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Armenian language

Topic: Social

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Short description: Indo-European language
Armenian
հայերէն/հայերեն, hayeren
Armenian language in the Armenian alphabet.png
"Armenian language" in the Armenian alphabet
Pronunciation[hɑjɛˈɾɛn]
Native toArmenia
Georgia
Iran
Turkey
EthnicityArmenians
Native speakers
5.3 million[lower-alpha 1] (2013–2021)e26
Indo-European
  • Armenian
Early forms
Standard forms
Western Armenian
Dialects
  • Yerevan
  • Homshetsi
  • Karabakh
  • Karin
  • Mush
  • Kharberd–Yerznka
  • Shabin–Karahisar
  • Kakavaberd
  • Zok
  • Armenian alphabet
  • Armenian Braille
Official status
Official language in
Recognised minority
language in
Regulated by
Language codes
ISO 639-1hy
ISO 639-1arm (B)
hye (T)
ISO 639-3Variously:
hye – Eastern Armenian
hyw – Western Armenian
xcl – Classical Armenian
axm – Middle Armenian
Glottologarme1241[18]
Linguasphere57-AAA-a
Armenian Language distribution map.png
The current distribution of the Armenian language in the southern Caucasus
Map-of-speakers-of-armenian.png
  Official language spoken by the majority
  Recognized minority language
  Significant number of speakers
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Armenian (endonym: հայերեն (reformed), հայերէն (classical), hayeren, pronounced [hɑjɛˈɾɛn]) is an Indo-European language and the sole member of an independent branch of that language family. It is the native language of the Armenian people and the official language of Armenia. Historically spoken in the Armenian highlands, today Armenian is widely spoken throughout the Armenian diaspora. Armenian is written in its own writing system, the Armenian alphabet, introduced in 405 AD by the canonized saint Mesrop Mashtots. The estimated number of Armenian speakers worldwide is between five and seven million.[19][20]

History

Classification and origins

Main page: Social:Proto-Armenian language

Armenian is an independent branch of the Indo-European languages.[21] It is of interest to linguists for its distinctive phonological changes within that family. Armenian exhibits more satemization than centumization, although it is not classified as belonging to either of these subgroups. Some linguists tentatively conclude that Armenian, Greek (and Phrygian) and Indo-Iranian were dialectally close to each other;[22][23][24][25][26][27] within this hypothetical dialect group, Proto-Armenian was situated between Proto-Greek (centum subgroup) and Proto-Indo-Iranian (satem subgroup).[26] Ronald I. Kim has noted unique morphological developments connecting Armenian to Balto-Slavic languages.[28]

The Armenian language has a long literary history, with a 5th-century Bible translation as its oldest surviving text. Its vocabulary has historically been influenced by Western Middle Iranian languages, particularly Parthian;Livshits 2006, p. 79 its derivational morphology and syntax were also affected by language contact with Parthian, but to a lesser extent.[29] Contact with Greek, Persian, and Syriac also resulted in a number of loanwords. There are two standardized modern literary forms, Eastern Armenian (spoken mainly in Armenia) and Western Armenian (spoken originally mainly in modern-day Turkey and, since the Armenian genocide, mostly in the diaspora). The differences between them are considerable but they are mutually intelligible after significant exposure.[30][31][32] Some subdialects such as Homshetsi are not mutually intelligible with other varieties.[33]

Although Armenians were known to history much earlier (for example, they were mentioned in the 6th-century BC Behistun Inscription and in Xenophon's 4th century BC history, The Anabasis),[34] the oldest surviving Armenian-language writing is etched in stone on Armenian temples and is called Mehenagir.[35][dubious – discuss] The Armenian alphabet was created by Mesrop Mashtots in 405, at which time it had 36 letters. He is also credited by some with the creation of the Georgian alphabet and the Caucasian Albanian alphabet.

While Armenian constitutes the sole member of the Armenian branch of the Indo-European family, Aram Kossian has suggested that the hypothetical Mushki language may have been a (now extinct) Armenic language.[36]

Early contacts

W. M. Austin (1942) concluded[37] that there was early contact between Armenian and Anatolian languages, based on what he considered common archaisms, such as the lack of a feminine gender and the absence of inherited long vowels. Unlike shared innovations (or synapomorphies), the common retention of archaisms (or symplesiomorphy) is not considered conclusive evidence of a period of common isolated development. There are words used in Armenian that are generally believed to have been borrowed from Anatolian languages, particularly from Luwian, although some researchers have identified possible Hittite loanwords as well.[38] One notable loanword from Anatolian is Armenian xalam, "skull", cognate to Hittite ḫalanta, "head".[39]

In 1985, the Soviet linguist Igor M. Diakonoff noted the presence in Classical Armenian of what he calls a "Caucasian substratum" identified by earlier scholars, consisting of loans from the Kartvelian and Northeast Caucasian languages.[40] Noting that Hurro-Urartian-speaking peoples inhabited the Armenian homeland in the second millennium BC, Diakonoff identifies in Armenian a Hurro-Urartian substratum of social, cultural, and animal and plant terms such as ałaxin "slave girl" ( ← Hurr. al(l)a(e)ḫḫenne), cov "sea" ( ← Urart. ṣûǝ "(inland) sea"), ułt "camel" ( ← Hurr. uḷtu), and xnjor "apple (tree)" ( ← Hurr. ḫinzuri). Some of the terms he gives admittedly have an Akkadian or Sumerian provenance, but he suggests they were borrowed through Hurrian or Urartian. Given that these borrowings do not undergo sound changes characteristic of the development of Armenian from Proto-Indo-European, he dates their borrowing to a time before the written record but after the Proto-Armenian language stage.

Contemporary linguists, such as Hrach Martirosyan, have rejected many of the Hurro-Urartian and Northeast Caucasian origins for these words and instead suggest native Armenian etymologies, leaving the possibility that these words may have been loaned into Hurro-Urartian and Caucasian languages from Armenian, and not vice versa.[41] A notable example is arciv, meaning "eagle", believed to have been the origin of Urartian Arṣibi and Northeast Caucasian arzu. This word is derived from Proto-Indo-European *h₂r̥ǵipyós, with cognates in Sanskrit (ऋजिप्य, ṛjipyá), Avestan (ərəzifiia), and Greek (αἰγίπιος, aigípios).[42][43] Hrach Martirosyan and Armen Petrosyan propose additional borrowed words of Armenian origin loaned into Urartian and vice versa, including grammatical words and parts of speech, such as Urartian eue ("and"), attested in the earliest Urartian texts and likely a loan from Armenian (compare to Armenian եւ yev, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁epi). Other loans from Armenian into Urartian includes personal names, toponyms, and names of deities.[41][44][26][45][46]

Loan words from Iranian languages, along with the other ancient accounts such as that of Xenophon above, initially led linguists to erroneously classify Armenian as an Iranian language. Scholars such as Paul de Lagarde and F. Müller believed that the similarities between the two languages meant that Armenian belonged to the Iranian language family.[47] The distinctness of Armenian was recognized when philologist Heinrich Hübschmann (1875)[47][48] used the comparative method to distinguish two layers of Iranian words from the older Armenian vocabulary. He showed that Armenian often had two morphemes for one concept, that the non-Iranian components yielded a consistent Proto-Indo-European pattern distinct from Iranian, and that the inflectional morphology was different from that of Iranian languages.

Graeco-Armenian hypothesis

Main page: Social:Graeco-Armenian

The hypothesis that Greek is Armenian's closest living relative originates with Holger Pedersen (1924), who noted that the number of Greek-Armenian lexical cognates is greater than that of agreements between Armenian and any other Indo-European language. Antoine Meillet (1925, 1927) further investigated morphological and phonological agreement and postulated that the parent languages of Greek and Armenian were dialects in immediate geographical proximity during the Proto-Indo-European period. Meillet's hypothesis became popular in the wake of his book Esquisse d'une histoire de la langue latine (1936). Georg Renatus Solta (1960) does not go as far as postulating a Proto-Graeco-Armenian stage, but he concludes that considering both the lexicon and morphology, Greek is clearly the dialect to be most closely related to Armenian. Eric P. Hamp (1976, 91) supports the Graeco-Armenian thesis and even anticipates a time "when we should speak of Helleno-Armenian" (meaning the postulate of a Graeco-Armenian proto-language). Armenian shares the augment and a negator derived from the set phrase in the Proto-Indo-European language *ne h₂oyu kʷid ("never anything" or "always nothing"), the representation of word-initial laryngeals by prothetic vowels, and other phonological and morphological peculiarities with Greek. Nevertheless, as Fortson (2004) comments, "by the time we reach our earliest Armenian records in the 5th century AD, the evidence of any such early kinship has been reduced to a few tantalizing pieces".

Greco-Armeno-Aryan hypothesis

Main page: Social:Graeco-Aryan

Graeco-(Armeno)-Aryan is a hypothetical clade within the Indo-European family, ancestral to the Greek language, the Armenian language, and the Indo-Iranian languages. Graeco-Aryan unity would have become divided into Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian by the mid-3rd millennium BC. Conceivably, Proto-Armenian would have been located between Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian, consistent with the fact that Armenian shares certain features only with Indo-Iranian (the satem change) but others only with Greek (s > h).

Graeco-Aryan has comparatively wide support among Indo-Europeanists who believe the Indo-European homeland to be located in the Armenian Highlands, the "Armenian hypothesis".[49][50][51][52][53][54] Early and strong evidence was given by Euler's 1979 examination on shared features in Greek and Sanskrit nominal flection.[55]

Used in tandem with the Graeco-Armenian hypothesis, the Armenian language would also be included under the label Aryano-Greco-Armenic, splitting into Proto-Greek/Phrygian and "Armeno-Aryan" (ancestor of Armenian and Indo-Iranian).[22][23]

Evolution

Classical Armenian (Arm: grabar), attested from the 5th century to the 19th century as the literary standard (up to the 11th century also as a spoken language with different varieties), was partially superseded by Middle Armenian, attested from the 12th century to the 18th century. Specialized literature prefers "Old Armenian" for grabar as a whole, and designates as "Classical" the language used in the 5th century literature, "Post-Classical" from the late 5th to 8th centuries, and "Late Grabar" that of the period covering the 8th to 11th centuries. Later, it was used mainly in religious and specialized literature, with the exception of a revival during the early modern period, when attempts were made to establish it as the language of a literary renaissance, with neoclassical inclinations, through the creation and dissemination of literature in varied genres, especially by the Mekhitarists. The first Armenian periodical, Azdarar, was published in grabar in 1794.

The classical form borrowed numerous words from Middle Iranian languages, primarily Parthian,[56] and contains smaller inventories of loanwords from Greek,[56] Syriac,[56] Aramaic,[57] Arabic,[58] Mongol,[59] Persian,[60] and indigenous languages such as Urartian. An effort to modernize the language in Bagratid Armenia and the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia (11–14th centuries) resulted in the addition of two more characters to the alphabet ("օ" and "ֆ"), bringing the total number to 38.[61]

The Book of Lamentations by Gregory of Narek (951–1003) is an example of the development of a literature and writing style of Old Armenian by the 10th century. In addition to elevating the literary style and vocabulary of the Armenian language by adding well above a thousand new words,[62] through his other hymns and poems Gregory paved the way for his successors to include secular themes and vernacular language in their writings. The thematic shift from mainly religious texts to writings with secular outlooks further enhanced and enriched the vocabulary. "A Word of Wisdom", a poem by Hovhannes Sargavak devoted to a starling, legitimizes poetry devoted to nature, love, or female beauty. Gradually, the interests of the population at large were reflected in other literary works as well. Konsdantin Yerzinkatsi and several others took the unusual step of criticizing the ecclesiastic establishment and addressing the social issues of the Armenian homeland. These changes represented the nature of the literary style and syntax, but they did not constitute immense changes to the fundamentals of the grammar or the morphology of the language. Often, when writers codify a spoken dialect, other language users are then encouraged to imitate that structure through the literary device known as parallelism.[63]

In the 19th century, the traditional Armenian homeland was once again divided. This time Eastern Armenia was conquered from Qajar Iran by the Russian Empire, while Western Armenia, containing two thirds of historical Armenia, remained under Ottoman control. The antagonistic relationship between the Russian and Ottoman empires led to creation of two separate and different environments under which Armenians lived. Halfway through the 19th century, two important concentrations of Armenian communities were further consolidated.[64] Because of persecutions or the search for better economic opportunities, many Armenians living under Ottoman rule gradually moved to Istanbul, whereas Tbilisi became the center of Armenians living under Russian rule. These two cosmopolitan cities very soon became the primary poles of Armenian intellectual and cultural life.[65]

The introduction of new literary forms and styles, as well as many new ideas sweeping Europe, reached Armenians living in both regions. This created an ever-growing need to elevate the vernacular, Ashkharhabar, to the dignity of a modern literary language, in contrast to the now-anachronistic Grabar. Numerous dialects existed in the traditional Armenian regions, which, different as they were, had certain morphological and phonetic features in common. On the basis of these features two major standards emerged:

  • Western standard: The influx of immigrants from different parts of the traditional Armenian homeland to Istanbul crystallized the common elements of the regional dialects, paving the way for a style of writing that required a shorter and more flexible learning curve than Grabar.
  • Eastern standard: The Yerevan dialect provided the primary elements of Eastern Armenian, centered in Tbilisi, Georgia. Similar to the Western Armenian variant, the Modern Eastern was in many ways more practical and accessible to the masses than Grabar.

Both centers vigorously pursued the promotion of Ashkharhabar. The proliferation of newspapers in both versions (Eastern & Western) and the development of a network of schools where modern Armenian was taught, dramatically increased the rate of literacy (in spite of the obstacles by the colonial administrators), even in remote rural areas. The emergence of literary works entirely written in the modern versions increasingly legitimized the language's existence. By the turn of the 20th century both varieties of the one modern Armenian language prevailed over Grabar and opened the path to a new and simplified grammatical structure of the language in the two different cultural spheres. Apart from several morphological, phonetic, and grammatical differences, the largely common vocabulary and generally analogous rules of grammatical fundamentals allows users of one variant to understand the other as long as they are fluent in one of the literary standards.[66]

After World War I, the existence of the two modern versions of the same language was sanctioned even more clearly. The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (1920–1990) used Eastern Armenian as its official language, whereas the diaspora created after the Armenian genocide preserved the Western Armenian dialect.

The two modern literary dialects, Western (originally associated with writers in the Ottoman Empire) and Eastern (originally associated with writers in the Russian Empire), removed almost all of their Turkish lexical influences in the 20th century, primarily following the Armenian genocide.[67]

  • Armenian manuscript, 5th–6th centuries.

  • The Four Gospels, 1495, Portrait of St Mark Wellcome with Armenian inscriptions

  • First printed Armenian language Bible, 1666

  • Armenian language road sign.

Geographic distribution

In addition to Armenia and Turkey, where it is indigenous, Armenian is spoken among the diaspora. According to Ethnologue, globally there are 1.6 million Western Armenian speakers and 3.7 million Eastern Armenian speakers, totalling 5.3 million Armenian speakers.[68]

Armenian speakers, Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023)[lower-alpha 3][68]
Country Armenian speakers Main variety
 Armenia 3,000,000 Eastern
 Russia 510,000 Eastern
 Lebanon 340,000 Western
 United States 240,000 Western
 Argentina 150,000 Western
 Georgia 150,000 Western
 Azerbaijan 120,000 Eastern
 Iran 110,000 Eastern
 Turkmenistan 84,000 Western
 France 70,000 Western
 Iraq 70,000 Western
 Turkey 67,000 Western
 Uzbekistan 66,000 Western
 Syria 60,000 Western
 Ukraine 50,000 Western
 Brazil 47,000 Western
 Canada 45,000 Western
 Germany 27,000 Western
 Greece 20,000 Western
 Kazakhstan 16,000 Western
 Spain 12,000 Western
 Australia 11,000 Western
 Kuwait 11,000 Western
 Jordan 10,000 Western

In Georgia, Armenian speakers are concentrated in Ninotsminda and Akhalkalaki districts where they represent over 90% of the population.[69]

Status and usage

The short-lived First Republic of Armenia declared Armenian its official language. Eastern Armenian was then dominating in institutions and among the population. When Armenia was incorporated into the USSR, the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic made Eastern Armenian the language of the courts, government institutions and schools. Armenia was also russified. The current Republic of Armenia upholds the official status of the Armenian language. Eastern Armenian is the official variant used, making it the prestige variety while other variants have been excluded from national institutions. Indeed, Western Armenian is perceived by some as a mere dialect.[70] Armenian was also official in the Republic of Artsakh. It is recognized as an official language of the Eurasian Economic Union although Russian is the working language.

Armenian (without reference to a specific variety) is officially recognized as a minority language in Cyprus,[4][5] Hungary,[6] Iraq,[7] Poland,[8][9] Romania,[71] and Ukraine.[14] It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.[10][11][12][13]

Western Armenian is the language of the diaspora, it is the medium of instruction in the majority of Armenian-language schools outside Armenia.[70] In particular, in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region of Georgia, although Armenian has no legal status, there were 144 state-funded schools in the area as of 2010 where Armenian is the main language of instruction.[72][73] The Lebanese curriculum allows Armenian schools to teach the Armenian language as a basic language.[74][75] In California , home to a large Armenian American community, various state government agencies provide Armenian translations of their documents: the California Department of Social Services,[76] California Department of Motor Vehicles,[77] California superior courts.[78] In the city of Glendale, there are street signs in Armenian.[79][80]

In Iran, article 15 of the constitution allows the use of "regional and tribal languages" in the mass media as well as within the schools. However, these languages do not receive formal status and are not officially regulated by the authorities.[81][82] Iranian Armenians are de facto the only non-Persian ethnic group in Iran enjoying this right. They have their own private schools, where Armenian is the medium of instruction.[83]

Phonology

File:Hy-1-ին տիպի շաքարային դիաբետ (Diabetes mellitus type 1).ogg

Proto-Indo-European voiceless stop consonants are aspirated in the Proto-Armenian language, one of the circumstances that is often linked to the glottalic theory, a version of which postulated that some voiceless occlusives of Proto-Indo-European were aspirated.[84][85][86]

Stress

In Armenian, the stress falls on the last syllable unless the last syllable contains the definite article [ə] or [n], and the possessive articles ս and դ, in which case it falls on the penultimate one. For instance, [ɑχɔɾˈʒɑk], [mɑʁɑdɑˈnɔs], [ɡiˈni] but [vɑˈhɑɡən] and [ˈdɑʃtə]. Exceptions to this rule are some words with the final letter է (ե in the reformed orthography) (մի՛թէ, մի՛գուցե, ո՛րեւէ) and sometimes the ordinal numerals (վե՛ցերորդ, տա՛սներորդ, etc.), as well as նաեւ, նամանաւանդ, հիմա, այժմ, and a small number of other words.

Vowels

Modern Armenian has six monophthongs. Each vowel phoneme in the table is represented by three symbols. The first is the sounds transcription in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). After that appears the corresponding letter of the Armenian alphabet. The last symbol is its Latin transliteration.

Armenian vowel phonemes[87]
Front Central Back
Close /i/
ի
i 		/u/
ու
u
Mid /ɛ/
ե, է
e, ē 		/ə/
ը
ë 		/ɔ/
ո, օ
o, ō
Open /ɑ/
ա
a
  • Western and other dialects may also have /ʏ, œ/.

Consonants

The following table lists the Eastern Armenian consonantal system. The occlusives and affricates have an aspirated series, commonly transcribed with a reversed apostrophe after the letter. Each phoneme in the table is represented by IPA, Armenian script and romanization.

Eastern Armenian consonant phonemes[88]
Labial Dental/
Alveolar 		Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal
Nasal /m/ մ – m /n/ ն – n (ŋ)[lower-roman 1]
Plosive voiced[lower-roman 2] /b/ բ – b /d/ դ – d /ɡ/ գ – g
voiceless[lower-roman 3][lower-roman 2] /p/ պ – p /t/ տ – t /k/ կ – k
aspirated[lower-roman 2] /pʰ/ փ – pʻ /tʰ/ թ – tʻ /kʰ/ ք – kʻ
Affricate voiced[lower-roman 2] /d͡z/ ձ – j /d͡ʒ/ ջ – ǰ
voiceless[lower-roman 3][lower-roman 2] /t͡s/ ծ – c /t͡ʃ/ ճ – č
aspirated[lower-roman 2] /t͡sʰ/ ց – cʻ /t͡ʃʰ/ չ – čʻ
Fricative voiceless /f/ ֆ – f /s/ ս – s /ʃ/ շ – š /x ~ χ/[lower-roman 4] խ – x /h/ հ – h
voiced /v/ վ – v /z/ զ – z /ʒ/ ժ – ž /ɣ ~ ʁ/[lower-roman 4] ղ – ġ
Approximant (ʋ) /l/ լ – l /j/ յ – y
Trill /r/ ռ – ṙ
Flap /ɾ/ ր – r
  1. ↑ Occurs before velars.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 /pʰ p b/ in Eastern Armenian dialects generally correspond to /pʰ b pʰ/ in Western dialects (more detailed table given below).
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Some of the dialects may release the voiceless stops and affricates as ejectives.[89]
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Sources differ on the place of articulation of these consonants.

The major phonetic difference between dialects is in the reflexes of Classical Armenian voice-onset time. The seven dialect types have the following correspondences, illustrated with the t–d series:[90]

Correspondence in initial position
Armenian Letter Թ Տ Դ
Indo-European *t *d *dʰ
Karin, Sebastia tʰ d dʱ
Istanbul d
Kharberd, Middle Armenian d t
Malatya, SWA tʰ
Classical Armenian, Agulis, SEA, Yerevan t d
Van, Artsakh t

Morphology

Armenian corresponds with other Indo-European languages in its structure, but it shares distinctive sounds and features of its grammar with neighboring languages of the Caucasus region. The Armenian orthography is rich in combinations of consonants, but in pronunciation, this is broken up with schwas.[91][92] Both classical Armenian and the modern spoken and literary dialects have a system of noun declension, with six or seven noun cases but no gender. In modern Armenian, the use of auxiliary verbs to show tense (comparable to will in "he will go") has generally supplanted the inflected verbs of Classical Armenian. Negative verbs are conjugated differently from positive ones (as in English "he goes" and "he does not go") in many tenses, otherwise adding only the negative չ to the positive conjugation. Grammatically, early forms of Armenian had much in common with classical Greek and Latin, but the modern language, like modern Greek, has undergone many transformations, adding some analytic features.

Noun

Armenian has no grammatical gender, not even in the pronoun, but there is a feminine suffix (-ուհի "-uhi"). For example, ուսուցիչ (usucʻičʻ, "teacher") becomes ուսուցչուհի (usucʻčʻuhi, female teacher). This suffix does not have a grammatical effect on the sentence. The nominal inflection reserves several types of inherited stem classes. Historically, nouns were declined for one of seven cases: nominative (ուղղական uġġakan), accusative (հայցական haycʻakan), locative (ներգոյական nergoyakan), genitive (սեռական seṙakan), dative (տրական trakan), ablative (բացառական bacʻaṙakan), or instrumental (գործիական gorciakan), but in the modern language, the nominative and accusative cases, as well as the dative and genitive cases, have merged.

Examples of noun declension in Eastern Armenian
Հեռախոս Heṙaxos (telephone)
Case Singular Plural
Nominative
Dative
Ablative
Instrumental
Locative
Մայր Mayr (mother)
Case Singular Plural
Nominative
Dative
Ablative
Instrumental

Which case the direct object takes is split based on animacy (a phenomenon more generally known as differential object marking). Inanimate nouns take the nominative, while animate nouns take the dative. Additionally, animate nouns can never take the locative case.

Հանրապետություն Hanrapetut'yun (republic)
Case Singular Plural
Nominative
Dative
Ablative
Instrumental
Locative
Examples of noun declension in Western Armenian
դաշտ tašd (field) կով gov (cow)
singular plural singular plural
Nom-Acc
(Ուղղական-Հայցական)
Gen-Dat
(Սեռական-Տրական)
Abl
(Բացառական)
Instr
(Գործիական)
գարուն karun (spring) օր ōr (day) Քոյր koyr (sister)
singular plural singular plural singular plural
Nom-Acc
(Ուղղական-Հայցական)
Gen-Dat
(Սեռական-Տրական)
Abl
(Բացառական)
Instr
(Գործիական)
  հայր / hayr (father) Աստուած / Asdvaj (God) գիտութիւն / kidutiwn (science)
singular plural singular plural singular plural
Nom-Acc
(Ուղղական-Հայցական)
Gen-Dat
(Սեռական-Տրական)
Abl
(Բացառական)
Instr
(Գործիական)

Verb

Verbs in Armenian have an expansive system of conjugation with two main verb types in Eastern Armenian and three in Western Armenian changing form based on tense, mood and aspect.

Dialects

Map of the Armenian dialects in early 20th century:
  -owm dialects, nearly corresponding to Eastern Armenian
  -el dialects (intermediate)
  -gë dialects, nearly corresponding to Western Armenian

Armenian is a pluricentric language, having two modern standardized forms: Eastern Armenian and Western Armenian. The most distinctive feature of Western Armenian is that it has undergone several phonetic mergers; these may be due to proximity to Arabic- and Turkish-speaking communities.

File:WIKITONGUES- John speaking Armenian.webm Classical Armenian (Grabar), which remained the standard until the 18th century, was quite homogeneous across the different regions that works in it were written; it may have been a cross-regional standard.[93] The Middle Armenian variety used in the court of Cilician Armenia (1080–1375) provides a window into the development of Western Armenian, which came to be based on what became the dialect of Istanbul, while the standard for Eastern Armenian was based on the dialect around Mount Ararat and Yerevan.[93] Although the Armenian language is often divided into "east" and "west", the two standards are actually relatively close to each other in light of wealth of the diversity present among regional non-standard Armenian dialects. The different dialects have experienced different degrees of language contact effects, often with Turkic and Caucasian languages; for some, the result has been significant phonological and syntactic changes.[93] Fortson notes that the modern standard as well has now attained a subordinate clausal structure that greatly resembles a Turkic language.[94]

Eastern Armenian speakers pronounce (թ) as [tʰ], (դ) as [d], and (տ) as a tenuis occlusive [t˭]. Western Armenian has simplified the occlusive system into a simple division between voiced occlusives and aspirated ones; the first series corresponds to the tenuis series of Eastern Armenian, and the second corresponds to the Eastern voiced and aspirated series. Thus, the Western dialect pronounces both (թ) and (դ) as [tʰ], and the (տ) letter as [d].

There is no precise linguistic border between one dialect and another because there is nearly always a dialect transition zone of some size between pairs of geographically identified dialects.

Armenian can be divided into two major dialectal blocks and those blocks into individual dialects, though many of the Western Armenian dialects have become extinct due to the effects of the Armenian genocide. In addition, neither dialect is completely homogeneous: any dialect can be subdivided into several subdialects. Although Western and Eastern Armenian are often described as different dialects of the same language, many subdialects are not readily mutually intelligible. Nevertheless, a fluent speaker of one of two greatly varying dialects who is also literate in one of the standards, when exposed to the other dialect for a period of time will be able to understand the other with relative ease.

Distinct Western Armenian varieties currently in use include Homshetsi, spoken by the Hemshin peoples;[95] the dialects of Armenians of Kessab (Քեսապի բարբառ), Latakia and Jisr al-Shughur (Syria), Anjar, Lebanon, and Vakıflı, Samandağ (Turkey), part of the "Sueidia" dialect (Սուէտիայի բարբառ).

Forms of the Karin dialect of Western Armenian are spoken by several hundred thousand people in Northern Armenia, mostly in Gyumri, Artik, Akhuryan, and around 130 villages in Shirak Province,[96] and by Armenians in Samtskhe–Javakheti province of Georgia (Akhalkalaki, Akhaltsikhe).[97]

Nakhichevan-on-Don Armenians speak another Western Armenian variety based on the dialect of Armenians in Crimea, where they came from in order to establish the town and surrounding villages in 1779 (Նոր Նախիջևանի բարբառ).

Western Armenian dialects are currently spoken also in Gavar (formerly Nor Bayazet and Kamo, on the western shore of Lake Sevan), Aparan, and Talin in Armenia (Mush dialect), and by the large Armenian population residing in Abkhazia, where they are considered to be the first or second ethnic minority, or even equal in number to the local Abkhaz population[98]

Examples
English Eastern Armenian Western Armenian
Yes Ayo (Այո) Ayo (Այո)
No Vočʻ (Ոչ) Voč (Ոչ)
I see you Yes kʻez tesnum em (Ես քեզ տեսնում եմ) Yes kez(i) gë desnem (Ես քեզ(ի) կը տեսնեմ)
Hello Barev (Բարեւ) Parev (Բարեւ)
I'm going Gnum em (Գնում եմ) G'ertam (gor) (Կ՚երթամ (կոր))
Come! Ari! (Արի՛) Yegur! (Եկո՛ւր)
I will eat Utelu em (Ուտելու եմ) Bidi udem (Պիտի ուտեմ)
I must do Piti/petkʻ ē anem (Պիտի/պետք է անեմ) Bēdk ē ënem (Պէտք է ընեմ)
I was going to eat Utelu ēi (Ուտելու էի) Bidi udēi (Պիտի ուտէի)
Is this yours? Sa kʻonn ē? (Սա քո՞նն է) Asiga kugt ē? (Ասիկա քո՞ւկդ է)
His grandma Nra tatikë (Նրա տատիկը) Anor nēnēn / mej maman (Անոր նէնէն / մեծ մաման)
Look at that one! Dran nayir (Դրան նայիր) Ador nayē / Anor nayē (Ատոր նայէ / Անոր նայէ)
Have you brought these? Du es berel srankʻ? (Դո՞ւ ես բերել սրանք) Asonk tun peraj es? (Ասոնք դո՞ւն բերած ես)
How are you? I'm fine. Inčʻpes es? / Voncʻ es? Lav em (Ինչպե՞ս ես։ / Ո՞նց ես։ Լավ եմ։) Inčbēs es? Lav em (Ինչպէ՞ս ես։ Լաւ եմ։)
Did you say it? Say it! Du asacʻir (asecʻir)? Asa! (Դո՞ւ ասացիր (ասեցիր): Ասա՛։) Tun ësir? Ësē! (Դո՞ւն ըսիր։ Ըսէ՛։)
Have you taken it from us? Mezanicʻ es vercʻrel? (Մեզանի՞ց ես վերցրել) Mezmē araj es? (Մեզմէ՞ առած ես)
Good morning Bari luys (Բարի լույս) Pari luys (Բարի լոյս)
Good evening Bari yereko (Բարի երեկո) Pari irigun / Parirgun (Բարի իրիկուն / Բարիրկուն)
Good night Bari gišer (Բարի գիշեր) Kišer pari (Գիշեր բարի)
You love me Sirum es inj (Սիրում ես ինձ) Inji gë sires (Ինծի կը սիրես)
I am Armenian Yes hay em (Ես հայ եմ) Yes hay em (Ես հայ եմ)
I missed you Karotel em kʻez (Կարոտել եմ քեզ) Garōdcay kezi (Կարօտցայ քեզի)

Orthography

Armenian keyboard layout using the Armenian alphabet.

The Armenian alphabet (Armenian: Հայոց գրեր, romanized: Hayots grer or Armenian: Հայոց այբուբեն, romanized: Hayots aybuben) is a graphically unique alphabetical writing system that is used to write the Armenian language. It was introduced around AD 405 by Mesrop Mashtots, an Armenian linguist and ecclesiastical leader, and originally contained 36 letters. Two more letters, օ (ō) and ֆ (f), were added in the Middle Ages.

During the 1920s orthography reform in Soviet Armenia, a new letter և (capital ԵՎ) was added, which was a ligature before ե+ւ, whereas the letter Ւ ւ was discarded and reintroduced as part of a new letter ՈՒ ու (which was a digraph before). This alphabet and associated orthography is used by most Armenian speakers of Armenia and the countries of the former Soviet Union. Neither the alphabet nor the orthography has been adopted by Diaspora Armenians, including Eastern Armenian speakers of Iran and all Western Armenian speakers, who keep using the traditional alphabet and spelling.

Vocabulary

Indo-European cognates

Armenian is an Indo-European language, so many of its Proto-Indo-European-descended words are cognates of words in other Indo-European languages such as English, Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit.

Due to extensive loaning, only around 1,500 words (G. Jahukyan) are known to have been inherited from Indo-European by the Classical Armenian stage; the rest were lost, a fact that presents a major challenge to endeavors to better understand Proto-Armenian and its place within the family, especially as many of the sound changes along the way from Indo-European to Armenian remain quite difficult to analyze.[99]

This table lists some of the more recognizable cognates that Armenian shares with English words descended from Old English.[100]

Armenian English Latin Classical and Hellenistic Greek Persian Sanskrit Russian Old Irish PIE
մայր mayr "mother" mother ( ← OE mōdor) māter μήτηρ mētēr مادر mâdar मातृ matṛ мать mat' máthair *méh₂tēr "mother"
հայր hayr "father" father ( ← OE fæder) pater πατήρ patēr پدر pedar पितृ pitṛ athair *ph₂tḗr "father"
եղբայր eġbayr "brother" brother ( ← OE brōþor) frāter φράτηρ phrātēr "brother-in-arms, comrade" برادر barâdar भ्रातृ bhrātṛ брат brat bráthair *bʰréh₂tēr "brother"
դուստր dustr "daughter" daughter ( ← OE dohtor) (Oscan futrei) θυγάτηρ thugátēr دختر doxtar दुहितृ duhitṛ дочь doč' der, Dar- "daughter (of)" *dʰugh₂tḗr "daughter"
կին kin "woman, wife" queen ( ← OE cwēn "queen, woman, wife") γυνή gunē زن zan ग्ना gnā/ जनि jani жена žena "wife" ben "woman" *gʷḗn "woman, wife"
իմ im "my, mine" my, mine ( ← OE min) me-us, -a, -um etc. ἐμ-ός, -ή, -όν em-ós, -ē, -ón etc. من، ـم man,-am मम mama мой moy mo "my, me" *h₁me- "my, mine"
անուն anun "name" name ( ← OE nama) nōmen ὄνομα ónoma نام nâm नामन् nāman имя im'a ainm *h₃nom-n̥- "name"
յոթ yotʻ ( ← եաւթն "eawtʻn") "seven" seven ( ← OE seofon) septem ἑπτά heptá هفت haft सप्तन् saptán семь sem' secht *septḿ̥ "seven"
ութ utʻ "eight" eight ( ← OE eahta) octō ὀκτώ óktō هشت hašt अष्ट aṣṭa во́семь vosem' ocht *oḱtṓw "eight"
ինն inn "nine" nine ( ← OE nigon) novem ἐννέα ennéa نه noh नवन् navan де́вять dev'at' noí *h₁néwn̥ "nine"
տասը tas (<տասն "tasn") "ten" ten ( ← OE tien) ( ← P.Gmc. *tehun) decem δέκα déka ده dah दश daśa де́сять des'at' deich *déḱm̥ "ten"
աչք ačʻkʻ "eye" eye ( ← OE ēge) oculus ὀφθαλμός ophthalmós Avestan 𐬀𐬱𐬌‎ (aši, “eyes”) अक्षि akṣi око oko (archaic) *H₃okʷ- "to see"
արմունկ armunk (<*h₂(e)rH-mo-+ -ուկն) "elbow"
 arm ( ← OE earm "joined body parts below shoulder") armus "shoulder" ἁρμός harmós "a joint" ارم arm "arm" ईर्म īrma "arm" рамя ram'a "shoulder" (archaic) *h₂er- "fit, join (that which is fitted together)"
ծունկ cunk "knee" knee ( ← OE cnēo) genū γόνυ gónu زانو zânu जानु jānu glún *ǵénu- "knee"
ոտք otkʻ "foot, leg" foot ( ← OE fōt) pēs, pedis πούς, πόδος poús, pódos پا، پای pâ, pây "foot" पाद् pād "foot" (Gaul. ades "feet") *pod-, *ped- "foot, leg"
սիրտ sirt "heart" heart ( ← OE heorte) cor, cordis καρδία kardía دل del हृदय hṛdaya се́рдце serdce cride *ḱerd- "heart"
մուկ muk "mouse" mouse ( ← OE mūs) mūs, mūris μῦς mûs "mouse, muscle" موش muš मूष् mūṣ мышь myš' *múh₂s "mouse, muscle"
կով kov "cow" cow ( ← OE cū) bōs, bovis βοῦς boûs گاو gâv गो go говядина gov'adina "beef" bó *gʷṓws "cow"
շուն šun "dog" hound ( ← OE hund "hound, dog") canis κύων kúōn سگ sag श्वन् śvan сука suka[lower-alpha 4] "bitch" cú *ḱwṓ "hound, dog"
ամիս amis "month" moon, month ( ← OE mōnaþ) mēnsis μήν mēn "moon, month" ماه mâh "moon, month" मास māsa "moon, month" месяц mes'ac mí *meH₁ns- "moon, month"
ամառ amaṙ ( ← Proto-Armenian *sm̥h₂er-m̥ <*s(e)m-eh₂-) "summer" summer ( ← OE sumor) هامین hâmin (archaic) समा samā "season" sam "summer" *semh₂- "summer, hot season"
ջերմ ǰerm "warm" warm ( ← OE wearm) formus θερμός thérmos گرم garm घर्म gharma "heat" жарко žarko "hot" geirid "warm (v)" *gʷʰerm- "warm"
լույս luys "light" light ( ← OE lēoht "brightness") lūx λευκός leukós "bright, shining, white" روز ruz "day" रोक roka луч luč' "beam" lóch "bright" *leuk- "light, brightness"
հուր hur "flame" fire ( ← OE fȳr) (Umbrian pir "fire") πῦρ pûr "fire" *péh₂wr̥ "fire"
հեռու heṙu "far" far ( ← OE feor "to a great distance") per "through" πέρα péra "beyond" فرا farâ "forward" परस् paras "beyond" пере- pere- "through", про- pro- "forth" íre "further" *per- "through, across, beyond"
լվանալ lvanal "to wash" flow ( ← OE flōwan) pluĕre "to rain" πλύνω plúnō "I wash" प्लु plu "to float, swim" плавать plavat' "swim" luí "rudder" *pleu- "to flow, float, wash"
ուտել utel "to eat" eat ( ← OE etan) edō ἔδω édō अद्मि admi есть jest' ithid *h₁ed- "to eat"
գիտեմ gitem "I know" wit ( ← OE wit, witan "intelligence, to know") vidēre "to see" οἶδα oîda ویده vida "knowledge" विद् vid видеть videt' "see, understand" adfet "tells" *weyd- "to see"
գետ get "river" water ( ← OE wæter) (Umbrian utur "water") ὕδωρ húdōr "water" bārān باران

"rain"

उदन् udan "water" вода voda "water" uisce "water" (*wodor, *wedor, *uder-) from *wed- "water"
գործ gorc "work" work ( ← OE weorc) ἔργον érgon ورز varz *werǵ- "to work"
մեծ mec "big, great" much ( ← OE mycel "great, big, many") magnus μέγας mégas مه، مهست meh, mahest मह maha много mnogo "many" maige "great, mighty" *meǵ- "great"
ճանաչել čanačʻel' ( ← *ծանաչել canačʻel) "to recognize" know ( ← OE cnawan) nōscere "to learn, recognize" γιγνώσκω gignōskō "I know" شناختن šenâxtan "to know" जानाति jānāti "to know" знать znat' "to know" ad·gnin "to know" *ǵneH₃- "to know"
մեռնել meṙnel "to die" murder ( ← OE morþor) morī βροτός brotós "mortal" مردن mordan "death" मरति marati мереть meret' marb "dead" *mer- "to die"
միջին miǰin "middle" mid, middle ( ← OE mid, middel) medius μέσος mésos میان miyân मध्य madhya меж mež "between" mide *médʰyos from *me- "mid, middle"
այլ ayl "other" else ( ← OE elles "other, otherwise, different") alius ἄλλος állos aile "other" *h₂élyos "other"
նոր nor "new" new ( ← OE nīwe) novus νέος néos نو now नव nava новый novyj núae *néwo- "new"
դուռ duṙ "door" door ( ← OE dor, duru) foris θύρα thúrā در dar द्वार dvāra дверь dver' dorus *dʰwer- "door, doorway, gate"
տուն tun "house" timber ( ← OE timber "trees used for building material, structure") domus δόμος domos mān مان

"house" Avestan: dąm 𐬛𐬄𐬨

दम dama дом dom *domo-, *domu- "house"
բերել berel "to bring" bear ( ← OE beran "give birth, carry") ferre "to carry" φέρω phérō بردن، برـ bordan, bar- "to carry" भरति bharati "to carry" брать brat' "to take" beirid "carry" *bʱer- "to carry"

See also

  • Armenian PowerSpell, electronic text corrector
  • Armenian Sign Language
  • Auguste Carrière
  • Languages of Armenia
  • Language families and languages
  • List of Indo-European languages
  • Classical Armenian orthography

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.6 million for Western Armenian and 3.7 million for Eastern Armenian
  2. ↑ Though Russian is the working language of the Union according to the Treaty on Eurasian Economic Union, Armenian and the languages of other member states are officially recognized.[1] The websites of the Eurasian Economic Union[2] and the Eurasian Economic Commission[3] are available in Armenian, among other languages.
  3. ↑ Only countries with at least 10,000 speakers are listed.
  4. ↑ etymology debated, see [1]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ "Treaty on Eurasian Economic Union". Eurasian Economic Union. https://docs.eaeunion.org/docs/en-us/0027353/itia_05062014_doc.pdf. "Article 110 Working Language of the Bodies of the Union. Language of International Treaties within the Union and Decisions of the Commission: 2. International treaties within the Union and decisions of the Commission that are binding on the Member States shall be adopted in Russian with subsequent translation into the official languages of the Member States, if it is provided for by their legislation, in the procedure determined by the Commission." 
  2. ↑ "Եվրասիական տնտեսական միություն" (in hy). Eurasian Economic Union. http://www.eaeunion.org/?lang=am. 
  3. ↑ "Եվրասիական Տնտեսական Հանձնաժողով" (in hy). Eurasian Economic Commission. http://www.eurasiancommission.org/hy/Pages/default.aspx. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Western Armenian – Cypriot Arabic: new century, new speakers?". European Commission. 21 February 2017. https://ec.europa.eu/cyprus/event/20170221_en. "Dedicated to the two officially recognized minority languages of Cyprus, the event will focus on the teaching aspect of Western Armenian and Cypriot Arabic as mother tongues." 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Hadjilyra, Alexander – Michael. "The Armenians of Cyprus". Press and Information Office, Republic of Cyprus. p. 15. https://publications.gov.cy/en/assets/user/publications/ARMENIANS/EN/Armenians_EN_2016.pdf. "According to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of the Council of Europe, Armenian was recognised as a minority language of Cyprus as of 1 December 2002." 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Kenesei, István (2009). "Minority languages in Hungary". European Federation of National Institutions for Language. http://www.efnil.org/documents/conference-publications/dublin-2009/09-Dublin-Kenesei-Mother.pdf. "As far as indigenous (autochthonous) minority languages are concerned, Hungarian legislation acknowledges the languages in the following list ...: Armenian, Boyash, Bulgarian, Croatian, German, Greek, Polish, Romani, Romanian, Ruthenian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovene, Ukrainian, and Hungarian Sign Language (HSL)." 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Iraqi Constitution: Article 4". The Republic of Iraq Ministry of Interior General Directorate for Nationality. http://www.iraqinationality.gov.iq/attach/iraqi_constitution.pdf. "The right of Iraqis to educate their children in their mother tongue, such as Turkmen, Syriac, and Armenian shall be guaranteed in government educational institutions in accordance with educational guidelines, or in any other language in private educational institutions." 
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Zych, Maciej. "New Polish legislation regarding national, ethnic and linguistic minorities". Head Office of Geodesy and Cartography of Poland. p. 2. http://ksng.gugik.gov.pl/pliki/new_polish_legislation_regarding_national_ethnic_and_linguistic_minorities.pdf. "There are 9 national minorities: Belorussian, Czech, Lithuanian, German, Armenian, Russian, Slovak, Ukrainian and Jewish; and 4 ethnic minorities – Karait, Lemko, Roma and Tartar." 
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Pisarek, Walery (2009). "The relationship between official and minority languages in Poland". European Federation of National Institutions for Language. p. 118. http://www.efnil.org/documents/conference-publications/dublin-2009/16-Dublin-Pisarek-Mother.pdf. "In a Statement made by the Republic of Poland with relation to the ratification of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, Belarusian, Czech, Hebrew, Yiddish, Karaim, Kashubian, Lithuanian, Lemkian, German, Armenian, Romani, Russian, Slovak, Tatar and Ukrainian were recognized as minority languages." 
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Toktaş, Şule (2006). "EU enlargement conditions and minority protection : a reflection on Turkey's non-Muslim minorities" (in en). East European Quarterly 40 (4): 489–519. ISSN 0012-8449. https://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/42732. "This implies that Turkey grants educational right in minority languages only to the recognized minorities covered by the Lausanne who are the Armenians, Greeks and the Jews.". 
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Bayır, Derya (2013). Minorities and nationalism in Turkish law. Cultural Diversity and Law. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. pp. 89–90. ISBN 978-1-4094-7254-4. https://www.academia.edu/37557239. "Oran farther points out that the rights set out for the four categories are stated to be the ‘fundamental law’ of the land, so that no legislation or official action shall conflict or interfere with these stipulations or prevail over them (article 37). [...] According to the Turkish state, only Greek, Armenian and Jewish non-Muslims were granted minority protection by the Lausanne Treaty. [...] Except for non-Muslim populations - that is, Greeks, Jews and Armenians - none of the other minority groups’ language rights have been de jure protected by the legal system in Turkey." 
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Questions and Answers: Freedom of Expression and Language Rights in Turkey. New York: Human Rights Watch. April 2002. https://www.hrw.org/news/2002/04/19/qa-freedom-expression-and-language-rights-turkey. "The Turkish government accepts the language rights of the Jewish, Greek and Armenian minorities as being guaranteed by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne." 
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Uzum, Melike; Demir, Nurettin (2017-10-24). "Minority Language Education and Policy in Turkey: The Case of Cankiri Poshas" (in en). Journal of Universality of Global Education Issues 4: 5–6. ISSN 2575-9388. https://ugei-ojs-shsu.tdl.org/ugei/article/view/16. "In the Lausanne treaty, people of the republic were defined through a religion based definition, similar to the Ottoman concept of millet (nation). For example, the non-Muslim minorities such as Armenians, Greeks, and Jews were recognized as minorities, and their language rights were identified in articles 39, 40, and 41.". 
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 "Law of Ukraine "On Principles of State Language Policy" (Current version – Revision from 01.02.2014)" (in uk). Document 5029-17, Article 7: Regional or minority languages Ukraine, Paragraph 2. rada.gov.ua. 1 February 2014. http://zakon4.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/5029-17. "Стаття 7. Регіональні мови або мови меншин України ... 2. У контексті Європейської хартії регіональних мов або мов меншин до регіональних мов або мов меншин України, до яких застосовуються заходи, спрямовані на використання регіональних мов або мов меншин, що передбачені у цьому Законі, віднесені мови: російська, білоруська, болгарська, вірменська, гагаузька, ідиш, кримськотатарська, молдавська, німецька, новогрецька, польська, ромська, румунська, словацька, угорська, русинська, караїмська, кримчацька." 
  15. ↑ "H. Acharian Institute of Language". http://www.sci.am/resorgs.php?oid=34&langid=1. "Main Fields of Activity: investigation of the structure and functioning, history and comparative grammar of the Armenian language, exploration of the literary Eastern and Western Armenian Language, dialectology, regulation of literary language, development of terminology" 
  16. ↑ Borjian, Maryam (2017). Language and Globalization: An Autoethnographic Approach. Routledge. p. 205. ISBN 9781315394619. "At the forefront of the development of Western Armenian in everyday life as well as in arts and technology is the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation." 
  17. ↑ Yesayan, Catherine (June 19, 2019). "Unraveling the Life of Calouste Gulbenkian". Asbarez. https://asbarez.com/181752/unraveling-the-life-of-calouste-gulbenkian/. "The 'core' activity of the Armenian Department is the preservation, advancement and revitalization of Western Armenian." 
  18. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds (2017). "Armenic". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/arme1241. 
  19. ↑ Martirosyan, Hrach (March 2, 2020). "All You Need to Know about Armenian Language". ASPIRANTUM: Armenian School of Languages and Cultures. https://aspirantum.com/blog/all-you-need-to-know-about-armenian-language. "The total number of Armenians in the world is roughly estimated as 7–11 million, of which ca. 5-5.5 million speak Armenian." 
  20. ↑ "Language Monday: Armenian". April 23, 2018. https://www.worldbook.com/behind-the-headlines/Language-Monday-Armenian. "About 7 million people speak the Armenian language worldwide." 
  21. ↑ "Armenian language". 21 November 2023. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Armenian-language. 
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Mateescu, Alexandru; Salomaa, Arto (1997). "Formal Languages: an Introduction and a Synopsis". Handbook of Formal Languages. 1. Springer. p. 6. ISBN 3-540-60420-0. https://books.google.com/books?id=yQ59ojndUt4C&dq=armeno-aryan&pg=PA6. 
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 "Indo-European tree with Armeno-Aryan, exclusion of Greek". http://www.public.iastate.edu/~cfford/Indoeuropean%20language%20family%20tree.jpg. 
  24. ↑ Fortson 2004, p. 383
  25. ↑ Holm, Hans J. (2011). "'Swadesh lists' of Albanian Revisited and Consequences for its position in the Indo-European Languages". The Journal of Indo-European Studies 39 (1–2). 
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 26.2 Martirosyan, Hrach (2013). "The place of Armenian in the Indo-European language family: the relationship with Greek and Indo-Iranian". Journal of Language Relationship 10 (1): 85–138. doi:10.31826/jlr-2013-100107. 
  27. ↑ Clackson, James P. T. (2008). "Classical Armenian". in Woodard, Roger D.. The Ancient Languages of Asia Minor. Cambridge University Press. p. 124. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511486845.014. ISBN 9780521684965. 
  28. ↑ Kim, Ronald (2018). "Greco-Armenian: The persistence of a myth". Indogermanische Forschungen (The University of British Columbia Library) 123 (1). doi:10.1515/if-2018-0009. https://www.academia.edu/37844906. Retrieved 9 June 2019. 
  29. ↑ Meyer, Robin (2017). Iranian-Armenian Language Contact in and before the 5th Century CE (D.Phil. thesis). University of Oxford.
  30. ↑ Vaux, B. (2010). "Armenian" (in en). Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World. Elsevier. pp. 70. ISBN 978-0-08-087774-7. https://books.google.com/books?id=F2SRqDzB50wC. "The relationship between the two modern literary dialects is somewhat complicated; there are many grammatical differences [...] and lexical differences [...], and most Western speakers have difficulty understanding Eastern, but many Eastern speakers are relatively comfortable with the Western dialect. [...] The fact that there is some mutual intelligibility in both directions can also be linked to the fact that the literary dialects tend to borrow the same forms from Classical Armenian, and (at least in recent decades) employ the same newly coined words.". 
  31. ↑ Dolatian, Hossep; Sharifzadeh, Afsheen; Vaux, Bert (2023-05-22). "Introduction" (in en). A grammar of Iranian Armenian. Language Science Press. pp. 2. ISBN 978-3-96110-419-2. https://bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/you.stonybrook.edu/dist/c/2461/files/2023/05/Parskahayeren-May-23-2023.pdf. Retrieved 2023-10-08. "There are two standardized dialects that are mutually intelligible after significant exposure: Standard Western Armenian (SWA) and Standard Eastern Armenian (SEA); henceforth Standard Western and Standard Eastern." 
  32. ↑ Comrie, Bernard (2020). "Languages of the World". in Aronoff, Mark. The Handbook of Linguistics. Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 23. ISBN 978-1-119-30207-0. https://books.google.com/books?id=fUq1DwAAQBAJ. "Armenian, spoken primarily in Armenia though also in the Armenian diaspora originating in eastern Turkey, is another branch of Indo-European consisting of a single language, although the differences between Eastern Armenian (spoken mainly in Armenia) and Western Armenian (spoken originally mainly in Turkey) are considerable, and there are two written languages." 
  33. ↑ Vaux, Bert (2007-01-24). "Homshetsma, The language of the Armenians of Hamshen". in Simonian, Hovann (in en). The Hemshin: History, Society and Identity in the Highlands of Northeast Turkey. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-79830-7. https://www.academia.edu/300652. "Homshetsma is generally treated as a dialect of western Armenian. The two are generally not mutually intelligible" 
  34. ↑ Kurkjian, Vahan (2008). "Armenia as Xenophon Saw It". A History of Armenia. p. 47. 
  35. ↑ Movsisyan, Artak (2006). The Writing Culture of Pre-Christian Armenia. Yerevan University. ISBN 5-8084-0810-5. https://www.academia.edu/37618167. 
  36. ↑ Kossian, Aram V. (1997). "The Mushki Problem Reconsidered". SMEA 39 (2): 262. https://docplayer.net/108120425-The-mushki-problem-reconsidered.html. 
  37. ↑ Austin, William M. (January–March 1942). "Is Armenian an Anatolian Language?". Language (Linguistic Society of America) 18 (1): 22–25. doi:10.2307/409074. 
  38. ↑ Martirosyan, Hrach (2015), "Notes on Anatolian loanwords in Armenian", St. Petersburg, Institute for linguistic studies, Russian Academy of sciences (Russia), https://iling.spb.ru/confs/armenian_2015/slides/Hrach_Martirosyan_ALaC2015.pdf 
  39. ↑ Fortson 2004, p. 337
  40. ↑ Diakonoff, I. M. (1985). "Hurro-Urartian Borrowings in Old Armenian". Journal of the American Oriental Society (New Haven) 105 (4): 597–603. doi:10.2307/602722. ISSN 0003-0279. OCLC 6015257905. https://archive.org/stream/Hurro-urartianBorrowingsInOldArmenian#page/n1/mode/1up. 
  41. ↑ 41.0 41.1 Martirosyan, Hrach K. (2009). Etymological Dictionary of the Armenian Inherited Lexicon. Brill. 
  42. ↑ Petrosyan, Armen (2010). "The Armenian Elements in the Language and Onomastics of Urartu". Aramazd: Armenian Journal of Near Eastern Studies (Yerevan: Association for Near Eastern and Caucasian Studies, German University of Armenia) V (1): 134. https://www.academia.edu/2939663. 
  43. ↑ Vaux, Bert (1998). "Recent Armenological Research of Indo-European Relevance". https://www.academia.edu/2741055. 
  44. ↑ Martirosyan, Hrach (2014). "Origins and historical development of the Armenian language". Лингвистическая школа НИУ ВШЭ. Moscow. pp. 7–8. https://ling.hse.ru/data/2014/09/01/1313574129/Hrach%20Martirosyan%20-%20Handout.pdf. 
  45. ↑ Petrosyan, Armen (2007). "Towards the Origins of the Armenian People. The Problem of Identification of the Proto-Armenians: A Critical Review". Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies 16: 33–34. https://www.academia.edu/3657764. 
  46. ↑ Grekyan, Yervand (2018). "Urartian State Mythology". Biainili-Urartu: Gods, Temples, Cults. Yerevan: Yerevan Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography Press. pp. 44–45. ISBN 978-9939-9178-0-1. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351107801. 
  47. ↑ 47.0 47.1 "ARMENIA AND IRAN iv. Iranian influences in Armenian Language". Encyclopaedia Iranica. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/armenia-iv. Retrieved 26 October 2015. 
  48. ↑ Hübschmann, Heinrich (1967). "On the Position of Armenian in the Sphere of the Indo-European Languages". in Lehmann, Winfred P.. A Reader in Nineteenth Century Historical Indo-European Linguistics. Indiana University Press. https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/books/reader/12-h-h%C3%BCbschmann. Retrieved 2023-11-28. 
  49. ↑ Renfrew, Colin (1987). Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins. London: Pimlico. ISBN 0-7126-6612-5. 
  50. ↑ Gamkrelidze, Thomas V.; Ivanov, V. V. (March 1990). "The Early History of Indo-European Languages". Scientific American 262 (3): 110–117. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0390-110. Bibcode: 1990SciAm.262c.110G. 
  51. ↑ Renfrew, Colin (2003). "Time Depth, Convergence Theory, and Innovation in Proto-Indo-European". Languages in Prehistoric Europe. Winter. ISBN 3-8253-1449-9. 
  52. ↑ Gray, Russell D.; Atkinson, Quentin D. (2003). "Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin". Nature 426 (6965): 435–439. doi:10.1038/nature02029. PMID 14647380. Bibcode: 2003Natur.426..435G. http://language.psy.auckland.ac.nz/files/gray_and_atkinson2003/grayatkinson2003.pdf. Retrieved 20 July 2015. 
  53. ↑ Mallory, James P. (1997). "Kuro-Araxes Culture". Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Fitzroy Dearborn. pp. 341–42. ISBN 1-884964-98-2. https://archive.org/details/EncyclopediaOfIndoEuropeanCulture/page/n369/mode/2up. 
  54. ↑ Bammesberger, Alfred (1992). "The Place of Europe in Germanic and Indo-European". The Cambridge History of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 32. doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521264747.003. ISBN 978-0-521-26474-7.  The model "still remains the background of much creative work in Indo-European reconstruction" even though it is "by no means uniformly accepted by all scholars."
  55. ↑ Indoiranisch-griechische Gemeinsamkeiten der Nominalbildung und deren indogermanische Grundlagen (= Aryan-Greek Communities in Nominal Morphology and their Indoeuropean Origins; in German) (282 p.), Innsbruck, 1979
  56. ↑ 56.0 56.1 56.2 Diakonoff, I. M. (1985). "Hurro-Urartian Borrowings in Old Armenian". Journal of the American Oriental Society 105 (4): 597–603. doi:10.2307/602722. 
  57. ↑ Fortson 2004
  58. ↑ Pisowicz, Andrzej (1995). "How Did New Persian and Arabic Words Penetrate the Middle Armenian Vocabulary? Remarks on the Material of Kostandin Erznkac'i's Poetry". in Weitenberg, Joseph Johannes Sicco. New Approaches to Medieval Armenian Language and Literature. Dutch Studies in Armenian Language and Literature. 3. p. 96. doi:10.1163/9789004455139_008. ISBN 9789004455139. 
  59. ↑ Schütz, E. (1964). "Tangsux in Armenia". Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae (Akadémiai Kiadó) 17 (1): 106. 
  60. ↑ Panossian, Razmik. The Armenians: From Kings and Priests to Merchants and Commissars. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 39. ISBN 9780231139267. 
  61. ↑ Ouzounian, Nourhan (2000). Hacikyan, Agop Jack; Basmajian, Gabriel; Franchuk, Edward S. et al.. eds. The heritage of Armenian literature. Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Press. p. 88. ISBN 0814328156. https://archive.org/details/heritageofarmeni00ajha. 
  62. ↑ Mirzoyan, H. (2005). "Նարեկացու բառաշխարհը" (in hy). Banber Erewani Hamalsarani 1 (115): 85–114. 
  63. ↑ Švejcer, Aleksandr D. (1986). Contemporary Sociolinguistics: Theory, Problems, Methods. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 70. ISBN 9027215189. https://books.google.com/books?id=TQhCAAAAQBAJ. 
  64. ↑ Khachaturian, Lisa (2009). Cultivating nationhood in imperial Russia the periodical press and the formation of a modern Armenian identity. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers. p. 1. ISBN 978-1412813723. https://books.google.com/books?id=A0uY_tuRcx8C. 
  65. ↑ Krikor Beledian (2014). Berghaus, Günter. ed. International Yearbook of Futurism. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. p. 264. ISBN 978-3110334104. https://books.google.com/books?id=nQPpBQAAQBAJ. 
  66. ↑ Waters, Bella (2009). Armenia in pictures. Minneapolis: VGS/Twenty-First Century Books. p. 48. ISBN 978-0822585763. https://books.google.com/books?id=BFN6SuymI00C. 
  67. ↑ Cobarrubias, Juan; Fishman, Joshua A. (1983). Progress in language planning: International Perspectives. Berlin: Mouton Publishers. pp. 315, 319. ISBN 902793388X. https://books.google.com/books?id=x9KoAkzfVqIC&q=armenian%20lexical%20purification&pg=PA315. 
  68. ↑ 68.0 68.1 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named e26
  69. ↑ Hille, Charlotte (2010). State Building and Conflict Resolution in the Caucasus. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Publishers. p. 241. ISBN 9789004179011. https://archive.org/details/statebuildingcon00hill. 
  70. ↑ 70.0 70.1 Karamanian, Armen Samuel (2019-11-13). "'He Wasn't Able to Understand What I Was Saying': The Experiences of Returnees' Speaking Western Armenian in 'Eastern' Armenia". PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies 16 (1–2): 120–140. doi:10.5130/pjmis.v16i1-2.6290. ISSN 1449-2490. 
  71. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named ROU
  72. ↑ "Javakhk Armenians Looks Ahead to Local Elections". Asbarez. 31 March 2010. http://asbarez.com/78867/georgias-armenian-minority-looks-ahead-toward-local-elections/. "Javakheti for use in the region's 144 Armenian schools ..." 
  73. ↑ Mezhdoyan, Slava (28 November 2012). "Challenges and problems of the Armenian community of Georgia". Tbilisi: European Armenian Federation for Justice and Democracy. http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/MinorityIssues/Session5/statements/ItemV/3.%20EuropeanArmenianFederationJustice%20andDemocracy.pdf. "Armenian schools in Georgia are fully funded by the government ..." 
  74. ↑ "Consideration of Reports Submitted by States Parties Under Article 44 of the Convention. Third periodic reports of states parties due in 2003: Lebanon". Committee on the Rights of the Child. 25 October 2005. p. 108. http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/45377eb00.pdf. "Right of minorities to learn their language. The Lebanese curriculum allows Armenian schools to teach the Armenian language as a basic language." 
  75. ↑ Sanjian, Ara. "Armenians and the 2000 Parliamentary Elections in Lebanon". Armenian News Network / Groong. University of Southern California. http://www.groong.org/ro/ro-20000907.html. "Moreover, the Lebanese government approved a plan whereby the Armenian language was to be considered from now on as one of the few 'second foreign languages' that students can take as part of the official Lebanese secondary school certificate (Baccalaureate) exams." 
  76. ↑ "Armenian Translations". California Department of Social Services. http://www.cdss.ca.gov/cdssweb/PG25.htm. 
  77. ↑ "Վարորդների ձեռնարկ [Driver's Manual"]. California Department of Motor Vehicles. 2016. https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/09a5b933-9869-4504-ac90-fe54366771b3/dl600A.pdf?MOD=AJPERES. 
  78. ↑ "English/Armenian Legal Glossary". Superior Court of California, County of Sacramento. 22 June 2005. http://www.saccourt.ca.gov/general/legal-glossaries/docs/armenian-western-legal-glossary.pdf. 
  79. ↑ Rocha, Veronica (11 January 2011). "New Glendale traffic safety warnings in English, Armenian, Spanish". Los Angeles Times. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/01/glendales-new-traffic-safet-signs-in-english-armenian-and-spanish.html. 
  80. ↑ Aghajanian, Liana (4 September 2012). "Intersections: Bad driving signals a need for reflection". Glendale News-Press. http://articles.glendalenewspress.com/2012-09-04/opinion/tn-gnp-0904-intersections-bad-driving-signals-a-need-for-reflection_1_luxury-cars-car-accident-bad-drivers. "... trilingual street signs in English, Armenian, and Spanish at intersections ..." 
  81. ↑ Yesiltas, Ozum (2016-07-02). "Contested Notions of National Identity, Ethnic Movements And Democratization in Iran" (in en). Studies of Transition States and Societies 8 (1). doi:10.58036/stss.v8i1.255. ISSN 1736-8758. http://publications.tlu.ee/index.php/stss/article/view/255. 
  82. ↑ Riazi, Abdolmehdi (2005-07-04), "6. The Four Language Stages in the History of Iran" (in en), Decolonisation, Globalisation, Multilingual Matters, pp. 98–114, doi:10.21832/9781853598265-008, ISBN 978-1-85359-826-5, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234705882, retrieved 2023-10-07 
  83. ↑ "Legal Aspects of Education in Mother Language for Iranian Azerbaijani Students" (in en). 2017. pp. 284–294. https://www.elibrary.ru/item.asp?id=30582350. 
  84. ↑ Clackson, James (2007). Indo-European Linguistics: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511808616. ISBN 9780521653671. 
  85. ↑ Beekes, Robert S.P. (1995). Comparative Indo-European Linguistics: An Introduction. John Benjamins. doi:10.1075/z.72. ISBN 9781556195051. 
  86. ↑ Szemerényi, Oswald J.L. (1999). Introduction to Indo-European Linguistics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198238706. 
  87. ↑ Dum-Tragut 2009, p. 13
  88. ↑ Dum-Tragut 2009, pp. 17–20
  89. ↑ Dum-Tragut 2009, pp. 17–18
  90. ↑ Price 2005
  91. ↑ Kortmann, Bernd; van der Auwera, Johan (2011). The Languages and Linguistics of Europe: A Comprehensive Guide. Walter de Gruyter. p. 129. ISBN 978-3110220261. https://books.google.com/books?id=vi_VCm51kpkC. 
  92. ↑ The New Armenia, Vol. 11-12. New Armenia Publishing Company. 1919. p. 160. ISBN 1248372786. https://books.google.com/books?id=3nLnAAAAMAAJ. 
  93. ↑ 93.0 93.1 93.2 Fortson 2004, pp. 338–340
  94. ↑ Fortson 2004, p. 340:"The modern standard language has not been free of these influences either; in many areas of syntax, such as subordinate clausal structure, it more greatly resembles a Turkic language than a European one."
  95. ↑ Friedman, Victor A. (2009). "Sociolinguistics in the Caucasus". in Ball, Martin J.. The Routledge Handbook of Sociolinguistics Around the World: A Handbook. Routledge. p. 128. ISBN 978-0415422789. https://books.google.com/books?id=AtCNAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA128. 
  96. ↑ Baghdassarian-Thapaltsian, S. H. (1970). (in hy)Լրաբեր հասարակական գիտությունների (Bulletin of Social Sciences) № 6 (6): 51–60. http://lraber.asj-oa.am/1696/. Retrieved 24 March 2013. 
  97. ↑ Hovannisian, Richard, ed (2003). Armenian Karin/Erzerum. Costa Mesa, California: Mazda Publ.. p. 48. ISBN 9781568591513. "Thus, even today the Erzerum dialect is widely spoken in the northernmost districts of the Armenian republic as well as in the Akhalkalak (Javakheti; Javakhk) and Akhaltskha (Akhaltsikh) districts of southern Georgia" 
  98. ↑ Tekushev, Islam (5 January 2016). "An unlikely home". openDemocracy. https://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/islam-tekushev/unlikely-home. 
  99. ↑ Fortson 2004, p. 338:"Armenian is still difficult for IE studies. This is primarily due to the small number of native forms left in the language by the time of its earliest attestation: no more than about 450 words are inherited. The small stock of native words has left precious few examples of many Armenian sound changes, some of which are among the most bizarre in the whole family..."
  100. ↑ "Online Etymology Dictionary". etymonline.com. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=a. 

References

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