General information

The Armeno-Kipchak language was a Turkish language used by the Polish Armenian community inhabiting, from the 11th century onwards, the area of Red Ruthenia (which became part of the Republic of Poland in the late 14th century). It was written using either the Old Armenian (Stachowski 2010: 213Stachowski 2010: 213 / komentarz/comment/r /
Stachowski, Stanisław 2010. "Polonizacja języka ormiańsko-kipczackiego",  LingVaria 2: 213-227.
) or the Armenian script (Pisowicz 2009: 11Pisowicz 2009: 11 / komentarz/comment/r /
Pisowicz, Andrzej 2009. "Czy polscy Ormianie mówili po tatarsku?", Życie Tatarskie 98-100: 10-12.

). The language became extinct in 17th century and nowadays it has no speakers. Single publications in it are published however. These are mostly reprints of the 16th or 17th century manuscripts with explanatory notes.

The question of terminology

The Armeno-Kipchak language, in its introductory phase of development, should be classified as one of the Kipchak dialects. Pisowicz (2009) describes the language as a ‘variant of the Kipchak language called Armeno-Kipchak’ (Pisowicz 2009: 11Pisowicz 2009: 11 / komentarz/comment/r /
Pisowicz, Andrzej 2009. "Czy polscy Ormianie mówili po tatarsku?", Życie Tatarskie 98-100: 10-12.

).
There seems to be an abundance of terminological inaccuracies when it comes to the Armeno-Kipchak language. Garkavec (1979Garkavec 1979: 5-6 / komentarz/comment/r /
Garkavec, A. N. 1979. Konvergencija armjano-kypchatskogo jazyka k slavjanskim v XVI-XVII vv. Kiev: Naukova Dumka.

) under the entry of equal ‘the Armeno-Kipchak language and history of research about it’ consistently uses the term ‘the Armeno-Cuman language’. While discussing the documents from Lwów and Kamieniec Podolski from the 16th and 17th century, he calls them ‘remains of the Kipchak language written using the Armenian alphabet’ (Garkavec 1979: 5-6Garkavec 1979: 5-6 / komentarz/comment/r /
Garkavec, A. N. 1979. Konvergencija armjano-kypchatskogo jazyka k slavjanskim v XVI-XVII vv. Kiev: Naukova Dumka.

). During that time the Kipchak language was already extinct while Armeno-Kipchak had evolved into a separate language system. When it comes to the label ‘Armeno-Cuman’, its use could be justified by the desire to differentiate the language of 14th century Crimean Armenians from those living in Poland. The majority of the information on the latter comes from documents dating back to the 16th and 17th century.

Linguonyms:

The following names are used when referring to the Armeno-Kipchak language:

• in Polish: język armeno-kipczacki, język ormiańsko-kipczacki, język ormianokipczacki, język tatarski, tatarka.
• in Armeno-Kipchak: (written using the Cyrilic script): хыпчах тили ‘the Kipchak language’, бизим тил ‘our language’, татарча ‘Tatar’
• in Russian: aрмя́но-кыпча́кский язы́к; aрмя́но-полвецкский язы́к, кыпча́кский язы́к
• in Ukrainian: вірмено-кипчацька мова;
• in Armenian: Հայ-ղփչաղերեն, Հայ-ղփչաղական լեզու ;
• in English: the Armeno-Kipchak language.

Genetic and typological classification

Turkish studies tend to talk about ‘Kipchak dialects’ (Berta 2006: 158por. Berta 2006: 158 / komentarz/comment/r /
por. Berta, Árpád 2006. "Middle Kipchak",w: Lars Johnson & Éva Á. Csató (red.) The Turkic Languages. London – New York: Routledge.

). The Kipchak language was spoken in the 14th century by, among others, Crimean Karaites (Tyszkiewicz 1989: 149Tyszkiewicz 1989: 149 / komentarz/comment/r /
Tyszkiewicz, Jan 1989. Tatarzy na Litwie i w Polsce. Studia z dziejów XIII – XVIII w. Warszawa: PWN.

). From the perspective of historical linguistics, the Kipchak language (or the Kipchak dialects), which is also the father language of Tatar, Crimean Tatar, Cuman, Armeno-Kipchak etc., is often called the Middle Kipchak. 
The typological characteristics will be different for every stage of development of the Armeno-Kipchak language. These stages correspond to subsequent stages of Armenian settling in the area of Red Ruthenia which took place from the 11th to 16th century. Newcomers established a new linguistic heritage and interacted with the population already living in the area, both Armenian and non-Armenian in origin.
Genetically, the Kipchak language belonged to the Turkish language family (sometimes considered a subfamily of Altaic languages), Kipchak group of languages and Kipchak-Cuman subgroup. The Armeno-Kipchak language is classified as a Turkish language of the Kipchak group and Kipchak-Cuman subgroup. It is worth noting that, contrary to what the name ‘Armeno-Kipchak’ might suggest, the language is Turkish and the Armenian element is very small and mainly when it comes to the lexicon. The Armeno-Kipchak language is the language of the Polish Armenian community. It is written down using the Armenian script.
The language of the Armenian settlers coming from Crimea in the 14th century, described by Garkavac (1979Garkavec 1979: 5 / komentarz/comment/r /
Garkavec, A. N. 1979. Konvergencija armjano-kypchatskogo jazyka k slavjanskim v XVI-XVII vv. Kiev: Naukova Dumka.

) as ‘Armeno-Cuman’ was most similar to the Trakai dialect of the Karaim language as well as the Crimean-Tatar language and Kipchak-Urum dialects from the area by the Sea of Azov when it came to phonetics and grammar.
A feature that sets Armeno-Kipchak apart from the other languages originating from the Kipchak dialects is the preference of the contracted negative form in the first person singular (i.e. Bermen < Bersemen ‘I do not give’); in other languages this form was non-standard (Berta 2006: 163Berta 2006: 163 / komentarz/comment/r /
Berta, Árpád 2006. "Middle Kipchak", w: Lars Johnson & Éva Á. Csató (red.) The Turkic Languages. London – New York: Routledge.

).
A verb particle –ma (–maχ) expressing an order or obligation (i.e. figovat ėtma ‘one needs, one must, one should’)  can be found in the manuscripts of Andrzej Torosowicz (look: Selected texts) which date back to the 17th century. The Kipchak –maχ originated as an infinitive ending and words with this ending (i.e. sïnamaχ ‘to experiment’) are very rare in the Armeno-Kipchak language (Tryjarski 2005: 11Tryjarski 2005: 11 / komentarz/comment/r /
Tryjarski, Edward 2005. Armeno-Kipchak Texts in the Alchemical Treatise by Andrzej Torosowicz (17th Century). Warszawa: Dom Wydawniczy Elipsa.

).
The orthography found in the manuscript of Andrzej Torosowicz (look at Selected texts), albeit used inconsistently at times (Tryjarski 2005: 9por. Tryjarski 2005: 9 / komentarz/comment/r /
Tryjarski, Edward 2005. Armeno-Kipchak Texts in the Alchemical Treatise by Andrzej Torosowicz (17th Century). Warszawa: Dom Wydawniczy Elipsa.

), allows one to suspect that Armeno-Kipchak possessed the phoneme [h] at the time of the manuscript’s creation. While comparing this manuscript to Armeno-Kipchak texts written earlier, one notices the presence of the letter  <Հ> in words which later are transcribed with a <ք>. Thus, it can be speculated that there was a shift from [ɤ] to [h]. This assumption is shaky however as it is supported only by one author whose idiolect might have pronounced the phoneme in a Ukrainian manner (Tryjarski 2005: 10Tryjarski 2005: 10 / komentarz/comment/r /
Tryjarski, Edward 2005. Armeno-Kipchak Texts in the Alchemical Treatise by Andrzej Torosowicz (17th Century). Warszawa: Dom Wydawniczy Elipsa.

).

The community of speakers

History of Armenian settlements in the Republic of Poland

The waves of Armenian emigration to the area of the nowadays Poland were numerous as were their sources. Armenians came to the Republic of Poland from various territories.
The primeval motherland of Armenians was Armenia. Mass emmigration to the West happened after the fall of the Bagratuni Kingdom of Armenia in 1045 and the partitions of Armenia which now fell under Persian and Turkish rule. The Bagratuni Kingdom’s territories are marked in orange in the picture below.


Bagratuni Kingdom  (source: www.armenian-history.com).

Kipchak peoples had already been living in the Bagratuni Kingdom even before its fall.  These peoples were of Turkish origin and their motherland was Kipchak (Kypchak), stepps by the Volga River (also referred simply as ‘Kipchak stepps’) (cf. Łapicz 1986: 27por. Łapicz 1986: 27 / komentarz/comment/r /
por. Łapicz, Czesław 1986. Kitab Tatarów litewsko-polskich (Paleografia. Grafia. Język). Toruń: UMK.

). These terrains constituted the Kipchak Khanate – the Golden Horde – inhabited by numerous Kipchak and Bashkir peoples (Tyszkiewicz 1989: 110)Tyszkiewicz 1989: 149 / komentarz/comment/r /
Tyszkiewicz, Jan 1989. Tatarzy na Litwie i w Polsce. Studia z dziejów XIII – XVIII w. Warszawa: PWN.

.
After leaving Armenia, for few centuries Armenians co-habited the same areas as the Kipchak peoples: Crimea, Bessarabia and by the Don River (Garkavec 1993: 587por. Garkavec 1993: 587 / komentarz/comment/r /
por. Garkavec, Aleksandr 1993. Zagadochnye ukrainskie Armjane, kotorye govorili, pisali i molilis’ po-kipchakski i 400 let nazad napechatali pervuju v mire kypchakskuju knigu. Kyiv: Ukrainoznavstvo.

). Later on they moved to Red Ruthenia, thus giving rise to generations of future Polish Armenians.
First Armenians who came to the area of nowadays Ukraine were the inhabitants of the Black Sea stepps of the 11th century, thus directly after the fall of the Bagratuni Kingdom. Few researchers suggest 1045 (the year of the fall of the Bagratuni Kingdom) as the date when the Armenian settlements started appearing in Russia (Garkavec 1993: 587por. Garkavec 1993: 587 / komentarz/comment/r /
por. Garkavec, Aleksandr 1993. Zagadochnye ukrainskie Armjane, kotorye govorili, pisali i molilis’ po-kipchakski i 400 let nazad napechatali pervuju v mire kypchakskuju knigu. Kyiv: Ukrainoznavstvo.

), others argue against that thesis and propose 1062 (the year of the first Armenian settlements appearing in Red Ruthenia).  According to the second hypothesis, Armenians were to  be summoned by Iziaslav I of Kiev who called for their help in defeating Cumans. Armenians settled mainly in Kiev and Kamianets- (Stachowski 2010: 213Stachowski 2010: 213 / komentarz/comment/r /
Stachowski, Stanisław 2010. "Polonizacja języka ormiańsko-kipczackiego", LingVaria 2: 213-227.

). The latter became a town with the largest Armenian population. In fact, the period of 1240-1373 in the town’s history is often referred to as ‘the Tatar-Armenian period’.
Casimir III the Great annexed Red Ruthenia to the Republic of Poland in 1340. As a result, Armenian and Ukrainian inhabitants became Polish subjects. The next mass emigration of Armenians (to Halicz and Podolia) happened in the 14th century. It was at that time that many other peoples (such as Karaites and Tatars) of the Golden Horde also migrated to the West. Armenian settlers came to Red Ruthenia from Crimea. Armenians had established an extensive web of contacts by the 14th century. Some Kipchak peoples even accepted Christianity and started using the Armenian script (both everyday and in liturgy) due to this contact with Armenian peoples (Róna-Tas 2006: 135Róna-Tas 2006: 135 / komentarz/comment/r /
Róna-Tas, András 2006. "Turkic Writing Systems", w: Lars Johnson & Éva Á. Csató (red.) The Turkic Languages. London – New York: Routledge. s. 127-137.

).
The next waves of Armenian emmigration happened at the end of the 15th century – this time from Podole and Ukrainian Galicia (Krymskij 1930 after: Garkavec 1993: 586Krymskij 1930 za: Garkavec 1993: 586 / komentarz/comment/r /
Krymskij 1930 za: Garkavec, Aleksandr 1993. Zagadochnye ukrainskie Armjane, kotorye govorili, pisali i molilis’ po-kipchakski i 400 let nazad napechatali pervuju v mire kypchakskuju knigu. Kyiv: Ukrainoznavstvo.

). The settlers of the last wave of the 17th and 18th c. came from Wallachia (Garkavec 1993: 588Garkavec 1993: 588 / komentarz/comment/r /
Garkavec, Aleksandr 1993. Zagadochnye ukrainskie Armjane, kotorye govorili, pisali i molilis’ po-kipchakski i 400 let nazad napechatali pervuju v mire kypchakskuju knigu. Kyiv: Ukrainoznavstvo.

) and Armenia itself, still under Turkish and Persian rule (Pisowicz 2009: 11Pisowicz 2009: 11 / komentarz/comment/r /
Pisowicz, Andrzej 2009. "Czy polscy Ormianie mówili po tatarsku?", Życie Tatarskie 98-100: 10-12.

).

An overview of the linguistic situation

The situation of Armeno-Kipchak throughout the history

In the Middle Ages the Kipchak language was a lingua franca of trade contacts from Ural and Altai Mountains to the Estern borders of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Republic of Poland (Tyszkiewicz 1989: 202Tyszkiewicz 1989: 202 / komentarz/comment/r /
Tyszkiewicz, Jan 1989. Tatarzy na Litwie i w Polsce. Studia z dziejów XIII – XVIII w. Warszawa: PWN.

), as well as one of the languages used commonly in the areas of the Golden Horde. As it was mentioned before (see: The question of terminology), it was not a homogenous linguistic system that would have an uber-tribal scope. Garkavec (1987Garkavec 1987: 3 / komentarz/comment/r /
Garkavec, Aleksandr 1987. Kypchatskie jazyki: kumanskij i armjano-kypchatskij. Alma-ata: Izdatiel’stvo NAUKA.

) describes Kipchak from the viewpoint of various groups of its speakers and uses the term “a language of Kipchaks  and Tatars in the 11th-14th centuries” (Garkavec 1987: 3Garkavec 1987: 3 / komentarz/comment/r /
Garkavec, Aleksandr 1987. Kypchatskie jazyki: kumanskij i armjano-kypchatskij. Alma-ata: Izdatiel’stvo NAUKA.

).
Pisowicz (2009Pisowicz 2009: 11 / komentarz/comment/r /
Pisowicz, Andrzej 2009. "Czy polscy Ormianie mówili po tatarsku?", Życie Tatarskie 98-100: 10-12.

) writes:

“The Armenians arrived in the areas ruled by Polish kings in the first half of the 14th century. When they were asked what language they spoke, they answered >>Tatar>>. They did not use the term Kipchak, but called their language (in Kipchak): tatarcza (…).” (Pisowicz 2009: 11Pisowicz 2009: 11 / komentarz/comment/r /
Pisowicz, Andrzej 2009. "Czy polscy Ormianie mówili po tatarsku?", Życie Tatarskie 98-100: 10-12.

).

The author claims that up until the 17th century Armenians spoke, “in a sense”, Tatar (Pisowicz 2009: 10Pisowicz 2009: 10 / komentarz/comment/r /
Pisowicz, Andrzej 2009. "Czy polscy Ormianie mówili po tatarsku?", Życie Tatarskie 98-100: 10-12.

) – he meant, of course, the common linguistic heritage with peoples that are historically called the Tatars. Descendants of various Kipchak peoples developed this heritage in a variety of ways. The Polish-Lithuanian Tatars lost their language within several generations after settling on Polish and Lithaunian lands, and they did not leave any traces of literary works in their own ethnic language (Łapicz 1989: 39Łapicz 1989: 39 / komentarz/comment/r /
Łapicz, Czesław 1986. Kitab Tatarów litewsko-polskich (Paleografia. Grafia. Język). Toruń: UMK.

). The users of Armeno-Kipchak retained their language for a longer period – until the 17th century. What is more, it was used in virtually every sphere of social life which cannot be said about Tatar language.
However, it should be remembered that Armenian language was lost by the ancestors of the 16th and 17th century Polish Armenians. As claimed by Pisowicz, the loss of the Armenian language and the switch to Armeno-Kipchak happened in “vague circumstances” (Pisowicz 2009: 11Pisowicz 2009: 11 / komentarz/comment/r /
Pisowicz, Andrzej 2009. "Czy polscy Ormianie mówili po tatarsku?", Życie Tatarskie 98-100: 10-12.

). Nevertheless, in face of the presence of Kipchak people in Armenia before the fall of the Bagratuni Kingdom, and the fact that Armenian settlers lived in close proximity to Kipchak peoples for many centuries, it can be assumed that this switch was a result of natural processes connected to linguistic contacts.
The earliest Armenian settlers in Red Ruthenia had already spoken one of the Kipchak dialects with sparse Armenian elements present in the lexicon. The language of the 11th century Armenians who arrived in the present day Ukraine can be called “Armeno-Kipchak”. The Crimea Armenians also spoke Kipchak even before they moved to Red Ruthenia (Berta 2006: 158Berta 2006: 158 / komentarz/comment/r /
Berta, Árpád 2006. "Middle Kipchak", w: Lars Johnson & Éva Á. Csató (red.) The Turkic Languages. London – New York: Routledge.

).
After the Crimea Armenians had settled in Red Ruthenia, they blended into the cultural and linguistic background of their new motherland. Unlike the Armenians who arrived in the 17th century from the present day Moldova, the sources do not record mentions of possible lack of understanding between the old and the new settlers, so the varieties used by the two groups must have been mutually comprehensible. It should be added that the Armenians who stayed in Crimea and continued to use their language, spoke “Armeno-Kipchak”. It is possible that the Crimea Armenians who settled around Rostów by the Don River in 1778-1779, still spoke that language (Garkavec 1979: 6Garkavec 1979: 6 / komentarz/comment/r /
Garkavec, A. N. 1979. Konvergencija armjano-kypchatskogo jazyka k slavjanskim v XVI-XVII vv. Kiev: Naukova Dumka.

).
At the beginning of the 17th century, the majority of Polish Armenians spoke Armeno-Kipchak, but in the second half of the 17th century it gradually ceased to be used, replaced by Polish or Ukrainian dialects of Russian. This was caused by a fresh wave of Armenian migration from Wallachia and Armenia. The newcomers spoke mainly Armenian and did not know Armeno-Kipchak, while the older colonies of Polish Armenians did not know the language of the new emigrants. Polish, and secondarily Russian as well, became their languages of communication, which led to the end of using Armeno-Kipchak in the second half of the 17th century. Armenian language survived among Polish Armenians until the 20th century ([Broken #81]Pisowicz 2010: 11).

Armeno-Kipchak language in the 16th and 17th centuries

The sociolinguistic status of Armeno-Kipchak can be characterized most accurately in comparison to its situation in the 16th-17th century, the time to which the majority of the relics of this language can be dated back.
Armeno-Kipchak was used by all social classes, from the common people to clerics and educated people. It existed in both a spoken and written form – it was used by literate people with high social status who created relics of this language (look at: Writing).
The language was used in almost all domains of life. Armeno-Kipchak was a language of law in the 17th century – it can be judged from the existence of legal documents included in The minutes of the Armenian ecclesiastical court of Lvov from years 1625-1630 in Armeno-Kipchak language. There are also transcripts of protocols of Armenian courts from Kamieniec and Lvov (Tryjarski 2010: 17Tryjarski 2010: 17 / komentarz/comment/r /
Tryjarski, Edward 2010. Zapisy sądu duchownego Ormian miasta Lwowa za lata 1625-1630 w języku ormiańsko-kipczackim. Kraków: Polska Akademia Umiejętności.

), as well as numerous legal documents. Armeno-Kipchak language was also a language of education: chemistry, alchemy and botanic. It can be judged from the entries in Andrzej Torosowicz’s manuscript, which were made to a large extent in Armeno-Kipchak (Tryjarski 2005: 13Tryjarski 2005: 13 / komentarz/comment/r /
Tryjarski, Edward 2005. Armeno-Kipchak Texts in the Alchemical Treatise by Andrzej Torosowicz (17th Century). Warszawa: Dom Wydawniczy Elipsa.

).
In the liturgy, the early Armenians used Old Armenian called garbar (Stachowski 2010: 213Stachowski 2010: 213 / komentarz/comment/r /
Stachowski, Stanisław 2010. "Polonizacja języka ormiańsko-kipczackiego", LingVaria 2: 213-227.

). It is known that the language was reserved for religious ceremonies of Polish Armenians in the 17th century, but the explanations of prayers were made in Armeno-Kipchak which was understood by the community of worshippers. Old Armenians was at that time unintelligible, and its use was narrowed down to a reproductive recitation of prayers during religious ceremonies.
In present days, Armeno-Kipchak is not used in speech, but the same thing cannot be said for sure about writing. The publications published in the present day do include texts in Armeno-Kipchak. These are not only reprints of manuscripts, but also attempts at their interpretations.