[199]. It is equally possible that the modern Armenian language was introduced into the country at an earlier date, and existed there side by side with the official language of the Urartu inscriptions. Egyptian records show that an Iranian people, the Mitanni (Matienoi), were established in Northern Mesopotamia as early as the 16th century B.C., and their name clung to the Urmia basin as late as Strabo’s day. They were the western outposts of Indo-European settlement on the Iranian plateau. On the whole, however the Mitanni are more likely to have been the originators of the Kurdish language than of the Armenian.
[200]. In the classical form, of which the spoken language of to-day is a development.
[201]. Probably a synthesis of Hittite and Cimmerian, corresponding to the Urartu-Scythian blend which we have suggested as the origin of Armenian.
[202]. The traditional date varies from 261 to 301 A.D.
[203]. A suggestive parallel to the way in which another foreign missionary, St. Patrick, has become the national hero of Ireland.
[204]. In 553 A.D. the national individuality of the Gregorian (Armenian) Church was given formal expression by the foundation of a new ecclesiastical era.
[205]. Herodotus’ “Province of the Matienoi, Alarodioi and Saspeires.”
[206]. This is the probable extent of Herodotus’ puzzling “Province of the Armenians and Paktyes,” and the certain extent of the later Sophene.
[207]. The provenance of this name is as obscure as every other problem of Armenian origins. It may mean “the land of Erimenas,” a king of Urartu, known from an inscription on a votive offering at Van, just as the neighbouring province of Azerbaijan derives its name from the satrap Atropates; or (as Lord Bryce suggests) it may be a “portmanteau word,” perhaps compounded of Urartu and Minni, the Assyrian name for the upper basin of the Greater Zab. The name of Kat-Patuka (Cappadocia) is a possible analogy to this latter suggestion.
[208]. Turkish “Ermen-ler.”