Mesrop Mashtots

Mesrop Mashtots created the Armenian alphabet. A monk and former royal scribe, he devised the letters around 404 to 406, then organized the schools and the translation of the Bible that made Armenian a written language.¹

Early life

Mashtots was born in the village of Hatsekats in the province of Taron, in the west of historical Armenia, and received a Greek education as a boy.¹ He entered the service of the Arsacid royal chancery. He later left the court for a hermit’s life and became a Christian missionary.¹²

The alphabet

With the support of the Catholicos Sahak and King Vramshapuh, Mashtots devised the Armenian alphabet around 404 to 406.¹ His pupil Koriun told the story in The Life of Mashtots. Mashtots first tried a script held by a Syrian bishop named Daniel. After about two years he found that it could not render all the sounds of Armenian, and he worked out a new script with the help of a Greek scribe, Ropanos, at Samosata.¹² The result is described in the entry on the Armenian alphabet.

Translation and schools

The first text he set into the new letters was the Proverbs of Solomon.² A translation movement followed and produced the Armenian Bible, first from Syriac sources and then revised against the Greek.¹ Mashtots sent his students to Edessa, to a Syriac-language school, and to Samosata, to a Greek one, so that they could bring back and translate the texts of the wider Christian world.²¹ One of them, Eznik of Koghb, learned Syriac and Greek in Edessa and Byzantium and later helped translate the Bible.³ He also taught young men and trained scribes, and founded monastic communities in Goghtan and Siunik.²

Tradition connects the first Armenian school with the monastery of Amaras in Artsakh.⁴

Other alphabets

He is also credited with alphabets for the Georgians and the Caucasian Albanians.¹

Death and legacy

Mashtots died in 440 and was buried at Oshakan.¹ The alphabet he created is the one Armenians use today. Two letters, ō and f, were added in the Middle Ages.¹