L'armeno prima dell'armeno. Su alcuni lessemi presunti armeni in testi classici anteriori al V secolo.

Relevant information about a language can be drawn from texts written in a different one. That is especially true when such information comes from works that are earlier than any surviving documents in the language in question. When they concern lexical items these data, though possibly altered by the language or culture in which they are actually attested, are nonetheless worth studying. In this article three such cases are discussed, namely a note by Latin grammarian Varro on the connection between Latin tigris and an alleged Armenian word meaning “arrow”; some proposed (and highly questionable) Armenian integrations to a mutilous Greek inscription found in Gaṙni (1st-4th century AD); and an intriguing passage by Greek physician Galen that definitely contains some Armenian words.