In the libraries of different European countries at the beginning of the 20th century, amazing books were found written in Armenian graphics, but not in Armenian. Further research revealed an interesting fact: the language of these books generally coincided with the language of the Codex Cumanicus, a collection of texts and a dictionary of the Cuman (Kipchak) language. The well-known Ukrainian and Soviet orientalist Agafangel Krymsky drew attention to this, and in 1930 he published a book entitled "The Turks, their language and literature."

As it turned out, they belong to the Armenians, who lived in the territory of modern Ukraine and Poland since the 16th century. They got there from the Crimea and the northern Black Sea region, as researchers (for example, Yaroslav Dashkevich) believe, fleeing from the Mongols who attacked Armenia. As expected, being in a Turkic-speaking environment, they completely assimilated linguistically, but at the same time retained their religious affiliation to the Armenian Apostolic Church.

At the same time, a rather long period of time remains the main mystery of the Armenian-Kipchaks, during which the appearance of written sources in this language has not been recorded, because about 300 years have passed from the moment of their resettlement to the Turkic-speaking environment until the appearance of the first books.

How the development of the Armenian-Kipchak language took place and on what basis, researchers still cannot answer. But one way or another, all 112 written sources on it belong to the period from 1521 to 1669. Ironically, among them is actually the first printed book in the Kipchak language “Algysh Bitiki” (“Prayer Book”), published in 1618 in Lvov by the famous Armenian educator (a native of Anatolia) Hovhannes Kramadanents.

This is a doubly interesting event, given that in the 17th century the Kipchak language no longer existed in the territories of the former Golden Horde, where this people had previously lived. It miraculously survived among the Armenians who moved to the territory of Ukraine and the Commonwealth. In these territories, they were mainly engaged in trade and were a successful competitor to Jewish merchants, which even caused discontent among subjects of the Polish crown of other nationalities.

Nevertheless, the Polish kings highly appreciated the business qualities of the Armenians and granted them the rights fixed in writing ("Statute of the Lvov Armenians"). In 1578 the rights of the Armenians were equalized with those of the Catholics.

It is worth noting that in relation to the Armenian-Kipchaks there is another version of their origin, which, in particular, is supported by local historian Eduard Vartanov. In his opinion, part of the Kipchaks accepted Christianity according to the canons of the Armenian Church, but at the same time retained their language. Therefore, according to Vartanov, today's Armenians living in the northern Black Sea region and the Krasnodar Territory are in fact the descendants of the Polovtsians.

In any case, the very fact of preserving and fixing the Kipchak language in writing in Latin and Armenian manuscripts is noteworthy. Thanks to this, it was analyzed by linguists, who confirmed that the languages ​​of the so-called "Kipchak language group", spoken by numerous peoples of Central Asia, the Russian Caucasus, the Volga region and Siberia, including the Tatars, are closest to it. And among the Tatars, the Mishar dialect of the Tatar language is closest to the language of common ancestors, in which ancient Turkic words have been preserved that are not in the literary version of the Tatar language (Kazan dialect).

Thus, thanks to the Armenians and unknown Catholic monks, representatives of the Turkic peoples today have the opportunity to learn the language of their distant ancestors.

bbabo.Net