What is Urartian language?
{{Infobox language |name=Urartian |altname=Vannic |states=[[Armenian Highland]] |region=[[Urartu]] |era=attested 9th–6th century BCE |familycolor=Caucasian |fam1=[[Hurro-Urartian languages|Hurro-Urartian]] |iso3=xur |glotto=urar1245 |glottorefname=Urartian |linglist=xur |notice=IPA }} [[File:Urartian language stone, Erebuni museum 3.jpg|thumb|right|Urartian cuneiform tablet on display at the Erebuni Museum in [[Yerevan]].]] '''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 languages|Semitic]] nor [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]], but a member of the [[Hurro-Urartian languages|Hurro-Urartian]] family. There is a [[hypothesis]] that suggests that besides the [[cuneiform]] inscriptions of the Urartian language, Urartu had a native [[hieroglyph]]ic [[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 language|Armenian]]. ==Related pages== *[[Urartu]] == More reading == *C. B. F. Walker: section ''Cuneiform'' in ''Reading the Past''. Published by British Museum Press, 1996, {{ISBN|0-7141-8077-7}}. *J. Friedrich: ''Urartäisch'', in ''Handbuch der Orientalistik I'', ii, 1-2, pp.&nbsp;31–53. Leiden, 1969. *Gernot Wilhelm: ''Urartian'', in R. Woodard (ed.), ''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World’s Ancient Languages''. Cambridge, 2004. *Mirjo Salvini: ''Geschichte und Kultur der Urartäer''. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, 1995. == Other websites == *[http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=Urartian_hieroglyphs_hypothesis Urartian hieroglyphs hypothesis] [[Category:Urartu]]