Page:Islam, Turkey, and Armenia, and How They Happened.djvu/70

64 occupy the country before the seventh century B.C. They followed the track of the Medes, owing to the gradual decline of the Assyrian Empire. The arguments in favor of this theory are the facts that the Armenians in their physiognomy and natural construction and in their traditions and language have close connection and resemblance with other Aryan nations, which would be the contrary if they had an Assyrian or Chaldean origin. The Armenian language has not the slightest resemblance of the Semitic branch, Assyrian, Chaldean, Phœnician, Hebrew and Arabic; while many original words and other characteristics of the language show the evident identity with the Indo-Germanic (European) branch—for instance, Mayer, mother; Douster, daughter; Hair, hair; Vod, foot; Gow, cow; Lure, light; Dour, door; Gadou, cat; Bardes, paradise; Der, day; Ash, ass; Anoun, noun, and many others.

3. Armenia According to the Ancient Foreign Historians. In the famous inscriptions of the Achæmanides (the ancient Persian monarchs, as Darius, Hystaspes, Xerxes, Artaxerxes, and others) in Persepolis (the ancient Persian capital of the said dynasty and afterward ruined by Alexander the Great) the name of Armenia is found written in various forms, and the pictures of Armenian tributaries are represented as marching after the Cappadocians to render homage to the great Persian king; the probable date, six centuries before Christ.

Herodotus, the oldest Greek historian, born 484 B.C., also mentions the absorption of the Armenian