Urartian Grammar in the Yamato Language
Of the languages in the vicinity of the Assyrian empire at the time of the exile of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, the only one that resembles the Yamato Language grammatically is
Urartian. What follows are the correlations I have found between the Yamato language and Urartian, based on the texts scholars have found in the cuneiform inscriptions dotting the landscape of the former Urartian kingdom. Urartian is now an extinct language, with its closest related languages being Armenian and Kurdish, but these are Indo-European languages so not direct descendents. As the corpus of Urartian is limited, we are not able to fully extract all aspects of the Urartian language and its grammar from the artifacts found. Still, we can use it as a base for assessing the impact that it had on the Yamato language and potentially the other languages of the Ural-Altaic family.
Abstract Nouns
The creation of an abstract noun from a verb or adjective is done by placing the suffix "-šə" at the end of the word.
Urartian Examples:*
| Urartian base word | Suffix | Meaning |
| ulgu | -šə | life |
| usma | -šə | might |
| arniu | -šə | deed, exploit |
*examples from Iranica Online
This form exists today in the Japanese language (again without the "h").
Yamato Examples:
The word "shathaq" in Hebrew became the Yamato word "shizuka" meaning "to be quiet or silent", by appending the "-sa" suffix to the word, it becomes an abstract noun.
| adjective | suffix | abstract noun | meaning |
| shizuka | -sa | shizukesa | stillness, silence, hush, calm, serenity |
The adjective form of the Hebrew word "shaphrur" (beauty) is the Yamato word "subarashii" meaning "splendid, wonderful, magnificent", by appending the "-sa suffix to the word, this adjective too becomes an abstract noun.
| adjective | suffix | abstract noun | meaning |
| subarashii | -sa | subarashisa | splendour, magnificence, beauty |
Verb Morphology
Infinitive Form
The infinitive form of an Urartian verb always ends with the letter "u". [
Bertin, p. 74] Appending this "u" to the infinitive form of the Hebrew verbs gets us the Yamato infinitive verb form.
In other words, Hebrew verb + Urartian infinitive "-u" suffix = Yamato verb infinitive
Below are some examples of Hebrew verbs where by appending the Urartian infinitive "-u" suffix you arrive at the Yamato verb.
Yamato Examples:
| Hebrew verb* |
Urartian suffix |
Yamato infinitive** |
meaning |
| nagar |
-u |
nagaru |
to flow, stream, run |
| paras |
-u |
barasu |
to break apart |
| baqar |
-u |
hakaru |
to seek, consult |
| barar |
-u |
harau |
to purify, cleanse |
| chagar |
-u |
kakeru |
to put on (clothing) |
| chamas |
-u |
kamasu |
to inflict (a blow) |
| charar |
-u |
kareru |
to wither, get parched |
| dabar |
-u |
daberu |
to speak, chat with |
| dagar |
-u |
takaru |
to gather together, crowd, swarm |
| kaphar |
-u |
kaburu |
to cover over |
| magar |
-u |
maku / makeru |
to cast, throw, scatter / to be defeated, overthrown |
| parar |
-u |
wareru |
to break, divide, smash, be torn |
| patar |
-u |
wataru |
to cross over |
| tsabar |
-u |
tsumoru |
to heap, pile up, accumulate |
| halak |
-u |
aruku |
to walk |
| haphak |
-u |
habuku |
to turn, change, curtail, eliminate |
| galam |
-u |
karamu |
to entwine, entangle, wrap up, fold together |
| kasam |
-u |
hasamu |
to clip, snip |
| nakar |
-u |
wakaru |
to recognize, realize, comprehend, understand |
| yacham |
-u |
yaku |
to heat, burn |
| asah |
-u |
su |
to do, make |
*I will cover the sound transitions from the original Hebrew to the Yamato pronunciations on the page covering
Yamato phonetics.
**The sounds for these verbs reflect the modern day pronunciation and not reflective of the Old Japanese which is closer to the original Hebrew in sound.
Gerund
The Urartian gerund which is the verb form that makes a verb behave as a noun (like "-ing" in English) is denoted by the suffix "-li". [
Bertin, p. 74] For Yamato verbs that end in "-ru", this translates to the "-ri" form. Verbs not ending in "-ru" simply take the suffix "-i" attached to the last consonant of the verb replacing the "-u" of the infinitive.
Yamato Examples:
| verb | suffix | gerund | meaning |
| hashiru | -ri | hashiri | running |
| aruku | -i | aruki | walking |
Imperative Form
The imperative form of the Urartian verb is created by attaching "ə" to the verb stem. This same form exists in the Yamato language.
Urartian Example:
*
*example from
Wikipedia
Yamato Example:
| verb | meaning |
| kak-e! | write! |
| s-e! | do! |
Passive Form
The passive form of an Urartian verb is created with the suffix "-u-lə" or "-u-rə". In Japanese this form became "-areru" or "rareru".
Yamato Examples:
| Yamato verb |
Passive suffix |
Yamato Passive verb |
meaning |
| habuku |
-areru |
habukareru |
to be left out |
| kakeru |
-rareru |
kakerareru |
to get covered |
Past Tense Form
Urartian has several past tense forms depending on the actor. There are two in particular of note that we see reflected in the Yamato langage, "-da" and "-a-da". In the Yamato language the past tense of a verb is formed by appending the suffix "-ta" to the end of the verb.
Urartian Examples:*
| Urartian verb |
Past Tense suffix |
Verb form |
meaning |
| manu |
-da |
manuda |
I stayed |
| nun |
-ada |
nunada |
I came |
| ab |
-a-da |
abada |
I requested |
*examples from Iranica Online
Yamato Examples:
| Yamato verb |
Past tense suffix |
Past tense verb |
meaning |
| wareru |
-ta |
wareta |
it broke |
| kareru |
-ta |
kareta |
it dried up |
Progressive Tense Form
Urartian has another suffix in the form of "-sht". The became the "-te" from of the Yamato verb with "-shite" and "-te" being inserted before the end of the verb to denote progressive action.
Examples:
| Yamato verb |
Progressive form |
Past/Present progressive verb |
meaning |
| su |
-shite-ru |
shi-te-ru |
am doing |
| su |
-shite-ta |
shi-te-ta |
was doing |
| daberu |
-te-ru |
dabe-te-ru |
is chatting away |
| daberu |
-te-ta |
dabe-te-ta |
was being loquacious |
| barasu |
-shite-ru |
bara-shite-ru |
is scattering them |
| barasu |
-shite-ta |
bara-shite-ta |
was being split up |
Word Order
As mentioned previously, the Urartian word order is typically subject-object-verb (
SOV). This contrasts with Ancient Hebrew which was verb-subject-object (
VSO). When the transition from VSO to SOV was made is not certain, as the
Akkadian language used by the Assyrians was also SOV. But it is likely that occurred in conjunction with the adoption of the other grammatical features of the Urartian language. It is also interesting to note that most of the languages of Central, South and East Asia are also SOV.
Postposition Particles
Urartian has a number of postposition particles which are still reflected in the Japanese language today.
Directional Particle
Urartian has the particle "-e" to determine the direction of an action. In Japanese, the equivalent particle is spelled "he" but it is pronounced without the "h" and thus has the same sound as the Urartian particle. Semantically, this particle ascribes the direction, destination or target of an action. [
A handbook of Japanese Usage, Fracis G Drohan, Tuttle, p.55]
Relational Particle
Urartian has a relational suffix "-nə/-na" which gets appended to root of the word, this suffix is "-no" in the Yamato language and is still used in Japanese today to denote the relationship.
Urartian example:*
ulgusi-ya-
ne ed-i-ne "for
his life"
*example from Iranica Online
Yamato Examples:
The word "atah" in Hebrew became the Yamato word "anta/anata" meaning "you". By appending the "-no" suffix it denotes relationship or possession.
| pronoun | suffix | possessive pronoun | meaning |
| anata | -no | anata-no | your |
This also applies to the Hebrew words "koh" and "zoth" meaning "here" and "the other". These became "ko" and "so" in the Yamato language.
| word | suffix | relational indicator | meaning |
| ko | -no | kono | this |
| so | -no | sono | that |
| word | suffix | pronoun | meaning |
| ko | -re | kore | this one |
| so | -re | sore | that one |
The Yamato language also has another word used to denote "that" which is implies an even further distance than "so". This is transcribed as "are". I believe this comes from the Urartian "a-li" which also means "that".
Urartian also has partical "-me" which attaches to nouns, the equivalent is "-mo" in the Yamato language. In Japanese this denotes inclusion:
Yamato Examples:
| pronoun | suffix | inclusion operator | meaning |
| anata | -mo | anato-mo | you too |
Ideograms
In ancient civilizations, writers would often use pictures to describe words, where the picture would have sound and meaning associated with it. We see this in the ancient writings of Sumer, Egypt and China. Urartian also employed the use of these pictures or "ideograms" as scholars call them, no doubt borrowed from Assyria, which in turn borrowed them from Sumer.
Whether or not the Cimmerians brought cuneiform writing of Urartu to Japan is unknown. The Hebrew alphabet was sufficient to represent the sounds required to transcribe the language, so likely not. But an interesting thing to note about the cuneiform inscriptions of Urartu was that ideograms were used along side cuneiform writing purely representing sounds.
Coincidence or not, I do find it interesting that over a millennia later, the Japanese resurrected this practice of writing ideograms along side sounds after adopting Chinese characters (
Kanji) as the common form of writing. For a few centuries they did write even the sounds of the native language with Kanji, a form of writing called
Manyogana, but eventually the Japanese developed a
native script to represent the sounds. This practice of writing pictographs alongside native script is still alive and very much in use in modern Japanese today.
Silent Vowels
As with the Yamato language, we see in Urartian the final vowel is sometimes not read but written because the characters are syllabic and cannot be written with just merely the consonant [
Bertin, p. 70].
In modern Japanese, we find this practice where the "u" in the "desu" and "-masu" honorific forms is typically not pronounced. The same is the case for the "i" in "shita" (did), where the "i" is not pronounced. This phenomenon is
well noted in the Japanese language.
Dropped Consonants
According to Bertin, there were dialectical variations even in Urartu, where in some cases the first consonant of a word was dropped [
Bertin, p.70]. This could possibly explain why in many of the Hebrew words found in the Yamato language the first letter is missing. For example, "adonai" and "asah" respectively became "tono" and "su" in the Yamato language where the alef at the start of the word has gone missing. As noted with the silent vowels above, we also see this
deletion of letters and morphemes at the head and tail of the original Hebrew word.
Confounded Consonants
Bertin also states that some consonants are confounded or used in an overlapping way. [
Bertin, pp 70-71] For example, the consonants "b" and "p", as well as "sh" and "z", and "d" and "ts". This could explain why a Hebrew word like "
paras" (break apart) could become "
barasu" in the Yamato language. Or a word like "bo
sh" (to be ashamed) could become "ha
zu" or "ha
zi". Or how "mo
tsaah" (source or origin) could eventually become "mo
to" in the Yamato language.
Initial Liquid Absence
The Urartian language has no words that begin with "r".
1 It is highly likely that the absence of this liquid sound is the reason why it is also missing from all Altaic languages. According to Edwin Pulleybank, in his "The Consonantal System of Old Chinese", the initial "r" at the beginning of a word in all Altaic languages is
entirely absent.
2.
Existence
In the Yamato language, the word describing existence of inanimate objects is "aru". "Aru" is a special word that can be used as a verb, a supporting verb or a descriptor. A word serving a similar function in the Urartian language is "a-li" or "a-le", most often transcribed as meaning "that" or "which". This form also exists in Turkic languages. In the Yamato language a phrase like "aru hito" would mean "a certain person". But we also see the form of the word being used as verb to describe finality. For example, a statement like "[the thing] is made" one would use the verb "tsukuru" along with "aru" in the following form: "tsukutte-aru". I see this in the Urartian language as well which leads me to believe that the Yamato verb "aru" comes from the Urartian "ali".
Let's move on the the Hebrew influence on the Yamato language in the
next section
1Gernot Wilhelm, "The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages: Urartian", p.122.
2Edwin Pulleybank, "The Consonantal System of Old Chinese", p.240.