage" seems to believe, Armenians are anything but smug and self-satisfied.

 

Anyway, its always nice to read your contributions and perspective.

 

TB

[Sip]

Related but unrelated:

 

Thanks a LOT to whoever decided to sign me up Unfortunately, I am still a LOOOOONG way from being able to afford Armani ... although I promise that one day I will be that cool ... But I did get a big KICK out of it though. Thanks!

[Nvard]

Dear TB,

Just check out any webpage about the origin of the Celts.They can be a little bit different.Most say they come from the Middle Asia, some say they come from places even further, like this one: http://www.angelfire.com/home/thefaery5/

[Nvard]

By the way, that one is a very interesting study on the connection between the Indo-Europian languages, including Armenian, of course:

http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/indoeuropean.html

[gamavor]

Nvard,

 

The link is very interesting and not surprisingly I found many similarities between his study and the conclusions of Gamkrelidze and Ivanov.

[Arpa]

Dear sdc,

You seem to be familiar with the Chinese language and culture.

I just looked up why during the middle ages the Europeans called China Cathay. "Kitai" for Northern China and "Mangi" for the southern. Marco Polo and later Columbus set out to travel to Cathay. There have been rumors that Chrsitopher Columbus may have been Armenian, we know that he was an Italian from Genoa even if his venture was underwritten by the Spanish queen Isabella. His quest was to find a shorter way to China and the Orient, but more so, and here may be the Armenian connection, a less perilous route. Whereas the land route through Anatolia and the Middle East may have been relatively safe during the Armenian Kingdom of Kilikia it had become increasingly dangerous after the fall of the Kingdom.

 

What do the Chinese call themselves?

The Armenians refer to China as Chin-a-stan and Chin-a-tsi for the people, some eastern people call the country "(al)Seen/Sin" and the people "Seeny/Siny". This is not lost on the European languages as we refer to things pertaining to Chinese "sino" as in "Sino-Soviet" etc. Why is this?

 

You may be best qualified to answer the folllowing.

There seems to be no consensus on the origing of "kamancha". The folk violin played by many eastern peoples including the Chinese. The stringed instrumemt that is held on the knee and played with a bow much like a viloin. I have had this notion that it may be of Chinese origin. Even though some may suggest Persian, as it seems "kaman" have come to mean "bow" in that language hence "kaman-ja", "little bow". I once asked a colleague of mine. She did not know, she asked her father and came back saying that in the Chinese "violin", I forget the word, was composed of three monosyllabic words that stood for "string-bow-finger". Upon further investigation it turned out that the Chinese word for piano is "gong-kam". The "kam" to mean (musical) "instrument".

Would "kamancha" be of Chinese origin made up of three monosyllabic parts like "kam-an-cha"? Do any of the parts make sense?

[hayemyes]

From what I have heard, Armen comes from the following words: Ar- which means Aryan, since qe are from the aryan race and -men, plural of "man". So Armen means Aryan men, but again that's only what I've heard, and it may be wrong.

[Guest Fadi]

Ar could also come from Ur, that mean light, in ancient Babilonian languages.

[Arpa]

Another view of the origin of Armen, Armani, Armenian.

Martiros uses an extremely broad brush but his views may be worth visiting as

they open a whole new chapter. Believe it or not they deserve further study.

Note; =========== where I edited, abbreviated the text.

For more about the subject and more, icluding Haik, Tork etc. at the following site.

 

http://www.angelfire.com/hi/Azgaser/

 

THE GOD AR

 

It has been shown by some Orientalist- Armenologists in a number of

quotations of mythological and historical datat that the native people

of the Armenian Highland and the neighboring regions of Asia Minor

had, in the earlier periods of paganism, a deity whom they called AR or

ARA.

 

In the primitive hunting stage of the life of these natives, the god ARA

possesed animal-vegetal charactheristics. Later, with the beginning of

agriculture, he acquired a vegetal-solar nature and with the

development of irrigation in agriculture and the consolidation of

statehood, he became a great war-god and was identified with the

sun.

 

This process of change from primitive to complex characteristics, as

manifested in the nature of AR(or ARA), is by no means unique in the

mythological history of mankind. It has had its close parallels.

 

For example, the god Assur,in the earliest periods of the founding of

the city of Assur, had a vegetal (peaceful) nature, but later on, when

Assyria became a mighty empire by bloody expeditions, it turned into

a fearsome deity and was identified also with sun. Research has

revealed that inthe remote past AR (or ARA)was the principal national

deity of the Armen people. H.Matikian, N.Adonts, M.Abeghian,

G.Ghapantsian, and ohter Armenologists accept that ARA was the

native deity of the Armenians.

 

The known Orientalist A.H.Sayce states that AR was the sun-god of

the Armenians. In his words:"...it is better to suppose that ER,or

ARA,was an Armenian name for the Sun-god, which in later times was

confounded with Arios (Nergal)of Ktesias."

 

In this connection H.Matikian writes:"To study ARA the Beautiful

means to make inroads into the obscure centuries of the origin of the

Armenian people and to examine them."

 

The word Ar-ma-ni is a compound noun, where the first component Ar

is none other than the name of the natioanal sun-god of the

Armens,-AR- and the second component -ma-(me a varient) ssignifies

'build, make, beget, offspring, son'. Ma, with this meaning, was known

to many peoples of the Ner East in antiquity. The goddess of birth and

fertility, so well known in Asia Minor, was called by this very same

name-Ma.(Ma also occurs in its reduplicated from -Mama or Mami in

Assyro-Babylonian inscriptions). This root-word (and also its variant

-me) is found also in Sumerian language with the same meaning. It

results that Ar-ma (and its variant Ar-me) means 'built by Ar, born of

Ar', or 'Ar's offspring', 'Ar's/Ara's son' ('the son of the sun', Arevvordi).

The ending -ni (the plural-forming or toponymic suffix-ni is found in

Subarian-Hurrian-Nairian place and tribal na We find the plural form ni

also in Armenian.

 

It is not unlikely that those of the third millenium B.C. could have

Sumerian origin derived from the plural form -e-ne reserved for

persons) of Arma-ni (or Arme-ni), as has been mentioned earlier, is

plural and toponymic suffix (cf. Mitanni, Supani, Alzini 'Alzinini',

Daiaeni, Nihani, etc.).

 

Hence Armani (or Armeni) means 'sons of Ar', that is, 'sons of the sun'

or 'the land of the sons of Ar', which is literally 'the land of the sons of

the sun'. A similar case is seen in the Armenian words Hayk' and Virk

which by virtue of the plural- forming suffix k' mean, respectively,

'Armenians' and 'Georgians' and also 'the land of Armenians

(Armenia)' and 'the land of Georgians (Georgia)'.

 

Just as the name Arma-ni appears simply as Arma, without the suffix

-ni, in the Alalakh inscriptions, so does it in the form Arme in the

Assyrian and Urartian writtings.

 

Since, as it was mentioned above, Ar-ma or Ar-me meant 'built by Ar'

(the city or country of Ar), or 'the offspring (or the son) of Ar', and since

Ar was also called Ara, it follows that the name Arme could have been

pronounced also as Arame, which is, as we already know, the name of

the founder of Urartian kingdom, meaning 'the son of the sun', and is

preserved by Khorenantsi in the form Aram, as the name of one of the

Armenian patriarchs.

=============

Here is the translation of that portion of the inscription that interests

us: " City of Ataune, I came forth (to invade) against the land of Urme,

I conquered the land of Urme, I erected this inscription in the Ar-hi

land..."

 

This Arhi ('Arian' or 'Araian') region was in the southeast of Mush and

lay in the land of Arme belonged to Ar (or Ara) and that it meant 'born

of Ar', or 'built by Ara'.

 

In ancient cuneiform writings sometimes we find statements where a

certain king or a famous personality is considered to be the son of his

main national god or the son of his nation.Josephus Flavius h

 

In fact, in antiquity, the entire Armenian Higland was replete with

names that contained the component Ar or Ara. It is true that in later

centuries the Armenian Highland, as a highway between continents,

has been subjected to many foreign military, political,and cultural

influences and has adopted other deities, even yielding to oblivion the

identity of Ara; but still there are many place-names in the country that

preserve the memory of Ar or Ara.

=============

The following statements and equations summarize it all:

1)If the temple of Ardi-ni(of Musasir)is Haldi's temple, then,

Haldi(Aldi)=Ardi

2)If the goddess Nu-ard(the Nu of Ard) is Ara's wife, then

Ard(Ardi)=Ara

3)And if Ur-ardi=Ur-aru=Ur-astu, then Ara=Ardi(Artu)=Astu(Astu-as)

 

As we speak about the interrelationships between the names

Armani(Armeni), Hyek/Hyeasatan and Urartu,we must have in view the

following "divine" formula:

Haldi={Ardi-Ara(vegetation,sun)/Astuas(fire)}=Hyek

 

 

 

Source:"Armenia,Summer and Subartu" by Prof.,Dr.Martiros Kavukjian

 

Translated from Armenian by N.Ouzounian

 

Edited by the web site's webmaster

[MJ]

[flyhye]

Very interesting stuff Nvard. I had no idea !!!

 

But I have to say I really like the Iranian version ... it sorta gives us "class". Armani ... I am Armani ... I wear Armani glasses ... I have Armani shoes .... Very very cool smilies/cool.gif smilies/smokin.gif

 

What are you? Oh, I am Armani. smilies/walkingcool.gif

 

What kind of Jeans are those?! Oh, those are Armani. smilies/walkingcool.gif

 

I just can't get enough ... I feel so cool smile.gif

 

 

i like that

[Dave]

Let me revive this thread...

 

The real questions to ask are:

 

Why did the Europeans call our country Armenia, and not "Armenistan" as they did it for the Central Asian countries, while they could have named them all with "ia" instead of "stan"?

 

Why do the Arabs call our country "Armaniyah", while Turks call it "Ermenistan" instead of calling it "Ermeniye" as in "Turkiye"? Is it because they consider us like the rest of the -istan countries? Backward and barbarian?

 

And why do we call our country "Hayastan", instead of "Hayk"? When did the "switch" occur?

[Armenak]

Why do the Arabs call our country "Armaniyah", while Turks call it "Ermenistan" instead of calling it "Ermeniye" as in "Turkiye"? Is it because they consider us like the rest of the -istan countries? Backward and barbarian?

Along with Bulgaristan, Hırvatistan, Macaristan, Yunanistan and Suudi Arabistan...

[kakachik77]

Along with Bulgaristan, Hırvatistan, Macaristan, Yunanistan and Suudi Arabistan...

 

Armenak,

 

Armenians today call their country Hayastan. Do we consider ourselves a backward STAN as well. BEfore judging anybody, let's examine why we keep holding on our slave name, why not the beautiful word HAYQ.

[Eurocentric]

The proper name of Hayq needs to be restored, the anthem and the flag need to be changed. I like calling "Hayastan" a slave name though

[Dave]

What do you 2 mean by "slave name"?

 

BEfore judging anybody, let's examine why we keep holding on our slave name, why not the beautiful word HAYQ.

 

Exactly, that's why I asked that question in my previous post.

Edited July 24, 2006 by Dave

[Armenak]

Armenak,

 

Armenians today call their country Hayastan. Do we consider ourselves a backward STAN as well. BEfore judging anybody, let's examine why we keep holding on our slave name, why not the beautiful word HAYQ.

Did I say any of that?

[Daniel-Palu]

Have you guys ever wondered how the other nations call us?It's clear that most of use ARM/ERM type of thing, but lots of our old neighbours have other variants, that can be very different, like:

 

Kurds:FLA

 

never heard that one even though i know kurdish