Russell, James2013-07-232013Russell, James R. 2013. On an Armenian word list from the Cairo Geniza. Iran and the Caucasus 17(2): 189-214.1609-8498http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:10880590This study deals with a short text on a small piece of paper, a conversational glossary, found in the Cairo Geniza. It is likely to be nearly a millennium old, and consists of a list of twenty Judaeo-Arabic words and phrases with their equivalents in Armenian written in Hebrew script. It suggests that members of the two communities met in a convivial setting, possibly a Barekendan (Mardi Gras) party where an official was parodied as a goat in effigy— a custom encountered in other Armenian celebrations of the holiday at Lvov in the 16th century; and Tiflis, in the 19th. The other words in the list reflect economic and cultural realia of the 11th-13th centuries.en-USJournal Article2013-06-07James R Russell2013-07-2310.1163/1573384X-20130205