Armenian language

Not to be confused with Aromanian language.

ation of the Caucasian Albanian and Georgian alphabet.

In his same 4th century BC Anabasis, Xenophon, describes many aspects of Armenian village life and hospitality in around 401 BC. He relates that the Armenian
people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like the
language of the Persians.[31]

The Armenian language (classical:

;
reformed: [hjn] hayeren) is an IndoEuropean language spoken by the Armenians. It is
the ocial language of the Republic of Armenia and
the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. It
has historically been spoken throughout the Armenian
Highlands and today is widely spoken in the Armenian
diaspora. Armenian has its own unique script, the
Armenian alphabet, restored in 405 CE by Mesrop
Mashtots.

1.1 Early contacts

Linguists classify Armenian as an independent branch of

the Indo-European language family.[23] It is of interest
to linguists for its distinctive phonological developments
within the Indo-European languages. Armenian shares
a number of major innovations with Greek,[24] and some
linguists group these two languages with Phrygian and the
Indo-Iranian[25][26] family into a higher-level subgroup of
Indo-European, which is dened by such shared innovations as the augment. More recently, others have proposed a Balkan grouping including Greek, Phrygian, Armenian, and Albanian.[27][28]

W. M. Austin (1942) concluded[32] that there was an early

contact between Armenian and Anatolian languages,
based on what he considered common archaisms, such
as the lack of a feminine and the absence of inherited
long vowels. However, unlike shared innovations (or
synapomorphies), the common retention of archaisms (or
symplesiomorphy) is not necessarily considered evidence
of a period of common isolated development.

Main article: Proto-Armenian language

See also: Armenian hypothesis

Soviet linguist Igor Diakonov (1985)[33] noted the presence in Old Armenian of what he calls a Caucasian substratum, identied by earlier scholars, consisting of loans
from the Kartvelian and Northeast Caucasian languages.
Noting that the Hurro-Urartian peoples inhabited the Armenian homeland in the second millennium b.c., Diakonov identies in Armenian a Hurro-Urartian substratum of social, cultural, and animal and plant terms such as
aaxin slave girl ( Hurr. al(l)a(e)enne), cov sea (
Urart. "(inland) sea), ut camel ( Hurr. utu),
and xnjor apple(tree)" ( Hurr. inzuri). 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.

Although the Armenians were known to history much

earlier (for example, they were mentioned in the 6th century BC Behistun Inscription and Xenophon's 4th century BC history, The Anabasis),[30] the oldest surviving Armenian-language text is the 5th-century AD Bible
translation of Mesrop Mashtots, who restored or created
the Armenian alphabet in 405 AD, at which time it had
36 letters. He is also credited by some with the cre-

Loan words from Iranian languages initially led linguists

to erroneously classify Armenian as an Iranian language.
Scholars, such as Paul de Lagarde and F. Mller, believed
that the similarities between the two languages meant that
both Iranian and Armenian were the same language.[34]
The distinctness of Armenian was recognized when
philologist Heinrich Hbschmann (1875)[34][35] used the
comparative method to distinguish two layers of Iranian
loans from the older Armenian vocabulary.

Armenia was a monolingual country by the second century BC at the latest.[29] Its language has a long literary history, with a fth-century Bible translation as
its oldest surviving text. Its vocabulary has been inuenced by Western Middle Iranian languages, particularly
Parthian, and to a lesser extent by Greek, Persian, and
Arabic throughout its history. There are two standardized
modern literary forms, Eastern Armenian and Western
Armenian, with which most contemporary dialects are
mutually intelligible.

Classication and origins

1.2

2 EVOLUTION

Graeco-Armenian hypothesis

menian and Indo-Iranian).[25][26]

Main article: Graeco-Armenian hypothesis

2 Evolution
The hypothesis that Greek is Armenians closest living relative originates with 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. Meillet (1925,
1927) further investigated morphological and phonological agreement, postulating that the parent languages of
Greek and Armenian were dialects in immediate geographical proximity in the parent language. Meillets hypothesis became popular in the wake of his Esquisse (1936). 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 most closely related
to Armenian. Hamp (1976, 91) supports the GraecoArmenian thesis, anticipating even 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 PIE *ne h2 oiu kw id (never anything or always nothing), and the representation of word-initial
laryngeals by prothetic vowels, and other phonological
and morphological peculiarities with Greek. Nevertheless, linguists, including Fortson (2004), comment by
the time we reach our earliest Armenian records in the
5th century AD, the evidence of any such early kinship
Armenian manuscript, 5th6th century.
has been reduced to a few tantalizing pieces.

1.3

Greco-Armeno-Aryan hypothesis

Main article: Graeco-Armeno-Aryan

Classical Armenian (Arm: grabar), attested from the

5th century to 12th century, was superseded by Middle
Armenian, attested from 12th century to 18th century. The classical form borrowed numerous words
from Middle Iranian languages, primarily Parthian,[41]
and contains smaller inventories of loanwords from
Greek,[41] Syriac,[41] Arabic,[42] Mongol,[43] Persian,[44]
and autochthonous languages such as Urartian. An effort to modernize the language in Greater Armenia and
the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia (1114th centuries) resulted in the addition of two more characters to the alphabet ("" and ""), bringing the total number to 38.[45]

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-IndoIranian, consistent with the fact that Armenian shares cer- The Book of Lamentations by Gregory of Narek (951
tain features only with Indo-Iranian (the satem change) 1003) is an example of the development of a literature
and writing style in Middle Armenian. In addition to elbut others only with Greek (s > h).
evating the literary style of the Armenian language, GreGraeco-Aryan has comparatively wide support among gory of Nareg paved the way for his successors to include
Indo-Europeanists for the Indo-European Homeland to secular themes in their writings. The thematic shift from
be located in the Armenian Highland.[36][37][38][39] Early mainly religious texts to writings with secular outlooks
and strong evidence was given by Eulers 1979 exami- further enhanced and enriched the vocabulary. A Word
nation on shared features in Greek and Sanskrit nominal of Wisdom, a poem by Hovhannes Sargavak devoted to
ection.[40]
a starling, legitimizes poetry devoted to nature, love, or
Used in tandem with the Graeco-Armenian hypothesis, female beauty. Gradually, the interests of the populathe Armenian language would also be included under tion at large were reected in other literary works as well.
the label Aryano-Greco-Armenic, splitting into proto- Konsdantin Yerzinkatsi and several others even take the
Greek/Phrygian and Armeno-Aryan (ancestor of Ar- unusual step of criticizing the ecclesiastic establishment

3
and addressing the social issues of the Armenian homeland. However, 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.

Armenia, after centuries of Iranian rule, was ceded by

Qajar Iran to neighbouring Russia following the latters
victory in the Russo-Persian War of 1826-1828. The antagonistic relationship between the Russian and Ottoman
Empires led to creation of two separate and dierent environments under which Armenians lived and suered.
Halfway through the 19th century, two important concentrations of Armenian communities were constituted.[46]
Because of persecutions or the search for better economic opportunities, many Armenians living under Ottoman rule gradually moved to Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, whereas Tiis (Tbilisi) in
Georgia 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.[47]
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 nowanachronistic Grabar. Numerous dialects developed in
the traditional Armenian regions, which, dierent as they
were, had certain morphological and phonetic features in
common. On the basis of these features two major variants emerged:

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

Western variant: The inux of immigrants from different parts of the traditional Armenian homeland
to Constantinople crystallized the common elements
of the regional dialects, paving the way to a style
of writing that required a shorter and more exible
learning curve than Grabar.
Eastern variant: The dialect of the Ararat plateau
provided the primary elements of Eastern Armenian, centered in Tiis (Tbilisi, Georgia). Similar
to the Western Armenian variant, the Modern Eastern was in many ways more practical and accessible
to the masses than Grabar.

First Armenian language Bible.

The Treaty of Turkmenchay of 1828, which granted for

the forced cession of all of Eastern Armenia from Qajar
Iran into the Russian Empire, once again divided the traditional Armenian homeland. This time, Western Armenia remained under Ottoman control, whereas the other
large chunk of historical Armenia (Eastern Armenia),
amongst which the soil of the contemporary Republic of

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 languages 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 simplied grammatical structure of the language in the two
dierent cultural spheres. Apart from minor morphological, phonetic, and grammatical dierences, the largely
common vocabulary and identical rules of grammatical
fundamentals allows users of one variant to understand
the other easily.[48]

4 MORPHOLOGY

After the First World War, the existence of the two modern versions of the same language was sanctioned even
more clearly. The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic
(19201990) used Eastern Armenian as its ocial language, whereas the diaspora created after the Genocide
of 1915 preserved the Western Armenian dialect.

2.1

Modern changes

3.2 Vowels
Modern Armenian has six monophthongs. Each vowel
phoneme in the table is represented by three symbols.
The rst indicates the phonemes pronunciation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). After that appears
the corresponding letter of the Armenian alphabet. The
last symbol is its Latin transliteration (according to ISO
9985).

3.3 Consonants
The following table lists the Eastern Armenian consonantal system. The occlusives and aricates have a special
aspirated series (transcribed with an apostrophe after the
letter): p, t, c, k (but ). Each phoneme in the table
is represented by three symbols. The rst indicates the
phonemes pronunciation in the International Phonetic
Alphabet (IPA), after that appears the corresponding letter of the Armenian alphabet, and the last symbol is its
Latin transliteration according to ISO 9985.
1. Sources dier on the place of articulation of these
consonants.
The major phonetic dierence between dialects is in the
reexes of Classical Armenian voice-onset time. The
seven dialect types have the following correspondences,
The two modern literary dialects, Western (originally as- illustrated with the td series:[52]
sociated with writers in the Ottoman Empire) and Eastern (originally associated with writers in the Russian
Empire), removed almost all of their Turkish lexical
inuences in the 20th century, primarily following the The consonants transcribed d are breathy voiced.
Armenian Genocide.
Armenian language road sign.

4 Morphology
3

Phonology

Proto-Indo-European voiceless occlusives are aspirated

in Proto-Armenian, one of the circumstances that is often linked to the Glottalic theory, a version of which
postulated that the voiceless occlusives of Proto-IndoEuropean were aspirated.[49]

3.1

Stress

In Armenian the stress falls on the last syllable unless the last syllable contains [], in which case it
falls on the penultimate one. For instance, [ok],
[mdnos], [gini] but [vhgn] and [dt]. Exceptions to this rule are some words with the nal letter ( in the reformed orthography) (,
, ) and sometimes the ordinal numerals (, , etc.).

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. Armenian is rich in combinations of consonants.[53][54] Both classical Armenian and
the modern spoken and literary dialects have a complicated system of declining nouns, 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 supplemented the inected verbs of
Classical Armenian. Negative verbs are conjugated differently from positive ones (as in English he goes and
he does not go). 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. With time the Armenian language made a transition from a synthetic language (Old
Armenian or Grabar) to a typical analytic language (Modern Armenian) with Middle Armenian as a midpoint in
this transition.

4.1

Noun

between voiced occlusives and aspirated ones; the rst series corresponds to the tenuis series of Eastern Armenian,
Classical Armenian has no grammatical gender, not even and the second corresponds to the Eastern voiced and asin the pronoun, but there is a feminine sux (- "- pirated series. Thus, the Western dialect pronounces both
uhi). For example, (usutsich, teacher) be- () and () as an aspirated t as in tiger, and the ()
comes (usutschuhi, female teacher). This letter is pronounced like the letter d as in develop.
sux, however, does not have a grammatical eect on There is no precise linguistic border between one dialect
the sentence. The nominal inection, however, preserves and another because there is nearly always a dialect transeveral types of inherited stem classes. Nouns are de- sition zone of some size between pairs of geographically
clined for one of seven cases: nominative, accusative, identied dialects.
locative, genitive, dative, ablative, or instrumental.
Armenian can be divided into two major dialectal blocks
and those blocks into individual dialects, though many of
Examples of nouns declension
the Western Armenian dialects have become extinct due
to the eects of the Armenian Genocide. In addition, neiAnimated nouns do not decline for locative case.
ther dialect is completely homogeneous: any dialect can
be subdivided into several subdialects. Although Western and Eastern Armenian are often described as dier4.2 Verb
ent dialects of the same language, some subdialects are
not readily mutually intelligible. Nevertheless, a uent
Main article: Armenian verbs
speaker of one of two greatly varying dialects who is exposed to the other dialect for even a short period of time
Verbs in Armenian have an expansive system of will be able to understand the other with relative ease.
conjugation with two main verb types (three in West- Other distinct dialects include the Homshetsi language of
ern Armenian) changing form based on tense, mood and the Hemshin people and the divergent and almost exaspect.
tinct Lomavren language of the Bosha people,[55] both
of which are categorized as belonging to the Armenian
language family.

Dialects

See also: Classication des dialectes armniens

Armenian is a pluricentric language, having two mod-

6 Writing system
Main articles: Armenian alphabet and Armenian braille
The Armenian alphabet (Armenian:

Map of the Armenian dialects in early 20th century:

-owm dialects, nearly corresponding to Eastern Armenian
-el dialects (intermediate)
-g dialects, nearly corresponding to Western Armenian

ern 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 Turkishspeaking communities.
For example, Eastern Armenian speakers pronounce ()
as an aspirated t as in tiger, () like the d in develop, and () as a tenuis occlusive, sounding somewhere between the two as in stop. Western Armenian
has simplied the occlusive system into a simple division

Armenian keyboard layout using the Armenian alphabet.

Hayots grer or Hayots aybuben) is

a graphically unique alphabetical writing system that is
used to write the Armenian language. It was introduced
around 405 AD by Mesrop Mashtots, an Armenian linguist and ecclesiastical leader, and originally contained 36
letters. Two more letters, (o) and (f), were added in
the Middle Ages. During the 1920s orthography reform,
a new letter (capital ) was added, which was a ligature before +, whereas the letter was discarded and
reintroduced as part of a new letter (which was a
digraph before).

10 FOOTNOTES

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. This table lists only some
of the more recognizable cognates that Armenian shares
with English (more specically, with English words descended from the Old English (Anglo-Saxon) language).
(Source: Online Etymology Dictionary.[56] )

See also
Armenian alphabet
Eastern Armenian language
Western Armenian language
Urartian language
Glottalic theory
Graeco-Armeno-Aryan
Graeco-Armenian
Homshetsi dialect
Language families and languages
List of Indo-European languages

Notes

[1] Although Armenian has no legal status in SamtskeJavakheti, it is widely spoken by the Armenian population, which is concentrated in Ninotsminda and Akhalkalaki districts (over 90% of the total population in these two
districts).[8] The Georgian government fully funds around
144 Armenian school in the region (as of 2010).[9][10]
[2] Various state government agencies in California provide
Armenian translations of their documents, namely the
California Department of Social Services,[11] California
Department of Motor Vehicles,[12] California superior
courts.[13] In the city of Glendale, there are street signs
in Armenian.[14][15]
[3] The Lebanese government recognizes Armenian as
a minority language,[16] particularly for educational
purposes.[17][18]
[4] In education, according to the Treaty of Lausanne[19][20]

10 Footnotes
[1] Modern Armenian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Classical Armenian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Middle Armenian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
[2] Implementation of the Charter in Cyprus. Database for
the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
Public Foundation for European Comparative Minority
Research. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
[3] Implementation of the Charter in Hungary. Database
for the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Public Foundation for European Comparative
Minority Research. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
[4] Iraqi Constitution: Article 4 (PDF). The Republic of
Iraq Ministry of Interior General Directorate for Nationality. Retrieved 16 June 2014. 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.
[5] Territorial languages in the Republic of Poland (PDF).
Strasbourg: European Charter for Regional or Minority
Languages. 30 September 2010. p. 9. Retrieved 16 June
2014.
[6] Implementation of the Charter in Romania. Database
for the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Public Foundation for European Comparative
Minority Research. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
[7] Law of Ukraine On Principles of State Language Policy (Current version Revision from 01.02.2014)".
Document 5029-17, Article 7: Regional or minority languages Ukraine, Paragraph 2. rada.gov.ua. 1 February
2014. Retrieved 30 April 2014.
[8] Hille, Charlotte (2010). State Building and Conict Resolution in the Caucasus. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Publishers. p. 241. ISBN 9789004179011.
[9] Javakhk Armenians Looks Ahead to Local Elections.
Asbarez. 31 March 2010. Retrieved 26 May 2014.
...Javakheti for use in the regions 144 Armenian schools...
[10] Mezhdoyan, Slava (28 November 2012). Challenges
and problems of the Armenian community of Georgia
(PDF). Tbilisi: European Armenian Federation for Justice and Democracy. Retrieved 26 May 2014. Armenian
schools in Georgia are fully funded by the government...
[11] Armenian Translations. California Department of Social Services. Archived from the original on 26 May 2014.
[12] " [Drivers Manual]" (PDF). California Department of Motor Vehicles. 2014. Retrieved
26 May 2014.
[13] English/Armenian Legal Glossary (PDF). Superior
Court of California, County of Sacramento. 22 June
2005. Retrieved 26 May 2014.

[14] Rocha, Veronica (11 January 2011). New Glendale trafc safety warnings in English, Armenian, Spanish. Los
Angeles Times. Retrieved 26 May 2014.
[15] Aghajanian, Liana (4 September 2012). Intersections:
Bad driving signals a need for reection. Glendale NewsPress. Retrieved 26 May 2014. ...trilingual street signs in
English, Armenian and Spanish at intersections...
[16] About Lebanon. Central Administration of Statistics of
the Republic of Lebanon. Archived from the original on
26 May 2014. Other Languages: French, English and Armenian
[17] Consideration of Reports Submitted by States Parties
Under Article 44 of the Convention. Third periodic reports of states parties due in 2003: Lebanon (PDF).
Committee on the Rights of the Child. 25 October 2005.
p. 108. Retrieved 26 May 2014. Right of minorities to
learn their language. The Lebanese curriculum allows Armenian schools to teach the Armenian language as a basic
language.
[18] Sanjian, Ara. Armenians and the 2000 Parliamentary
Elections in Lebanon. Armenian News Network / Groong.
University of Southern California. Archived from the
original on 26 May 2014. 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
ocial Lebanese secondary school certicate (Baccalaureate) exams.
[19] Saib, Jilali (2001). Languages in Turkey. In Extra, Guus; Gorter, Durk. The Other Languages of Europe: Demographic, Sociolinguistic and Educational Perspectives. Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters. p. 423.
ISBN 9781853595097. No other language can be taught
as a mother language other than Armenian, Greek and Hebrew, as agreed in the Lausanne Treaty....
[20] Okabol, Rfat (2008).
Secondary Education in
Turkey. In Nohl, Arnd-Michael; Akkoyunlu-Wigley,
Arzu; Wigley, Simon. Education in Turkey. Berlin: Waxmann Verlag. p. 65. ISBN 9783830970699. Private Minority Schools are the school established by Greek, Armenian and Hebrew minorities during the era of the Ottoman
Empire and covered by Lausanne Treaty.
[21] H. Acharian Institute of Language. sci.am. Archived
from the original on 5 October 2014. 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
[22] Nordho, Sebastian; Hammarstrm, Harald; Forkel,
Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). Armenian.
Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary
Anthropology.
[23] Armenian language Britannica Online Encyclopedia
[24] The Armenian Language.
[25] Handbook of Formal Languages (1997) p. 6.

[26] Indo-European tree with Armeno-Aryan, exclusion of

Greek
[27] Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction,
Benjamin W. Fortson, John Wiley and Sons, 2009, p383.
[28] Hans J. Holm (2011): Swadesh lists of Albanian Revisited and Consequences for its position in the IndoEuropean Languages. The Journal of Indo-European
Studies, Volume 39, Number 1&2.
[29] Strabo, Geographica, XI, 14, 5;
, . . , 1981, 33
(Concise History of Armenian Language, S. Gh. Ghazaryan. Yerevan, 1981, p. 33).
[30] Armenia as Xenophon Saw It, p. 47, A History of Armenia. Vahan Kurkjian, 2008
[31] Xenophon. Anabasis. pp. IV.v.29.
[32] Austin, William M. (JanuaryMarch 1942). Is Armenian an Anatolian Language?". Language (Linguistic Society of America) 18 (1): 2225. doi:10.2307/409074.
JSTOR 409074.
[33] Igor Mikhailovich Diakonov, Hurro-Urartian Borrowings in Old Armenian, Journal of the American Oriental
Society 105.4 (1985) text
[34] ARMENIA AND IRAN iv. Iranian inuences in Armenian Language. Retrieved 26 October 2015.
[35] A Reader in Nineteenth Century Historical IndoEuropean Linguistics: On the Position of Armenian in the
Sphere of the Indo-European Languages. Utexas.edu.
2007-03-20. Retrieved 2012-12-18.
[36] Renfrew, A.C., 1987, Archaeology and Language: The
Puzzle of Indo-European Origins, London: Pimlico. ISBN
0-7126-6612-5; T. V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov,
The Early History of Indo-European Languages, Scientic
American, March 1990; Renfrew, Colin (2003). Time
Depth, Convergence Theory, and Innovation in ProtoIndo-European. Languages in Prehistoric Europe. ISBN
3-8253-1449-9.
[37] Russell D. Gray and Quentin D. Atkinson, Language-tree
divergence times support the Anatolian theory of IndoEuropean origin, Nature 426 (27 November 2003) 435439
[38] Mallory, James P. (1997). Kuro-Araxes Culture.
Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture (Fitzroy Dearborn): 34142.
[39] A. Bammesberger in The Cambridge History of the English
Language, 1992, ISBN 978-0-521-26474-7, p. 32: 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.
[40] 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

[41] Hurro-Urartian Borrowings in Old Armenian, I. M. Diakono, Journal of the American Oriental Society,
Vol. 105, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1985), 597.
[42] How Did New Persian and Arabic Words Penetrate the
Middle Armenian Vocabulary? Remarks on the Material of Kostandin Erznkac'is Poetry, Andrzej Pisowicz,
New Approaches to Medieval Armenian Language
and Literature, edited by Joseph Johannes Sicco Weitenberg, (Rodopi B.V., 1995), 96.
[43] Tangsux in Armenia, E. SCHTZ, Acta Orientalia
Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, Vol. 17, No. 1
(1964), 106.
[44] Razmik Panossian, The Armenians: From Kings and
Priests to Merchants and Commissars, (Columbia University Press, 2006), 39.
[45] 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.
[46] 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 1412813727.

12 FURTHER READING

[58] The letter c represents /ts/. In the Armenian words cunk,

gorc, mec, and ancanot, it corresponds to PIE *.
[59] The words bum (cow), pir (re) and utur (water) in
the Latin column are actually from an Italic sister language
called Umbrian.
[60] The word yare (year) in the Persian and Sanskrit
columns is actually from an Indo-Iranian sister language
called Avestan.
[61] The prexes for not in Latin are in-" and i-", and an-"
and a-" in Greek and Sanskrit, which correspond to the
PIE *n-.

11 References
Dum-Tragut, Jasmine (2009), Armenian: Modern
Eastern Armenian, Amsterdam: John Benjamins
Publishing Company
Fortson, Benjamin W. (2004), Indo-European Language and Culture, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing

[47] Krikor Beledian (2014).

Berghaus, Gnter, ed.
International Yearbook of Futurism. Walter de Gruyter
GmbH & Co KG. p. 264. ISBN 3110334100.

Hbschmann, Heinrich (1875), "ber die Stellung

des armenischen im Kreise der indogermanischen
Sprachen, Zeitschrift fr Vergleichende Sprachforschung 23: 542

[48] Waters, Bella (2009). Armenia in pictures. Minneapolis: VGS/Twenty-First Century Books. p. 48. ISBN
0822585766.

[49] James Clackson, Indo-European Linguistics, An Introduction (2007, Cambridge)

Robert S.P. Beekes, Comparative Indo-European Linguistics, An Introduction (1995, John Benjamins)
Oswald J.L. Szemernyi, Introduction to Indo-European
Linguistics (1996, Oxford)
[50] Dum-Tragut (2009:13)
[51] Dum-Tragut (2009:1720)
[52] Price (1998)
[53] Kortmann, Bernd; van der Auwera, Johan (2011). The
Languages and Linguistics of Europe: A Comprehensive
Guide. Walter de Gruyter. p. 129]. ISBN 9783110220261.
[54] The New Armenia, Vol. 11-12. New Armenia Publishing
Company. 1919. p. 160. ISBN 1248372786.
[55] Victor A. Friedman (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.
[56] Online Etymology Dictionary.
etymonline.com.
Archived from the original on 13 June 2007. Retrieved
2007-06-07.
[57] However, an Italic sister language called Oscan preserved
the form futrei (daughter).

Price, G. (1998), Encyclopedia of European languages, Oxford University Press

12 Further reading
Adjarian, Herchyah H. (1909) Classication des dialectes armniens, par H. Adjarian. Paris: Honoro
Champion.
Clackson, James. 1994. The Linguistic Relationship Between Armenian and Greek. London: Publications of the Philological Society, No 30. (and
Oxford: Blackwell Publishing)
Holst, Jan Henrik (2009) Armenische Studien.
Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Mallory, J. P. (1989) In Search of the IndoEuropeans: Language, Archaeology and Myth. London: Thames & Hudson.
Vaux, Bert. 1998. The Phonology of Armenian.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Vaux, Bert. 2002. The Armenian dialect of
Jerusalem. in Armenians in the Holy Land. Louvain: Peters.

13

External links

Armenian Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words

(from Wiktionarys Swadesh list appendix)
AGBU Armenian Virtual College First online
university to learn Armenian
Armenian language resources

Armenian Language Thesaurus (

) by Ashot Sukiasyan (about 83,000 entries). In Eastern Armenian and reformed Armenian orthography.
Armenian-English dictionary (about 70,000
entries).
English-Armenian dictionary (about 96,000
entries).

The Armenian alphabet

Armenian-French dictionary (about 18,000

entries).

Learn Armenian (Organization teaching grammar

vocabulary and phrases)

French-Armenian dictionary (about 20,000

entries).

ARMENIA AND IRAN iv. History, discussion,

and the presentation of Iranian inuences in Armenian Language over the millennia

www.masis.am/test/dic/ ArmenianEnglish Dictionary, more than 17,000 terms.

Armenian Online Dictionaries

en.wiktionary.org ArmenianEnglish dictionary
with pronunciations, etymologies and inection
tables.
Armenian English Dictionary ArmenianEnglish
dictionary.
Nayiri.com (Library of Armenian dictionaries):
Armenian dictionary (about 18,000 terms;
denitions in Armenian).
Armenian Explanatory Dictionary (
) by Stepan
Malkhasiants (about 130,000 entries). One of
the denitive Armenian dictionaries.
Armenian Etymological Dictionary (
) by Hrachia
Acharian (5,062 word roots). The denitive
study of the history and origins of word roots
in Armenian. Also includes explanations of
each word root as it is used today.
Explanatory Dictionary of Contemporary
Armenian (
) published by
the Armenian SSR Academy of Sciences
between 1969 and 1980. In Eastern Armenian, reformed orthography (about 125,000
headwords).
, Western Armenian dictionary published in two volumes in
Beirut in 1992 (about 56,000 headwords).
Modern Armenian Explanatory Dictionary (
) by Edward Aghayan (about
135,600 headwords). In Eastern Armenian
and reformed Armenian orthography.

dictionaries.arnet.am Collection
XDXF and Stardict dictionaries

of

Armenian

dictionary.hayastan.com ArmenianEnglish Dictionary, more than 9,000 terms.

Daoulagad - mobile Armenian OCR dictionary

10

14

14
14.1

TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

Text

Armenian language Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_language?oldid=702894051 Contributors: Andre Engels, Danny,

Pgdudda, XJaM, Montrealais, Tzartzam, Olivier, Edward, Michael Hardy, Paul Barlow, Dori, Alo, Looxix~enwiki, Ahoerstemeier, Snoyes,
Bogdangiusca, Junesun, Wfroede, Tobias Conradi, Hashar, Crusadeonilliteracy, Eszett, Charles Matthews, Guaka, Timwi, Ralesk, Dysprosia, Vanished user aewrkmvkmsdvke334c, Anon~enwiki, Zoicon5, Paul-L~enwiki, Mackensen, Bcorr, Secretlondon, GPHemsley, PuzzletChung, Branddobbe, Robbot, Benwing, Romanm, Ajd, Naddy, Merovingian, YBeayf, Rholton, Rursus, Auric, Hippietrail, Caknuck,
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Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry, Cbogart2, Esiminch, Opiaterein, Mursel, JLaTondre, Curpsbot-unicodify, Tropylium, Stuhacking, Cotoco, Philip Stevens, GrinBot~enwiki, Sardanaphalus, KnightRider~enwiki, SmackBot, Ulf-S.~enwiki, David Kernow, Reedy, Prodego,
Jim62sch, AndreasJS, Kintetsubualo, Aivazovsky, Alsandro, Sebesta, Gilliam, Chaojoker, Berton, MalafayaBot, K4zem, Pensamiento,
Constanz, Emrrans, JonHarder, TheKMan, Elendils Heir, Khoikhoi, Flyguy649, Master Scott Hall, Serouj, Andrew Dalby, SashatoBot,
TA-ME, Srikeit, JorisvS, 16@r, A. Parrot, Hvn0413, , Languagegeek Chris, MTSbot~enwiki, Jose77, Hectorian, Hu12, Doramjan, Cbrown1023, Ouzo~enwiki, Courcelles, GiantSnowman, Bruinfan12, Ompty, Eastlaw, Arkangelesk, Phillip J, Rambam rashi,
Armeni~enwiki, Cydebot, Future Perfect at Sunrise, Besieged, Khatru2, ST47, Doug Weller, DumbBOT, Chrislk02, HJJHolm, Thijs!bot,
Biruitorul, SeNeKa, Marek69, Crzycheetah, MattTweedell, Alex45, EJPyatt, AntiVandalBot, Fedayee, Widefox, Yalens, JAnDbot, Husond, DuncanHill, MPWilk, .anacondabot, Mardavich, The Myotis, Magioladitis, VoABot II, Lmp06, Girdi, Nyttend, Avicennasis, Ensign
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Quantum666~enwiki, Kmoksy, Alsace38, ZroBot, Medeis, Burned Toast, Neddy1234, Kentronhayastan, ChuispastonBot, HandsomeFella, Iketsi, ClueBot NG, , Phoenicians8, Frietjes, Cntras, Xenophonix, Saro minasian, Spartan727, Calabe1992, Wbm1058,
Zyztem2000, WikiMassis, BG19bot, Ymblanter, Bondaruk85, Yerevantsi, Robavilen, Fernandobrown81, Word dewd544, Sprutt, Zimmarod, Hablabar, LuJoTu, Nocturnal781, Aloyanale, Torvalu4, Spetsnaz1991, BrightStarSky, Elishua Porush, Vadgt, ,
Zyma, JustAMuggle, EasyGoingNature, Hgvqd, Jamesmcmahon0, Lfdder, Abrahamic Faiths, Ocialkamranheydarli1, Jan Kaninchen,
LouisAragon, Werddemer, SantiaguitoIII, G S Palmer, Azerbaijani boy, X.goodarzie, Thomas190, Mersin01, Steverci, Van.se, Tuncker,
Eliasyoussef47, Vard Rozalinda Markosyan, Namiq.kadirov, Keg12345, 92slim, Javidan(Aze), KasparBot, BrainStorm53, AzerbaijaniMan, Futurulus, Murad lkbrov, Gpapazian and Anonymous: 326

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