Idioma urartiano

El idioma urartiano o vannico era hablado por los habitantes del antiguo reino de Urartu, ubicado en la región del lago Van, con su capital cerca del sitio de la moderna ciudad de Van, en el Altiplano Armenio de la actual región de Anatolia oriental.^[1]​ Probablemente fue dominante alrededor del lago Van y áreas a lo largo del valle superior del Zab.^[2]​

Atestiguado por primera vez en el siglo IX a. C., dejó de escribirse después de la caída del estado urartiano en el 585 a. C., y presumiblemente se extinguió debido a la conquista de Urartu.^[3]​ Debe haber tenido un contacto prolongado y luego ser reemplazado totalmente por una forma temprana de armenio^[4]​^[5]​^[6]​ aunque solo a partir del siglo V aparecen los primeros ejemplos escritos en lengua armenia.^[7]​

1. ↑ People of Ancient Assyria: Their Inscriptions and Correspondence - Page 89 by Jørgen Laessøe
2. ↑ Wilhelm, Gernot. 2008. Urartian. In Woodard, Roger D. (ed.) The Ancient Languages of Asia Minor. P.105. "Neither its geographical origin can be conclusively determined, nor the area where Urartian was spoken by a majority of the population. It was probably dominant in the mountainous areas along the upper Zab Valley and around Lake Van."
3. ↑ Wilhelm, Gernot. 2008. Urartian. In Woodard, Roger D. (ed.) The Ancient Languages of Asia Minor. P.106: "We do not know when the language became extinct, but it is likely that the collapse of what had survived of the empire until the end of the seventh or the beginning of the sixth century BCE caused the language to disappear."
4. ↑ Petrosyan, Armen. The Armenian Elements in the Language and Onomastics of Urartu. Aramazd: Armenian Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 2010. (https://www.academia.edu/2939663/The_Armenian_Elements_in_the_Language_and_Onomastics_of_Urartu)
5. ↑ Encyclopedia of Indo-European culture. Mallory, J. P., Adams, Douglas Q. London: Fitzroy Dearborn. 1997. pp. 30. ISBN 978-1884964985. OCLC 37931209. «Armenian presence in their historical seats should then be sought at some time before c 600 BC; ... Armenian phonology, for instance, appears to have been greatly affected by Urartian, which may suggest a long period of bilingualism.» 
6. ↑ Igor M. Diakonoff. The Pre-history of the Armenian People. 1968. (http://www.attalus.org/armenian/diakph11.htm)
7. ↑ Clackson, James P. T. 2008. Classical Armenian. In: The languages of Asia Minor (ed. R. D. Woodard). P.125. "The extralinguistic facts relevant to the prehistory of the Armenian people are also obscure. Speakers of Armenian appear to have replaced an earlier population of Urartian speakers (see Ch. 10) in the mountainous region of Eastern Anatolia. The name Armenia first occurs in the Old Persian inscriptions at Bīsotūn dated to c. 520 BCE (but note that the Armenians use the ethnonym hay [plural hayk‘] to refer to themselves). We have no record of the Armenian language before the fifth century CE. The Old Persian, Greek, and Roman sources do mention a number of prominent Armenians by name, but unfortunately the majority of these names are Iranian in origin, for example, Dādrši- (in Darius’ Bīsotūn inscription), Tigranes, and Tiridates. Other names are either Urartian (Haldita- in the Bīsotūn inscription) or obscure and unknown in literate times in Armenia (Araxa- in the Bīsotūn inscription)."