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Armenian Language
*** Shopping-Tip: Armenian Language
{{Infobox Language
|name=Armenian
|nativename= Õ€Õ¡ÕµÕ¥Ö€Õ¥Õ¶ ''Hayeren''
|familycolor=Indo-European
|states=
Armenia,
Nagorno-Karabakh,
Iran, and the
Armenian diaspora
|speakers=7 million
|nation=
Armenia,
Nagorno-Karabakh
|iso1=hy|iso2b=arm|iso2t=hye|iso3=hye
|script=
Armenian alphabet
}}
'''Armenian''' is an
Indo-European language spoken by the
Armenians Armenian people in the
Armenian Republic and also used by the
Armenian Diaspora. It constitutes an independent branch of the Indo-European language family, though many Indo-Europeanists believe it forms a subgroup with the Greek and Indo-Iranian families (see Clackson 1994 for extensive discussion).
General considerations
Armenian is regarded as a close relative of
Phrygian language Phrygian. From the modern languages
Greek language Greek seems to be the most closely related to Armenian. Armenian shares major
isoglosses with Greek, some linguists propose that the linguistic ancestors of the Armenians and Greeks were either identical or in a close contact relation. Armenian and Phrygian show no close relationship with the
Anatolian languages other than borrowings. The Anatolian loan words within Armenian indicate that proto-Armenians were in contact with both
Luwian speakers and with
Hittites. The Classical Armenian language (often referred to as grabar, literally "written (language)") imported numerous words from Middle Iranian languages, primarily
Parthian, and contains smaller inventories of borrowings from Greek, Syriac, Latin, and autochthonous languages such as
Urartian language Urartian. Middle Armenian (11th–15th centuries AD) incorporated further loans from Arabic, Turkish, Persian, and Latin, and the modern dialects took in hundreds of additional words from Modern Turkish and Persian. 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 genocide of the Armenians in Anatolia by the Turks in 1915–1920.
Armenian is written in the
Armenian alphabet, created by Saint
Saint Mesrob Mesrop Mashtots in
406 AD. This alphabet, with two additional letters, is still used today.
Literature written in Armenian appeared by the
5th century. The written language of that time, called
classical Armenian or
Grabar, remained the Armenian literary language, with various changes, until the 19th century. Meanwhile, spoken Armenian developed independently of the written language. Many dialects appeared when Armenian communities became separated by geography or politics, and not all of these dialects remained mutually intelligible.
Grammar
Armenian resembles 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. 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 inflected 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 language Greek and
Latin, but the modern language, like modern Greek, has undergone many transformations.
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron Lord Byron studied the Armenian language. He helped to compile an Armenian grammar textbook and translated a few Armenian books into English.
Phonology
Classical Armenian distinguishes seven vowels:
''a'', ''i'', ''
schwa'', open ''e'', closed ''e'', ''o'', and ''u'' (transcribed as ''a'', ''i'', ''É™'', ''e'', ''Ä“'', ''o'', ''ow'' and ''u'' respectively).
The
stop consonant occlusives have a special aspirated series (transcribed with a Greek ''
spiritus asper'' after the letter): ''{{unicode|p῾}}'', ''{{unicode|t῾}}'', ''{{unicode|c῾}}'', ''{{unicode|Ä?῾}}'', ''{{unicode|k῾}}''.
Morphology
Noun
Classical Armenian has no
grammatical gender, not even in the pronoun. The nominal inflection, however, preserves several types of inherited stem classes. The noun may take seven cases,
nominative,
accusative case accusative,
locative,
genitive,
dative,
ablative,
instrumental case instrumental.
Verb
''Main article:
Armenian verbs''
Verbs in Armenian have an expansive system of
Grammatical conjugation conjugation with two main verb types (three in Western Armenian) changing form based on tense, mood and aspect.
Dialects
One of the greatest differences in the two modern dialects is the way certain letters are pronounced. Eastern Armenian speakers have kept the original pronunciations of the letters, pronouncing each of the 38 letters quite distinctively. On the other hand, Western Armenian speakers pronounce a few of the letters in the same way. This has to do with Western Armenians living in regions where other languages, which lacked these rich variations, were also widely spoken and therefore have been influenced by the pronunciations of these other languages (usually either Arabic or Turkish.)
For example, Eastern Armenian speakers pronounce ({{Hayeren|Õ©}}) as an aspirated "t" as in "tiger", ({{Hayeren|Õ¤}}) like the "d" in "develop", and ({{Hayeren|Õ¿}}) as an unaspirated voiceless stop, sounding somewhere between the two as in "s'''t'''op" . Western Armenians will pronounce the letters differently, and in some cases, oppositely. For example, Western Armenian speakers prounounce both ({{Hayeren|Õ©}}) and ({{Hayeren|Õ¤}}) as an aspirated "t" as in "tiger." The ({{Hayeren|Õ¿}}) letter is pronounced like the letter "d" as in "develop." Thus, Western Armenian does not have the unaspirated voiceless stop at all.
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). The main difference between both blocks are:
*'''
Western Armenian''' (''Arevm'tahayeren''):
** example
*'''
Eastern Armenian language Eastern Armenian''' (''Arevelahayeren''):
** example
In addition, neither dialect is completely homogeneous: any dialect can be subdivided into several subdialects. Armenian can be subdivided in two major dialectal blocks and those blocks into individual dialects, though many of the Western Armenian dialects have died due to the effects of the Armenian Genocide:
{| border=0 cellspacing=10 cellpadding=10
| width="50%" valign=top bgcolor="#E7E7FF" |
'''Western Armenian'''
* ''Anatolia''
** ''Istanbul''
** ''Cilicia'' (Musa Ler, Marash, Sis, etc)
** ''Van''
** ''Bitlis''
* ''Europe''
** ''Bulgaria''
** ''Poland''
** ''Romania''
** ''Greece''
** ''Russia''
* ''Asia''
** ''Lebanon''
** ''Syria''
** ''Jerusalem''
* ''Africa''
** ''Egypt''
* ''North America''
** ''Canada''
** ''United States''
| width="50%" valign=top bgcolor="#E7E7FF" |
'''Eastern Armenian''' (ex-USSR and Iran)
* ''Republic of Armenia''
** ''Yerevan''
** ''Gavar''
** ''Syuniq''
** ''Kumayri (Gyumri)''
* ''Republic of Mountainous Karabakh''
* ''Iran''
* ''Georgia''
* ''Russia''
|}
''English - Eastern Armenian''
*Yes = Ayo ({{Hayeren|Õ¡ÕµÕ¸}})
*No = Voch ({{Hayeren|Õ¸Õ¹}})
*Excuse me = Neroghoutioun ({{Hayeren|Õ¶Õ¥Ö€Õ¸Õ²Õ¸Ö‚Õ©ÕµÕ¸Ö‚Õ¶}})
*Hello = Barev ({{Hayeren|Õ¢Õ¡Ö€Ö‡}})
*Please = Khintrem ({{Hayeren|ÕÕ¶Õ¤Ö€Õ¥Õ´}})
*Thank you = Shnorhakal em ({{Hayeren|Õ·Õ¶Õ¸Ö€Õ°Õ¡Õ¯Õ¡Õ¬ Õ¥Õ´}})
*Thank you very much = Shat shnorhakal em ({{Hayeren|Õ·Õ¡Õ¿ Õ·Õ¶Õ¸Ö€Õ°Õ¡Õ¯Õ¡Õ¬ Õ¥Õ´}})
*Welcome = Bari galust ({{Hayeren|Õ¢Õ¡Ö€Õ« Õ£Õ¡Õ¬Õ¸Ö‚Õ½Õ¿}}) / Barov eq yekel
*Goodbye = Tstesoutioun ({{Hayeren|Ö?Õ¿Õ¥Õ½Õ¸Ö‚Õ©ÕµÕ¸Ö‚Õ¶}})
*Good morning = Bari louys ({{Hayeren|Õ¢Õ¡Ö€Õ« Õ¬Õ¸Ö‚ÕµÕ½}})
*Good afternoon = Bari or ({{Hayeren|Õ¢Õ¡Ö€Õ« Ö…Ö€}})
*Good evening = Bari yereko ({{Hayeren|Õ¢Õ¡Ö€Õ« Õ¥Ö€Õ¥Õ¯Õ¸}})
*Good night = Bari gisher ({{Hayeren|Õ¢Õ¡Ö€Õ« Õ£Õ«Õ·Õ¥Ö€}})
*I love you = Yes sirum em qez ({{Hayeren|Õ¥Õ½ Õ½Õ«Ö€Õ¸Ö‚Õ´ Õ¥Õ´ Ö„Õ¥Õ¦}})
See also
*
Language families and languages
*
List of Indo-European languages
*
Armenian alphabet
*
Graeco-Armenian
References
*
J.P. Mallory, In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology and Myth. London: Thames & Hudson, 1989.
* Clackson, James. 1994. The Linguistic Relationship Between Armenian and Greek. London: Publications of the Philological Society, No 30.
* Vaux, Bert. 1998. The phonology of Armenian. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
External links
{{InterWiki|code=hy}}
-
Armeniapedia.org - free Armenian lessons on the Armenian Wiki
-
Free online resources for learners
-
Ethnologue report on Armenian
-
http://www.cilicia.com
-
The Armenian alphabet
-
List of online Armenian-related resources
Armenian Language Samples:
-
Armenian
-
Armenian Western
-
Armenian Eastern
Armenian Dictionaries Online:
-
Nayiri.com - This site spell checks and has a plug-in for Internet Explorer allowing quick searches on any Armenian website
Category:Armenian languages
Category:Languages of Armenia
Category:Languages of Turkey
Category:Languages of Lebanon
bg:Ð?рменÑ?ки език
be:Ð?рмÑ?нÑ?каÑ? мова
ca:Armeni
cs:Arménština
da:Armensk (sprog)
de:Armenische Sprache
et:Armeenia keel
es:Idioma armenio
eo:Armena lingvo
fa:زبان ارمنی
fr:Arménien
ko:아르메니아어
hy:Õ€Õ¡ÕµÕ¥Ö€Õ¥Õ¶
id:Bahasa Armenia
it:Lingua armena
he:שפות ×?×¨×ž× ×™×•×ª
hu:Örmény nyelv
nl:Armeens
ja:アルメニア語
ms:Bahasa Armenia
pl:Język ormiański
pt:LÃngua arménia
ro:Limba armeană
ru:Ð?рмÑ?нÑ?кий Ñ?зык
sl:ArmenÅ¡Ä?ina
fi:Armenian kieli
sv:Armeniska
th:ภาษาà¸à¸²à¸£à¹Œà¹€à¸¡à¹€à¸™à¸µà¸¢
tr:Ermenice
wa:Ã…rmenyin
zh:亚美尼亚è¯
see
Armenian language
*** Shopping-Tip: Armenian Language
