Paleo-Balkan peoples and their respective languages in Eastern Europe and Anatolia between 5th and 1st century BC.

The Armeno-Phrygians are a hypothetical people of West Asia (specifically of Asia Minor and the Armenian Highlands) during the Bronze Age, the Bronze Age collapse, and its aftermath. They would be the common ancestors of both Phrygians and Proto-Armenians.[1] In turn, Armeno-Phrygians would be the descendants of the Graeco-Phrygians, common ancestors of Greeks, Phrygians, and also of Armenians.[1]

The term "Armeno-Phrygian" is also used for a hypothetical language branch, which would include the languages spoken by the Phrygians and the Armenians, and would be a branch of the Indo-European language family, or a sub-branch of either the proposed "Graeco-Armeno-Aryan" or "Armeno-Aryan" branches.

There are two conflicting theories regarding the potential origins of the Armeno-Phrygians:

  • Ancient Greek historian Herodotus stated that Armenians were colonists from Phrygia ("the Armenians were equipped like Phrygians, being Phrygian colonists" (Ἀρμένιοι δὲ κατά περ Φρύγες ἐσεσάχατο, ἐόντες Φρυγῶν ἄποικοι)(7.73).[2] Phrygia encompassed much of western and central Anatolia during the Iron Age. According to Ancient Greeks, the Phrygians had originated in the Balkans as Bryges. This led some scholars to suggest that Armenians also originated in the Balkans.[3] According to Igor Diakonoff, the Phrygians and the Proto-Armenians migrated eastward during the Bronze Age collapse (at the end of the 13th century and the first half of 12th century). This theory suggests that Proto-Armenians were known by the name of Mushki to the Assyrians and that they blended with the ancient populations of the Armenian Highlands, including speakers of Hurro-Urartian languages, to create Armenians.[4] Assyrian sources identify the Mushki with the Phrygians, but later Greek sources then distinguish between the Phrygians and the Moschoi (commonly though to be a variation of "Mushki").
  • Some modern scholars instead believe that a proto-Armeno-Phrygian population originated in eastern Anatolia and/or the Armenian Highlands, from where the Phrygians later migrated westward.[5]

According to some scholars, there is evidence of language borrowings (Armenisms) from the Proto-Armenian language into Hittite and Urartian,[6] what would prove the presence of Proto-Armenians in the Armenian Highlands, in the lands of ancient Armenia, since at least the end of the 2nd millennium BC.

Criticism

A number of linguists have rejected a close relationship between Armenian and Phrygian, despite saying that the two languages do share some features.[7][8][9][10][11] Phrygian is now classified as a centum language more closely related to Greek than Armenian, whereas Armenian is mostly satem.[12]

Recent research suggests that there is lack of archaeological[13] and genetic evidence[14] for a group from the Balkans entering eastern Asia Minor or the Armenian Highlands during or after the Bronze Age Collapse (as was suggested by Diakonoff).

Some scholars have suggested that the Mushki (whether they were speakers of Armenian or another language) originated in the Caucasus region and moved westward.[15][16][13]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 I. M. Diakonoff "The Problem of the Mushki". Archived August 25, 2011, at the Wayback Machine. In The Prehistory of the Armenian People
  2. ↑ Herodotus. The Histories. Book VII: chapters 57‑137. Loeb Classical Library. 1922. https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Herodotus/7b*.html
  3. ↑ I. M. Diakonoff [http://rbedrosian.com/Classic/diakph11.htm Archived August 25, 2011, at the Wayback Machine in The Prehistory of the Armenian People
  4. ↑ I. M. Diakonoff The Problem of the Mushki Archived August 25, 2011, at the Wayback Machine in The Prehistory of the Armenian People
  5. ↑ "Historical Data". Archived from the original on 2011-06-01. Retrieved 2011-05-17.
  6. ↑ Hrach Martirosyan. "Origins and historical development of the Armenian language" (pp. 7–9) in Journal of Language Relationship, International Scientific Periodical, no. 10 (2013). Russian State University for the Humanities, Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
  7. ↑ Bartomeu Obrador Cursach. "On the place of Phrygian among the Indo-European languages." Journal of Language Relationship. 2019. https://www.academia.edu/42660767/On_the_place_of_Phrygian_among_the_Indo_European_languages
  8. ↑ Clackson, J. P. T., 2008, “Classical Armenian”, in Woodard,R. D., The Ancient Languages of Asia Minor, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 124–143
  9. ↑ Martirosyan, H., 2013, “The place of Armenian in the Indo-European language family: the relationship with Greek and Indo-Iranian”, Journal of Language Relationship10, 85—13
  10. ↑ Hamp, Eric P. (August 2013). "The Expansion of the Indo-European Languages: An Indo-Europeanist's Evolving View" (PDF). Sino-Platonic Papers.
  11. ↑ Kim, Ronald (2018). "Greco-Armenian: The persistence of a myth". Indogermanische Forschungen. The University of British Columbia Library.
  12. ↑ "On the place of Phrygian among the Indo-European languages." Journal of Language Relationship. 2019. https://www.academia.edu/42660767/On_the_place_of_Phrygian_among_the_Indo_European_languages
  13. 1 2 Kossian, Aram V. (1997), "The Mushki Problem Reconsidered." pp. 260-261
  14. ↑ Haber, Marc; Mezzavilla, Massimo; Xue, Yali; Comas, David; Gasparini, Paolo; Zalloua, Pierre; Tyler-Smith, Chris (2015). "Genetic evidence for an origin of the Armenians from Bronze Age mixing of multiple populations". European Journal of Human Genetics. 24 (6): 931–6.
  15. ↑ Sevin, Veli (1991), "The Early Iron Age in the Elazıǧ Region and the Problem of the Mushkians", Anatolian Studies, 41: 87–97, doi:10.2307/3642931, JSTOR 3642931 pp. 96-97
  16. ↑ Kopanias, Konstantinos (2015), "The Mushki/Phrygian Problem from the Near Eastern Point of View." pp. 220-222

Further reading

  • Lamberterie, Charles de (2013). "Grec, phrygien, arménien: des anciens aux modernes". Journal des savants (in French) (1): 3–69. doi:10.3406/jds.2013.6300.
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