The tongue spoken by the Armenians is one of the great family now known as the Aryan languages; certainly one of the oldest of them if there is any difference in the ages of the different branches, though that really means nothing. It has no relation whatever to the Semitic tongues like Chaldee or Phoenician, nor the Tataric tongues of Scythia, though those were in the earlier ages its nearest neighbors, while it is blood brother to languages so widely separated as Irish on the west and Hindoo on the east, to Gothic and Greek, Lithuanian and Latin. Linguists think the whole Aryan family much younger than the Semitic or the Turko-Tataric or the Mongoloid, but this would not be granted by the Armenians without much more solid proof than has yet been brought forward. They claim first that Noah and his sons lived in Armenia, which has been shown must be true; second, that they spoke the Armenian language, which therefore was the very oldest. Some of the arguments in favor of this are as follows:--In Armenia, near Mt. Ararat, are places with Armenian names, which have preserved the same names from the time of Noah till now. North of Ararat is a city named Erivan, which in Armenian means "appearance"; after Noah's ark rested on the mountain, the first place he saw was Erivan. Another city southeast of Ararat is called Nakhichevan, which in Armenian means "the first station"; it was the first stopping-place of Noah when he came out of the ark. The first chief or King of the Armenians, Haig, built a village and called it Hark, which means "fathers," as he was the father of the Armenians; and when Haig fought with Belus and killed him, the place was called Kereznank, meaning "grave" or "graves." There are many such places in Armenia, where the names have always been the same and are certainly Armenian now, indicating that the language has always been the same; here are a few: Arakaz, Armavir, Shirag, Ararat. The latter took its name from Ara, the Armenian king who was the son of Aram, that great King who ruled in Armenia for fifty years; the name means "lofty" or "holy." These instances show the antiquity of the language; but even if they were not sufficient, it would not affect the antiquity of the race. Many very old races speak languages much less old. The mass of people in Tuscany are Etruscans, a race which some people hold to be much older than the whole Aryan family; but they speak Italian, a very modern tongue. A large part of the Basques, believed by many scientists to be the oldest race in Europe, older even than the Tuscans, speak Spanish, much more modern even than Italian. So that it does not follow that the Armenian race, aside from the language, may not be the oldest in the world.