

There are various contradictory views on the origin of the Armenians.
The name is to be found in the Darian inscriptions in the form 'Armina'
or 'Aramaniya' is to be found in the inscription on the Bistun monument.
The following references to the Armenians are to be found in the Bistun
cuneiform inscription of Dara Vishdasb (510 B.C.).


 6. On reaching Arminam 'Armeniya'.

 7. To the country town of Zozo, to Armaniya 'Armeniya'.

According to Karakashian:

As for 'Armenia', the equivalent of the 'Armin' or 'Arminik' of the Persians,
this is more recent than the word 'Ararat', and is to be found used in
the Dara inscriptions for 'Haiastan'.  

Saint Martin:

The name 'Armenie' has been given since very early times by almost all
the various eastern peoples to the territory referred to by the Armenians
as 'Haiastan'. It was known to the Syrians as Armenia and to the Arabs
as Ermeniyye.
 
Others believe that Urartu was known in the time of the Medes as 'Harminap'
which was later modified by the Persians to 'Arminia'. 'Ar' refers to a
place, as in Ararat, Archish, Aruyr, Archar, Arshav, Arazen and Aror, 
while 'men' is used to refer to spirit, thought or human being, and 
therefore 'Armen' would appear to signify 'the people of that place'.

G. Alishan believes that 'according to our national vocabulary "Haik"
is the diminutive form of "Hai", and that "Hai" is the name of our
nation. Our nation is in no way connected with the word "Armen" that
foreigners apply to our people.'

It would thus appear that 'Armenia' is a place-name, that 'Armen' is 
the name of the people who lived there, and that these are in no way
connected with the word 'Hai'.

Haik and Haiastan:

Armenian historians believe Haik to have been a great hero from whom
the Armenian people took the name 'Hai'. But the mere resemblance
between the words 'Haik' and 'Hai' constitutes no real proof, and,
in any case, no such theory appears before the time of Moses of
Khoren.

Haiasa:

The following studies show quite clearly that 'Hai' and 'Haiasa' were
no more than general names used by the Hittites to refer to the 
region known as Armenia.

Professor Hachadurian: 'Haiasa was the general name used in Hittite
inscriptions for Upper Armenia.'

Yensen, in his 'Hittites and Armenians' tries to prove that 'Hai' is
identical with the Hittite 'Hatio', in other words that 'Hai' is a
Hittite word. Research, however, has proved this erroneous, and shown
that 'Hai' was derived from 'Hatio'.

Mortman's attempt to read the Urartu inscriptions as Armenian met with 
no success. As for Greek, there is no point in even mentioning it.

The resemblance between the words 'Haiasa' and 'Haiastan' is so obvious
that we may well accept 'Haiasa' as the oldest form of 'Haiastan'.

Let us now cast a brief glance on how the words 'Hai', 'Haikazan' and
'Haiastan' entered our older works.

According to Karakashian: 

'The word "Haik" is never to be found employed with reference to a
leader of the Armenian people prior to Moses of Khoren, nor is it
ever found employed in the forms "Haika" or "Haykazn".

Agahangelos and Puzant use the word as a title or a place-name (he
improved and developed Haiastan, etc.). If the word had referred
to a nation and had been derived from "Hai" or "Haik" they could 
also have used the words "Haikak" and "Haykazn" in a number of
places.'

According to Professor Sayce, who deciphered a number of Hittite 
inscriptions:

'In the Hittite language the suffix -ha is used to specify quality
or species. The words "Haddanas", "Haddina" were used by the 
Assyrians to refer to the Hittites. With the transformation of the
"d" between the two "a" letters to "y" "Hadinasdani" was in this
way transformed to "Haiastan"'.

Professor Grechmer fully agrees with this point of view, but regards
the significance and explanation so far accorded to the terms 'Hai'
and 'Haistan' as quite unsatisfactory. He finds, however, that a 
solution to this problem is brought nearer by the name 'Haiasa' 
which is so frequently found in Bogazkoy from 1400 B.C. onwards.
Forrer takes 'Haiasa' as referring to Upper Armenia. In that case
it seems likely that 'Haiasa' was actually a part of Armenia. The
suffix -dan is of Anatolian origin. The real root is 'Hayasa', which
refers to the country of the 'Hayasas'.

E. Chantre writes as follows on the subject of the ethnological 
and Anthropological characteristics of the Armenian people.

The Armenians in Russia may be characterized as follows: Almost
all of them are brachycephalic or leptocephalic, very dark,
above average height, an Aissores Asian group with close ties
with certain Kurdish tribes and Azerbaijan peoples.

According to J. Deniker:

From the philological point of view, the Armenian and Kurds may be
regarded as belonging to the Iranian group...The Armenians are 
descended from various elements and from a very mixed race. Their
average height varies between 1.63 and 1.69 according to the region.
They are almost always short-headed, with skull measurements of 
85-87. As a race they belong to the Indo-Afghan-Assyrian-Turkic
family.

Professor Rene Vernont writes as follows:

The Armenians are a mixture of Semites, Turk, Kurds and Mongols,
but some of them display Armenian features, e.g., height a little
above average, fair complexion, dark hair, dark eyes, very often
a hooked nose and a rather wide mouth. 

Investigations carried out by N. Kossovitch on the links between
Armenian blood groups and their anthropological characteristics
led him to the conclusion that the Armenians did not form a 
distinct race.

Serdar Argic