Rouben Abrahamian

Rouben Abrahamian (; 1881 – 1951) was an Armenian Iranologist, linguist and translator. Born in the Russian empire, he later moved to Tehran, where he served as the principal of an Armenian school and studied Persian. He wrote his thesis on dialects of Judeo-Persian. He is best known for his translation from Pahlavi to Armenian. Abrahamian's work on this matter was pivotal, for he found important commonalities between the language used in Baba Tahir’s poems and the Jewish dialects of the Iranian cities of Hamadān and Isfahan. His findings on behalf of Baba Tahir and the Jewish dialects were published in the following year under the title of Dialectologie iranienne: dialectes des Israélites de Hamadan et d’Ispahan et dialecte de Baba Tahir.

When the University of Tehran was founded in 1935, Abrahamian participated actively in the establishment of its department of Ancient Iranian Languages, where he subsequently started teaching Middle Persian (Pahlavi) and became head of the faculty as well. In 1946, following the Iran crisis of 1946, he moved to Soviet Armenia, where he worked at the Institute of Languages at the Academy of Sciences in Yerevan.

Publications Kʻareakner ew ḡazalner: Baba Tʻahir Orian Hamadani (The quatrains and ḡazals of Bābā Ṭāher ʿOryān Hamadāni), Tehran, 1930. Ferdovsin ew ir Šahnamēn (Ferdowsi and his Shahnameh), Tehran, 1934. Hatuatsner Šahnameits (Excerpts from the Shahnameh), Tehran, 1934. Dialectologie iranienne : dialectes des Israélites de Hamadan et d’Ispahan et dialecte de Baba Tahir, Paris, 1936. Alefbā-ye pahlavi, Tehran, 1937. Rāhnemā-ye zabān-e pahlavi, Tehran, 1938. Sayatʻ-Novayi tagherě (The Verses of Sayat Nova), Tehran, 1943. Ardā Wīrāz-nāmag, Yerevan, 1958. Pahlaveren-parskeren-hayeren-ṛuseren-angleren baṛaran (Pahlavi-Persian-Armenian-Russian-English dictionary), Yerevan, 1965.