Transliteration-HMB

[bellthecat]

Thanks Arpa.

 

Are these symbols, when used in the transliteration of other languages, used to represent the same sounds? It seems a bit of a effort to learn them just for one language.

 

Oh , isn't Dz (or tz) represented as c' , not c ? (That one and the slashed L are the only ones I can actually recognise without first going to a reference book).

[Arpa]

We have seen before that there may be as many opinions about transliteration of Armenian letters to other languagees. The most prominent would be Arm-Latin, Arm-Slavic, for obvious reasons. Add to that the fiasco of Eastern Arm v Western pronunciation.

 

First who and what is/are HMB?

 

H; Heinrich Hubschmann 1848-1908. German ethnologis, Iranologist and Armenologist, easily acknowldged as the "father of modern Armenology".

Blah, blah, blah...

He rejected the prevailing opinion that the Armenian language was a twig of the Iranian branch of Indo-European and classified it as sepearet and distinctly main branch. He has numerous papers about the subject examining the correlation of Grabar and the modern, analyses of place names and others. One of the first to find the connection of the Uraruan to Armenian... etc.

 

M; Antoine Meillet, 1866-1936. French linguist, armenologist. Honed his expertise in Armenian at the Mkhitarian Ins. at Vienna. He has published many papers in the Revue des Etudes Armeniannne.

 

B; Emile Benveniste, 1902-. French linguist and Iranologist. Student of Meillet. Born in Aleppo (Surprise, Surprise!!) Many works in the Revue des Etude Armeniennes.

 

The system of transliteration devised and employed by the above, hence the nickname HMB is employed by serious scholars.

As mentioned previously I have not found an comprehensive item (perhaps Levon Avdoyan director of African and ME studies at the LOC may be of help).

The following is from Zoroatrianism in Armenia by James Russell. I will skip over the obvious such as Ayb=Alpha, Ben=Beta etc. and get to the controversial ones.

It is no secret that the Armenian Alphabet has at least a dozen more symbols and sounds than the Latin et al.

 

The fifth letter e equals the Latin e as in Esther.

The 7th, another e is symbolized by e with slash above.

Ken = K . Western Armenians would rather G as Garo.

Tho, the 9th is symbolized by t with a small c over and above to the right. It is the equivalent of the English TH as in Thomas/Thovmas. Yes Virgina, Armenians did have the sound of TH one time.

Zhe, the 10th is symbolized by Z with a trema on top.

L is the same as the Latin L. I will write about L to GH again. See below.

KH is written as X. Those accustomed to Slavic use this. Baeed on the Greek Khsi.

Dza, as in Aydz (goat)= c

Ghat as in "agri dag" is the L with a slash across the middleo of the vertical line.

Dza as in "dzayn/sound" is symbolized by j

Hi=y

Sh =S with a trema on top. (Unlike the Turkish at the bottom.

Vo=o

Cha, hard ch=c with a trema on top and small c next to it.

Peh (westerns translkitaret this as B as in Barkev v Parkew)

J (as in jour/water=j with a trema on top.

Ra, the hard R =r with a dot on topp.

Tso, the hard TS=C with another smaller c above tothe right.

Ve=v

Tyun=t

Hyun=w

Pyur- P with a small c above and to the right.

Ke=k wth that small c again.

O= o with a slash on top.

Fe=F

And there is a symbol for "ev/yev/and". (I see no need for it).

 

L to GH.For the umpteenth time, the reason the Latin L and others is transliterated to sound like GH as in khaghogh, Lazarus-Ghazaros is, during the pre Mashtots era there really was not a sound for L as we know it now. The Armenian L sounded more like the GH, the French R since it was pronounced with the back of the tongue against the palate. By Mesrop's time we had been hellenized enough to need a symbol to be able to pronounce words like "hellenakan", even if we kept transliterating Helen as Heghin(eh). And now we have two symbols, one for the new L and one for the old L, gh, if you will. The reaon why the two cannot totally divorced so musch so that HMB has found it necsssary to use the Latin L with a slash through it.

How would HMB spell Movse Khorenatsi? Movses (with a dash over the e) Xorenaci (with a small c above to the right od the C)