Armenian: Sabian

[Ovnilab]

I've been told that this writing is Armenian. What does it say? Is it a name or a phrase? Is it a transliteration in Armenian script from another language?

Thank you!

 

[Panceltic]

Looks a bit like Սասկիա = Saskia to me, but I'm not sure. It appears to be a name or a signature.

 

[Ovnilab]

Thanks, but it turns out to be "Sabian" written by a Western Armenian.

 

[Panceltic]

I see. I thought of պ too, but there is one stroke too many so I thought it was սկ. The final ն is very artistically developed!

 

[Gavril]

Interesting -- the standard ways of writing the Armenian name-suffix -ian are -եան (in the Western Armenian orthography) or -յան (in the Eastern). I have never seen the variant -իան, as written on that cymbal, but then again I'm not an expert.

 

[DarkChild]

It's the opposite.

 

[Gavril]

No, it isn't. For example, here is a page from Armenia's government website (therefore written in Eastern Armenian) about the former president, Robert Kocharyan. You can see that the page spells his last name "Քոչարյան".

In Western Armenian writing, the letter յ does not even represent the sound "y", as far as I can recall, but rather the sound "h": for example, the Armenian equivalent of Jesus is written Յիսուս (with initial յ) in Western and Հիսուս (with initial հ) in Eastern, but pronounced [hi'sus] in both.