The Development of the Basic Words of the Semantic Field Denoting a Person in the Ancient Armenian Translation of the Book of Genesis

Abstract

A study of words relating to man and society in The Book of Genesis shows that this semantic group has many verbal units for denoting basic concepts, whether they are simple roots or compound constructions that are combined into subgroups that complement each other. The words included in the subgroups of this semantic field have a rich spectrum in terms of the number of synonyms. Most of these words of Indo -European origin: մարդ, այր, ծնունդ, մանուկ, հայր, մայր, եղբայր, քոյր, ուստր, դուստր, անդրանիկ, ծնունդ, ընտանիք տուն, there are several borrowings: Iranian (ազգ, տոհմ, զաւակ) and Syrian (տղայ). Borrowings enrich a variety of synonymic series. The studied words are used in all periods of the history of the Armenian language: in Old Armenian, Middle Armenian and in the new literary language, as well as in dialects. Their semantic content basically has not changed over the centuries, only some words have moved from the basic vocabulary to the layers of obsolete and poetic words. Our translators, translating the Holy Scripture into the Ancient Armenian language from the Greek and Syriac originals, with great talent demonstrated the potential of the vocabulary of the classical Grabar of the Golden Age, the ability to express the same concept in several words with subtle stylistic, semantic nuances, equivalent to the original Holy Scripture.