Note 199 — A SUMMARY OF ARMENIAN HISTORY UP TO AND INCLUDING THE YEAR 1915.

It is equally possible that the modern Armenian language was introduced into the country at an earlier date, and existed there side by side with the official language of the Urartu inscriptions. Egyptian records show that an Iranian people, the Mitanni (Matienoi), were established in Northern Mesopotamia as early as the 16th century B.C., and their name clung to the Urmia basin as late as Strabo’s day. They were the western outposts of Indo-European settlement on the Iranian plateau. On the whole, however the Mitanni are more likely to have been the originators of the Kurdish language than of the Armenian.