Journal | Armeniaca
Journal issue | 3 | 2024
Research Article | The King’s Mellifluous Tongue
The King’s Mellifluous Tongue
Study, Social Bonding, and the Making of Middle Armenian as a Language of the Elite in Medieval Cilicia
Abstract
This article on social history examines the study of Middle Armenian manuscripts at the Cilician court, placing the language’s development within a Mediterranean context that includes Outremer French and Byzantine Greek. In particular, it argues that King Het‘um I (d. 1270) bolstered his status as educated king through the commission of two works from theologian Vardan Arewelc‘i (d. 1271): an encyclopedic compendium and commentary on grammar, which aided vernacular study in different ways. By balancing the microhistory of these manuscripts against the macro-history of Cilician Middle Armenian’s configuration in writing, this article shows how vernacular Armenian became an object of elite study, seemingly capable of representing all the knowledge in the world.
Submitted: Jan. 27, 2024 | Accepted: July 3, 2024 | Published Oct. 31, 2024 | Language: en
Keywords Vernacular • Het'um • Žłlank‘ • Middle Armenian • Old French • Social history • Vardan Arewelc'i • Byzantine Greek • Medieval Cilicia • Educated king
Copyright © 2024 Michael Pifer. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/arm/2974-6051/2024/01/004
