Alphabets of the South Caucasus

The historical alphabets of the South Caucasus are the Caucasian Albanian, Armenian and Georgian. Armenian and Georgian alphabets are in use today and Caucasian Albanian is not and it was rediscovered in 1937.

In 1937 a 13th-century Armenian “collective codex of educational character” was discovered in the Matenadaran (ms. 7117) which contains among the accounts of several other scripts (Armenian, Hebrew, Greek, Arabic, Latin, Georgian, and Coptic), a list of “Albanian” letters (ałowanicʿ girn). The list comprises 52 characters arranged in alphabetical order.

The earliest surviving Armenian handwriting and the only example of Armenian script surviving on any ancient papyri is a Greek Educational Papyrus in Armenian Script kept in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris (BnF Arm 332), Greek text in Armenian characters dated 5th-7th century.

Georgian Gospel text contained in the codex can be shown to be dated to 5th-7th centuries and is kept in Makhachkala, Republic of Dagestan.

Biblical lections in Caucasian Albanian have been discovered in the undertexts of the two Georgian palimpsests in St Catherine's Monastery on Mt Sinai and the original manuscripts were produced in the 7th century.

The Armenian and Georgian inscriptions from Sinai are dated 7th century and later. The Caucasian Albanian inscription from Mingachevir in Azerbaijan is dated to 6th-7th centuries.

Georgian pilgrimage to the Holy Places of Palestine and their writings in Georgian asomtavruli script survived in Nazareth, Bethlehem and Sinai. Active pilgrims’ traffic from Georgia to Palestine and Sinai from the 5th century onward. Georgian inscriptions from Nazareth are dated to 5th century. Peter the Iberian arrived as an ordinary man and continued his journeys after becoming a monk and later a bishop, his inscription is dated 430 and 532. The presence of Georgian monks in the Sinai peninsula is documented in Byzantine literature from the 6th century and it was not only a pilgrimage destination but also a home for a Georgian-speaking monastic community. The inscription of John, Bishop of Purtavi, a Georgian is dated to the end of the 5th or the first half of the 6th century.

According to Armenian tradition, the Georgian script was developed by Mashtots and his students based on the report of Koriun in The Life of Mashtots and Movses Khorenatsi in History of the Armenians, on which the other Armenian sources depend: Hovhannes Draskhanakerttsi (Catholicos of Armenia from 897 to 925) - History of the Armenians, Movses Kaghankatvatsi/Daskhurantsi - The History of the Country of Albania, Kirakos Gandzaketsi - History of the Armenians. It is also possible to think of an early interpolation of Koriun's chapters on the creation of the Georgian alphabet by Mashtots because Koriwn's Life is not always entirely trustworthy. It may be that Koriun's reporting here is either biased, or at least inaccurate and has less to do with the events of that time than with the Armenian Church's claim to leadership in church affairs, whereby Koriun implicitly expresses the dependence of the Georgian church leadership on Armenia, there is absence of any trace of the people and events in other sources.

The occasion of the international symposium in 2005 in Vienna was the 1600th anniversary of the creation of the Armenian alphabet. His Holiness Karekin II, the Catholicos and Supreme Patriarch of all Armenians, performed the opening in the Great Hall of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Relatively clear research results are in stark contrast to more legendary traditions that have not been sufficiently scientifically clarified. There is no doubt that Mashtots, who in later tradition is more likely to be called Mesrop, created the Armenian alphabet in 405/406, not in Sasanian Greater Armenia, but in Sasanian Syria, with a certain amount of support from a scribe with good paleographic training. Armenian tradition also attributes to Mashtots - at least in the form in which his biography written by Koriwn has come down to us - the creation of the Albanian and the oldest Georgian alphabet. It is clear that the Armenian alphabet was in a certain sense the inspiration for the Albanian alphabet, it is clear that at least Armenian educated people played a role in the design of the alphabet, it is possible that the main impetus for this initiative came from Albanians from a former Armenian province such as Utik’ or Siwnik’. However, it is uncertain whether all of this even happened during Mashtots’ lifetime. The oldest Georgian alphabet is much closer to the Greek than the Armenian, its creator was probably of Greek education, and it was created at least in the sphere of influence of the early Byzantine Empire. Since the earliest evidence comes from the Syrian-Palestinian region, the hypothesis was presented at the symposium that it was created there, probably by a monk of eastern or western Georgian origin and there is not even a hint of direct involvement of Mashtots or other Armenians in the creation of the Georgian alphabet. Indirectly, however, the Armenian model may well have had an impact: like the Armenians, the Georgian monks also wanted to have binding liturgical texts in their own language.

The actual invention of the Armenian alphabet by Mashtots took place in North Syria and although Armenian writers claim that Mashtots invented a alphabet for the Georgians and the Caucasian Albanians as well as for themselves, there is no corroborating evidence.

There can be no doubt that the Albanian alphabet as established now depends in its structure on the Armenian alphabet in quite the same way as the Armenian depends on the Greek and the two alphabets differ considerably from the Old Georgian one as this has preserved the Greek arrangement intact to a much greater extent.

The earliest inscription in Georgian is dated 430 and the alphabet was devised perhaps decades before. Georgia not only received Christianity, it also disseminated it: ecclesiastical language of Caucasian Albania (Old Udi) borrowed Old Georgian vocabulary - Easter, grace, image, throne. Greek terms also entered Old Udi via Georgian.