Osservazioni preliminari sul rapporto tra armeno ban e greco logos e sue implicazioni nell'elaborazione del pensiero etico e politico armeno

Armenian ban 'word' in the classical language has almost all the meanings and uses of Greek logos, of which in fact is considered a perfect equivalent. Anyone who knows the history of the Armenian language, however, will wonder whether this semantic richness results from an indipendent development or rather from an influence of the Greek corrispondent. This paper aims to give an answer to this question, as far as it is possible. Moving from a comparison with the Indo-European cognates of the Armenian lexeme, we seek to recover its semantic value by studying the uses of ban in the Armenian literary language. The linguistic assessment will thus outline the progressive specialisation of ban under the pressure of the Greek model. The profile will be completed by the analysis of some passages from the works of the philosopher David the Invincible and the historian Moses of Khoren in order to appraise the reception in the Armenian cultural milieu of the concepts which ban conveyed under the influence of Greek logos.