REQUEST for registration of variant subtag 'grabar'
Doug Ewell
dewell at adelphia.net
Mon Sep 25 16:10:25 CEST 2006
The request below was submitted on September 8 and has completed its
2-week review period. So far, there has been only one comment; Peter
said that Classical Armenian was sufficiently different from modern
Armenian that it should be proposed to ISO 639 RA/JAC as a language code
element, not to ietf-languages as a variant subtag.
Does anyone else have any comment? Michael is in Tokyo at the WG2
meeting and his e-mail availability is spotty, though I suspect he'll
respond at some point.
--
Doug Ewell
Fullerton, California, USA
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
RFC 4645 * UTN #14
> LANGUAGE SUBTAG REGISTRATION FORM
> 1. Name of requester: JFC Morfin
> 2. E-mail address of requester: jefsey at jefsey.com
> 3. Record Requested:
>
> Type: variant
> Subtag: grabar
> Description: Classical written Armenian
> Prefix: hy
> Comments: Used for all Armenian writing, 5th-18th centuries
>
> 4. Intended meaning of the subtag:
> Specifies the written form of Classical Armenian,
> used for all purposes from the 5th century (the
> Armenian Bible) until the 18th century, and since
> then as the liturgical language of the Armenian
> Orthodox Church.
>
> 5. Reference to published description
> of the language (book or article):
>
> Dictionary of Grabar (Classical Armenian)
> by Ruben Ghazarian
> Language: Grabar
> Published by: Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia, Lebanon, 2004
> Format: Hardcover, 1330 pages
> Dimensions (in inches): 8.75 x 5.5
>
> 6. Any other relevant information:
>
> St. Mesrop Mashtots in 405 invented the Armenian alphabet. Classical
> Armenian (Grabar) dates from the 5th - 12th centuries, and is still
> employed as the scholarly and liturgical language, medieval Armenian
> (12th - 17th centuries). Classical, medieval and modern Armenian use
> the same alphabet, which originally had 36 letters but now has 39.
> There
> are two main spoken dialects, Western Armenian and Eastern Armenian.
>
> The Catholicos Sahak the Great and St. Mesrop, encouraged by King
> Vramshapuh formed a school of translators who were sent to Edessa to
> procure and translate Syrian and Greek copies of the scriptures and
> other important works. Much of the literary activity of the 5th
> century,
> the golden age (oskedar) of Armenian literature, was devoted to such
> translations and original works. The formation of national
> bibliography
> records is being dated to these times.
>
> Since the 5th century thousands of manuscripts and printed materials
> have
> been created all over the world by Armenian writers. The Matenadaran
> is one of the oldest and richest book-depositories in the world. Its
> collection of about 17,000 manuscripts includes almost all the areas
> of
> ancient and medieval Armenian culture and sciences - history,
> geography,
> grammar, philosophy, law, medicine, mathematics-cosmography, theory of
> calendar, alchemy-chemistry, translations, literature, chronology art
> history, miniature, music and theatre, as well as manuscripts in
> Arabic,
> Persian, Greek, Syrian, Latin, Ethiopian, Indian, Japanese and others.
>
> The Armenian Church fostered literature, and the principal early works
> are religious or hagiographical, most of them translations. The first
> major Armenian literary work is a 5th-century translation of the
> Bible;
> its language became the standard of classical Armenian. Early
> Mesopotamian
> influence resulted in Syriac translations (Aphraates and St. Ephraem
> Syrus). Armenia then turned to the West for literary inspiration,
> producing translations of many religious works (Athanasius, Basil the
> Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzen, and John Chrysostom).
> Among
> secular works are renderings of Aristotle and of the romance of
> Alexander. The original writings of the Golden Age are confined to
> saints'
> lives and histories. The 5th-century history of Moses of Khorni
> contains
> practically all that is known of pre-Christian Armenia, its folklore
> and
> epics. Later historians include Thomas Ardzruni (10th century),
> Matthew
> of Edessa, who described the Crusades, and Stephanos Orbelian, who
> wrote
> of the Mongol hordes (13th century). A tradition of nationalistic epic
> poetry, influenced by Muslim forms, emerged; the best-known example is
> David of Sassoun. The principal figure of the 12th century is
> Catholicos
> Narses IV, a prelate and poet notable for his literary style.
>
> http://www.zdnet.fr/telecharger/windows/fiche/0,39021313,12108812s,00.htm
> ensemble d'outils (polices, pilote pour modifierle clavier, etc...)
> pour naviguer, communiquer et écrire le grabar (arménien classique).
> A set of tools (font, keyboard driver, etc.) to browse the Internet,
> communicate and write Grabar (Classical Armenian) online since:
> 2004/04/18
> 20:00:00 , downloaded 922 times by 2006/09/07
>
> Note: This registration is to be reviewed by the Language Subtags and
> Extensions Reviewer, Moderator of the ietf-languages at iana.org mailing
> list according to the RFC draft-ietf-ltru-registry-14.txt.
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