GREPPIN TALKS EARLY URARTIAN INFLUENCE ON ARMENIA THURSDAY

Belmont Citizen-Herald
March 3 2009
MA

Belmont, Mass. – Prof. John A. C. Greppin of Cleveland State
University will give a lecture on "The Urartian Influence on the
Earliest Armenians," at 8 p.m. on Thursday, March 5, at the National
Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) Center, 395
Concord Ave. in Belmont.

It is now well known that the Urartians preceded the Armenians in the
South Caucasus and that they influenced the Armenians who followed them
for at least two centuries until the arrival of the Persians under
Darius in about 525 B.C. The Armenians learned from the Urartians
their wine skills, an important cultural influence. They assuredly
learned other agricultural skills in grain crops and especially in
irrigation methods for which the Urartians were famous.

But the Urartian influence went deeper and left a linguistic substratum
in the Armenian language that has been known about for over 60 years,
following the initial scholarly investigations of Grigor Ghapantsian
in Yerevan. Prof. Greppin will focus on the linguistic relationships
between these two ancient peoples and will touch upon cultural and
other connections.

John A. C. Greppin is professor of linguistics at Cleveland State
University in Ohio where he has taught for the past 34 years. He
received his Ph.D. from UCLA in 1972 in Indo-European Studies,
and through his work with the late Prof. Avedis Sanjian developed a
specialty in Classical Armenian. He is the author of 14 books and some
500 articles and reviews on the Armenian language and other subjects
and has served as the editor of the Annual of Armenian Linguistics
and the Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies and was managing
editor of Raft: A Journal of Armenian Poetry.

Admission to the event is free (donations appreciated). The NAASR
Center is located opposite the First Armenian Church and next to the
U.S. Post Office. Ample parking is available around the building and
in adjacent areas. The lecture will begin promptly at 8 p.m.

More information about the lecture is available by calling
617-489-1610, faxing 617-484-1759, e-mailing hq@naasr.org, or writing
to NAASR, 395 Concord Ave., Belmont, MA 02478.