Rouben Abrahamian, born Ṛubēn Tʻadēosi Abrahamyan ( hy, Ռուբեն Թադեւոս Աբրահամյանը; 1881 – 1951) was an Armenian Iranologist, linguist and translator.

Biography

Rouben Abrahamian was born as Ṛubēn Tʻadēosi Abrahamyan in 1881 in the village of

Gnishik Gnishik ( hy, Գնիշիկ) is a village in the Areni Municipality of the Vayots Dzor Province in Armenia. Nature Natural habitats vary from semi-desert to mountain steppes and meadows. The vicinity of Gnishik has been considered to be a Prime ...

in the Vayots Dzor Province of Armenia (then part of the Russian Empire). He received his secondary education in

Etchmiadzin Vagharshapat ( hy, Վաղարշապատ ) is the 4th-largest city in Armenia and the most populous municipal community of Armavir Province, located about west of the capital Yerevan, and north of the closed Turkish-Armenian border. It is comm ...

and Yerevan, and then moved abroad for higher education in a number of places. First, he studied at the Faculty of History and Philology at the Kiev University (1907), then at Leipzig University (1909), and then at the

Saint Petersburg State University Saint Petersburg State University (SPBU; russian: Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the G ...

(1911). After his academic spell in Europe, he returned and started teaching Russian, linguistics, and classical philosophy in Yerevan. Between 1912 and 1921, he taught in Tiflis (Tbilisi), as well as at other schools in the Caucasus region. In 1921, he moved to neighboring Iran and taught for many years at various Armenian schools in Tabriz, New Julfa, and Tehran. During his time in Tehran, as the '' Encyclopaedia Iranica'' states, Abrahamian served as the principal of a large Armenian school. At the same time, he also began his study of ancient and modern Persian. Some time later, he once again travelled to Europe for educational matters, and in 1935, he received his doctorate in philology from the Sorbonne University in Paris (nowadays University of Paris). He wrote his graduation thesis on the Judeo-Persian dialects of Judeo-Isfahani and Judeo-Hamadani. As his biographer Jennifer Manoukian mentions, his interest for this topic stemmed from the time he translated the works of the 11th-century Iranian poet

Baba Tahir Baba Tahir or Baba Taher Oryan Hamadani ( fa, باباطاهر عریان همدانی) was an 11th-century Persian dervish poet from Hamadan, Iran who lived during the reign of Tugril of the Seljuk dynasty over Iran. This is almost all that is k ...

into Armenian. Abrahamian's work on this matter was pivotal, for he found important commonalities between the language used in Baba Tahir’s poems and the Jewish dialects of the Iranian cities of Hamadān and

Isfahan Isfahan ( fa, اصفهان, Esfahân ), from its Achaemenid empire, ancient designation ''Aspadana'' and, later, ''Spahan'' in Sassanian Empire, middle Persian, rendered in English as ''Ispahan'', is a major city in the Greater Isfahan Regio ...

. His findings on behalf of Baba Tahir and the Jewish dialects were published in the following year under the title of ''Dialectologie iranienne: dialectes des Israélites de Hamadan et d’Ispahan et dialecte de Baba Tahir''. When the University of Tehran was founded in 1935, Abrahamian participated actively in the establishment of its department of Ancient Iranian Languages, where he subsequently started teaching

Pahlavi Pahlavi may refer to: Iranian royalty *Seven Parthian clans, ruling Parthian families during the Sasanian Empire *Pahlavi dynasty, the ruling house of Imperial State of Persia/Iran from 1925 until 1979 **Reza Shah, Reza Shah Pahlavi (1878–1944 ...

and became head of the faculty as well. In 1946, following the Iran crisis of 1946, he moved to Soviet Armenia, where he worked at the Institute of Languages at the Academy of Sciences in Yerevan.

Publications

* Kʻareakner ew ḡazalner: Baba Tʻahir Orian Hamadani (The quatrains and ḡazals of Bābā Ṭāher ʿOryān Hamadāni), Tehran, 1930. * Ferdovsin ew ir Šahnamēn (Ferdowsi and his Shahnameh), Tehran, 1934. * Hatuatsner Šahnameits (Excerpts from the Shahnameh), Tehran, 1934. * Dialectologie iranienne : dialectes des Israélites de Hamadan et d’Ispahan et dialecte de Baba Tahir, Paris, 1936. * Alefbā-ye pahlavi, Tehran, 1937. * Rāhnemā-ye zabān-e pahlavi, Tehran, 1938. * Sayatʻ-Novayi tagherě (The Verses of Sayat Nova), Tehran, 1943. * Ardā Wīrāz-nāmag, Yerevan, 1958. * Pahlaveren-parskeren-hayeren-ṛuseren-angleren baṛaran (Pahlavi-Persian-Armenian-Russian-English dictionary), Yerevan, 1965.

References

Sources

* * H. M. Ayvazean, Ov ov ē hayer: Kensagrakan hanragitaran (Who is Who among Armenians: Biographical encyclopedia), Yerevan, 2005, p. 22. * B. L Chʻugaszean, Hayrenatardz iranahay dēmkʻer (Repatriated Iranian-Armenians), Yerevan, 1997, pp. 11–12. {{DEFAULTSORT:Abrahamian, Rouben 1881 births 1951 deaths People from Vayots Dzor Province People from Erivan Governorate Ethnic Armenian academics Ethnic Armenian translators Translators from Persian Translators to Armenian Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv alumni Saint Petersburg State University alumni University of Paris alumni Leipzig University alumni Iranologists Soviet emigrants to Iran Armenian people from the Russian Empire Soviet Armenians Iranian people of Armenian descent Iranian emigrants to the Soviet Union University of Tehran faculty Soviet translators 20th-century translators Iranian translators Linguists from Iran Linguists from the Soviet Union 20th-century linguists Linguists of Persian Iranian grammarians Expatriates from the Russian Empire in Germany Iranian expatriates in France