The Armenians are an ancient people who speak an Indo-European language and have traditionally inhabited the border regions common to modern Armenia, Iran, and Turkey.

They call themselves hai (from the name of Hayk, a legendary hero) and their country Haiastan.

Their neighbors to the north, the Georgians, call them somekhi, but most of the rest of the world follows the usage of the ancient Greeks and refers to them as Armenians, a term derived according to legend from the Armen tribe.

Thus the Russian word is armianin, and the Turkish is ermeni.

The Ancient Period People had first settled what is now Armenia in about 6000 BCE.

The first major state in the region is the kingdom of Urartu, which had appeared around Lake Van in the thirteenth century BCE and reached its peak in the ninth century BCE.

Shortly after the fall of Urartu to the Assyrians in the early sixth century BCE, the Indo-European-speaking proto-Armenians migrate, probably from the west, onto the Armenian Plateau and mingle with the local people of the Hurrian civilization, which at this time extends into Anatolia (present-day Asian Turkey) from its center in Mesopotamia.

Greek historians first mention the Armenians in the mid-sixth century BCE.