Hethanos

[Arpa]

Hethano

Yes

HeTHanos, not HeTanos.

 

My 1972 hard copy Websters defines "heathen" as derived from the Armenian "hetanos" which in turn directs us to "hethanos".

 

First a word or two about the letter tho, the ninth letter of the Mesropian Ayb Ben Gim. I said "tho" not "to" for a reason. If Mesrop were doing his research today, the age of Mcdonald's and the era other fast food and fast internet connections he would have invented the Armenian alphabet with many less characters. He may have been influenced by English with so many fewer characters and an addendum of digraphs, such as sh, ch, th and others.

Mahtotots was a perfectionist, he devised a character for ech of our sounds, if he were living at the present he would probably have spared us some of the unnescessary and extraneeous characters as sh, ch, kh, gh etc. and instead devised a system to compose these digraphs as the English and others have done. Instead of devising a letter for each sound he could have done what the English have done through trial and error, i.e devised a digraph putting together s and h to create the sound of sh, you get the rest.

However what eludes us, and we totally disregard why he devised the letters of "tho" (some may recognize it as "to" and "phyur" aka "pyur", and others . Whther the "pyur" was invented to sound as "pyur" to compnesate for the lack of the sound of "f" may be a matter of debate, but it is certain th at "tho" the 9th letter of the Ayb Ben Gim was expressly devised as sbstitude for the Greek "theta" to sound like the English "th" as in "thomas" . This whole thing may have been lost as we became lazy and subject to alien influence like turkification.

 

What does all this have to do with "hethanos"?

"hethanos" is based on "ethnos" which simply means "people" Leave it to those xenophobes who considered anybody that did not conform to their definition of the "chosen people" to be labeled as "hethanos", "heathen".

I see no problem in being called heathen, that is what I am a hethanos, an ethnos, a people.