Phonological features Morphological & History and

1) Widespread use of front monophthong vowels such as , & ([j] is

considered consonant), palatal versions of u, & . Some variety of interchange
4) The dialect softens words endings by using (; ; & ), making them
palatal versions of sounds.
syntactic features classification of
is also present ( > , e > , etc.)
Ex. -
Ex. -; -; -; -; -; etc.
1) Limited number of prefixes: , , & sometimes Persian /. KARABAKH
dialect
- 5) The dialect lacks consonant and uses instead. Ex. ; ; ; ; etc.
- Ex. -; -; etc. 2) The present indicative of a negative verb - /[;] or , is used before the
verb, unlike SEA, where it is used in the beginning.
2) Verb conjugation in Present Indicative: Standard Eastern Armenian > 6) The question mark is put on the verb, rather than on the question word. Ex. - Karabakh/Artsakh is an Eastern Armenian dialect, which was one of the most
for the first person. Ex. - - extensively spoken of all Armenian dialects until the Soviet period when the
Ex. - - - dialect of Yerevan became the official tongue of the Armenian SSR.The 8th
- 3) Sometimes verb is in a singular form for a plural noun. century Armenian historian Stepanos Syunetsi was the first one to mention the
SEA > for second person. 7) Stress is put on the penultimate syllable. Ex. - local dialect of Artsakh. Though according to Hrachia Adjarian, Armenian
Ex. - Ex. - - dialects, including the Karabakh dialect started to developed in the 12th
- - 4) , , which are decisive pronouns (meaning every), usually, come after century.
SEA > for third person. with exception for words that end with and those whose penultimate syllable the definite article. Today it is mainly spoken in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and partially in
Ex. - is hidden syllable [; ; ; etc.] Ex. - southern and northeastern parts of Armenian Republic. In Karabakh, the
- - majority of the people living there speak the Karabakh dialect, except for
3) The dialect is very fast-paced. 8) SEA > , if it is in a monosyllabic word before . some areas (Kelbajar, Lachin, Kubati, Aghdan and Zangelan) which are
Ex. *as heard in the recording* Ex. - controlled by the Armenian forces, and have a very little population.
- Meanwhile in Armenia the areas where the majority of people speak the
Karabakh dialect are Goris and Kapan, while in Sisian, Meghri, Dilijan, Ijevan
and Berd the Karabakh dialect is spoken, however it is not the main dialect. It
is a working class and trade dialect, as there are many loan words related to
clothes, food and commerce from Russian, Kurdish, Turkish and Persian.
The Karabakh dialect is spoken as a mean of communication between citizens,
and it is not used in politics, and other formal communications. As a result, it
is mainly heard in the speech of native people of Karabakh. Most of the
speakers are the elderly, as the Yerevan dialect is more popular among youth.
No accurate information on the number of speakers is available today.
However, the population of the main area where the Karabakh dialect is
spoken (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic), is around 141,000, Kapan city has
somewhere around 43,000 & Goris nearly 20,000. So we can say that the total
number of speakers today would approximate to some 200,000 people.
These three places are historically connected, as they have been integrated into
Elisabethpol governorate, previously united into Persian Karabakh khanate.

20 Karabakh
dialectal words
- grandmother/ (unknown origin)
- era/ (Turkish eyyam)
- ugly/ (Turkish eybacar)
/ - god/ (old Armenian )
- flowerbed/ (Persian golestan, Turkish glistan)
- distrust/ (Persian word gumn)
- stupefied/ (Turkish word gnahkr/sinner/)
- expensiveness/ (old Armenian )
- parboiled/ (old Armenian )
- child/ (old Armenian )
- crimplene/ (Russian )
- tile/ (Russian , Turkish kiremit)
- gum/ (Greek mastix, Turkish siciz)
- family/ (Turkish var-yox/property/-)
- constantly/ (Azeri vurhavur)
- iron/ (Turkish t)
- hat/ (Turkish papak)
- goblet/ (Arabic finn)
- imperturbable/ (Arabic fereat)
- superior/ (Persian ked-xud)
Sources: A.Sargsyan Dictionary of Karabakh dialect; H.Adjarian Armenian
dialec-tology; Wikipedia - Karabakh dialect