Caucasian Albanian (also called Old Udi, Aluan or Aghwan) is an extinct member of the

Northeast Caucasian languages The Northeast Caucasian languages, also called East Caucasian, Nakh-Daghestani or ''Vainakh-Daghestani'', is a family of languages spoken in the Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia and in Northern Azerbaijan as well as in ...

. It was spoken in Caucasian Albania, which stretched from current day south Dagestan to

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of t ...

. Linguists believe it is an early linguistic predecessor to the endangered North Caucasian

Udi language The Udi language, spoken by the Udi people, is a member of the Lezgic branch of the Northeast Caucasian language family. It is believed an earlier form of it was the main language of Caucasian Albania, which stretched from south Dagestan to cur ...

. The distinct Caucasian Albanian alphabet used 52 letters. Caucasian Albanian possibly corresponds to the "Gargarian" language identified by medieval Armenian historians. Despite its name, Caucasian Albanian bears no linguistic relationship whatsoever with Albanian, the modern

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...

language of

Albania Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...

Discovery and decipherment

The existence of the Caucasian Albanian literature was known only indirectly before the late 20th century.

Koryun Koriun ( hy, Կորիւն, reformed spelling: Կորյուն; also transliterated as ''Koriwn'', ''Koryun'') was the earliest Armenian-language author. Writing in the fifth century, his ''Life of Mashtots'' contains many details about the evangel ...

's ''Life of Mashtots'', written in the 5th century but only surviving in much later corrupted manuscripts, and

Movses Kaghankatvatsi Movses Kaghankatvatsi ( hy, Մովսէս Կաղանկատուացի ''Movses Kaġankatvac’i''), or Movses Daskhurantsi ( ''Movses Dasxuranc’i'') is the reputed author (or authors) of a tenth-century Classical Armenian historiographical work on C ...

's ''History of the Caucasian Albanians'', written in the 10th century, attribute the conversion of the Caucasian Albanians to Christianity to two missionaries, Enoch and Dana, and the creation of the Caucasian Albanian alphabet to the Armenian scholar

Mesrop Mashtots Mesrob or Mesrop ( hy, Մեսրոպ) is an Armenian given name. Mesrob / Mesrop may refer to: * Mesrop Mashtots, also Saint Mesrop, Armenian monk, theologian and linguist. Inventor of the Armenian alphabet ** Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient M ...

. A certain Bishop Jeremiah then translated the

Christian Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

into their language. As recently as 1977,

Bruce Metzger Bruce Manning Metzger (February 9, 1914 – February 13, 2007) was an American biblical scholar, Bible translator and textual critic who was a longtime professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and Bible editor who served on the board of the ...

could write that "nothing of

his His or HIS may refer to: Computing * Hightech Information System, a Hong Kong graphics card company * Honeywell Information Systems * Hybrid intelligent system * Microsoft Host Integration Server Education * Hangzhou International School, in ...

version has survived". In 1996, Zaza Aleksidze of the Centre of Manuscripts in

Tbilisi Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Kura River with a population of approximately 1.5 million p ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

, discovered a

palimpsest In textual studies, a palimpsest () is a manuscript page, either from a scroll or a book, from which the text has been scraped or washed off so that the page can be reused for another document. Parchment was made of lamb, calf, or kid skin an ...

Saint Catherine's Monastery Saint Catherine's Monastery ( ar, دير القدّيسة كاترين; grc-gre, Μονὴ τῆς Ἁγίας Αἰκατερίνης), officially the Sacred Autonomous Royal Monastery of Saint Katherine of the Holy and God-Trodden Mount Sinai, ...

Mount Sinai Mount Sinai ( he , הר סיני ''Har Sinai''; Aramaic: ܛܘܪܐ ܕܣܝܢܝ ''Ṭūrāʾ Dsyny''), traditionally known as Jabal Musa ( ar, جَبَل مُوسَىٰ, translation: Mount Moses), is a mountain on the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. It is ...

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

, with an unknown script. He went on to identify the alphabet as Caucasian Albanian, and to identify the manuscript as an early Christian lectionary from about the 5th or 6th century. The lectionary may be the earliest extant lectionary in the Christian religion. Then linguists

Jost Gippert Jost Gippert (; born 12 March 1956 in Winz-Niederwenigern, later merged to Hattingen) is a German linguist, Caucasiologist, author, and professor for Comparative Linguistics at the Institute of Empirical Linguistics at the Goethe University of ...

and Wolfgang Schulze got involved with the Caucasian Albanian alphabet. Specialized x-ray equipment was used, which made it possible to read the Caucasian Albanian palimpsest texts in their entirety. A list of Caucasian Albanian month names, which survived in a number of medieval

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in ...

s, gave one of the clues to the language. In 2017, two additional texts of Caucasian Albanian were discovered in Saint Catherine's Monastery. The original text on the palimpsests was erased anywhere between the 4th and 12th century.

Texts

The deciphered text of the lectionary includes excerpts from the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Psalms The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived ...

'' and ''

Isaiah Isaiah ( or ; he, , ''Yəšaʿyāhū'', "God is Salvation"), also known as Isaias, was the 8th-century BC Israelite prophet after whom the Book of Isaiah is named. Within the text of the Book of Isaiah, Isaiah himself is referred to as "the ...

'') and from the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chri ...

('' Acts of the Apostles'' the gospels of '' Matthew'', ''

Mark Mark may refer to: Currency * Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, the currency of Bosnia and Herzegovina * East German mark, the currency of the German Democratic Republic * Estonian mark, the currency of Estonia between 1918 and 1927 * F ...

'' and '' Luke'', and the epistles of ''

Romans Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

'', '' 1 Corinthians'', '' 2 Corinthians'', ''

Galatians Galatians may refer to: * Galatians (people) * Epistle to the Galatians, a book of the New Testament * English translation of the Greek ''Galatai'' or Latin ''Galatae'', ''Galli,'' or ''Gallograeci'' to refer to either the Galatians or the Gauls in ...

'', ''

Ephesians The Epistle to the Ephesians is the tenth book of the New Testament. Its authorship has traditionally been attributed to Paul the Apostle but starting in 1792, this has been challenged as Deutero-Pauline, that is, pseudepigrapha written in Pau ...

'', '' 1 Thessalonians'', '' 2 Thessalonians'', '' 1 Timothy'', '' 2 Timothy'', ''

Hebrews The terms ''Hebrews'' (Hebrew: / , Modern: ' / ', Tiberian: ' / '; ISO 259-3: ' / ') and ''Hebrew people'' are mostly considered synonymous with the Semitic-speaking Israelites, especially in the pre-monarchic period when they were still ...

'', '' 2 Peter'', '' 1 John'' and ''

James James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguati ...

'').For ''Acts'', see Wolfgang Schulze, "Aspects of Udi–Iranian Language Contact", in Uwe Bläsing, Victoria Arakelova and Matthias Weinreich (eds.), ''Studies on Iran and The Caucasus: In Honour of Garnik Asatrian on the Occasion of His 60th Birthday'' (Leiden: Brill, 2015), pp. 373–401, at 376.See photo of Albanian script of ''2 Corinthians'' 11:26–27 with its repetition of the phrase i
"I was persecuted,"
which helped unlock the key to the alphabet for Aleksidze. Text from the ''

Gospel of John The Gospel of John ( grc, Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάννην, translit=Euangélion katà Iōánnēn) is the fourth of the four canonical gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "sig ...

'', separate from the lectionary, was also found. Its text proved much more difficult to recover and on some pages it can only be identified by the

Eusebian canons Eusebian canons, Eusebian sections or Eusebian apparatus, also known as Ammonian sections, are the system of dividing the four Gospels used between late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The divisions into chapters and verses used in modern texts d ...

at the bottom of the page. This was likely a complete gospel originally, and it is possible that the whole Bible had at some point been translated into Caucasian Albanian. The Caucasian Albanian translation of the Bible relies predominantly on Old Armenian translations, but it deviates from the known Armenian text in several places, suggesting that the original

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

and possibly

Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...

and

Syriac Syriac may refer to: *Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic *Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region * Syriac alphabet ** Syriac (Unicode block) ** Syriac Supplement * Neo-Aramaic languages a ...

translations were also used as source texts. Apart from the Caucasian Albanian palimpsests kept at Mt. Sinai, the most famous samples of Caucasian Albanian inscriptions were found in 1949 during excavations in

Mingachevir Mingachevir ( az, Mingəçevir ) is the fourth-largest city in Azerbaijan with a population of about 106,000. It's often called the "city of lights" because of its hydroelectric power station on the Kur River, which divides the city down the mid ...

region, Azerbaijan. Among the known Caucasian Albanian words are ''zow'' (I), ''own'' (and) and ''avel-om'' (much, ordinal form).

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

References

{{Northeast Caucasian languages Udi language Northeast Caucasian languages Languages attested from the 6th century Languages extinct in the 8th century