Admission requirements
Description
Armenian is an Indo-European language. At present, Armenian is spoken in the Republic of Armenia (ca. 3 million people) and by the diaspora community (ca. 7 million people). Classical Armenian or Grabar is known since the fifth century AD. The fifth century is regarded as the golden age of Armenian literature. The Armenian alphabet was invented by Mesrop Maštocʻ and consists of 36 original letters. In this course, we will be treating the grammar of Classical Armenian (with some elements of its historical development) and reading excerpts from the oldest texts – from the Bible translation, and from two original texts, by Eznik and Koriwn. The texts will be read in the original script.
Course objectives
At the end of the course the students will know the essentials of Classical Armenian grammar and will be able to read Classical Armenian texts with the help of a dictionary.
Timetable
The timetable will be available by June 1st at the website of Linguistics
Mode of instruction
Seminar
Course Load
5 EC = 140 hrs
28 hrs classes
70 hrs preparation for the classes
42 hrs preparation for the examination
No midterm test, written final exam
Assessment method
Written examination with open questions
Blackboard
No
Reading list
A. Meillet, Altarmenisches Elementarbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1913 (www.amazon.com).
For the elements of historical development of the grammar, the following book should be consulted: R. Schmitt, Grammatik des Klassisch Armenischen mit sprachvergleichenden Erläuterungen. Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck, 1981.
The reading excerpts and supplementary literature will be distributed during the course.
Registration
Students are requested to register for the course and the examination through uSis