Urartian | |
---|---|
Vannic | |
Native to | Armenian Highland |
Region | Urartu |
Era | attested 9th–6th century BCE |
Hurro-Urartian
| |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | xur |
xur | |
Glottolog | urar1245 |
Urartian is the name for the language spoken by the people of the ancient kingdom of Urartu in northeast Anatolia (present-day Turkey), in the region of Lake Van.
Urartian was a language isolate, which was neither Semitic nor Indo-European, but a member of the Hurro-Urartian family.
There is a hypothesis that suggests that besides the cuneiform inscriptions of the Urartian language, Urartu had a native hieroglyphic writing system. Armenian scientist Artak Movsisyan published a partial attempt deciphering of Urartian hieroglyphs, saying that they were written in an early form of Armenian.