Ads
related to: Armenian languagePurchased by the FBI — Hurry, Don't Miss this Great Offer! Find Out How Over 1,000,000 People Learned A Second Language In Just 30 Days.
- My Account
Fast & Easy-to-use. Start Your
Account Today!
- Learn Spanish For Free
Start Speaking Spanish From The
Comfort Of Your Own Home.
- My Account
Shop Devices, Apparel, Books, Music & More. Free Shipping on Qualified Orders.
Search results
Armenian ( endonym: հայերեն [c] ( 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 also widely ...
- Overview
- Origins of the language
- Phonology
Armenian language, language that forms a separate branch of the Indo-European language family; it was once erroneously considered a dialect of Iranian. In the early 21st century the Armenian language is spoken by some 6.7 million individuals. The majority (about 3.4 million) of these live in Armenia, and most of the remainder live in Georgia and Russia. More than 100,000 Armenian speakers live in Iran. Until the early 20th century, an Armenian population had lived in Turkey in the area around Lake Van since ancient times; a small minority of Armenians lives in Turkey today. Armenians also live in Lebanon, Egypt, Azerbaijan, Iraq, France, Bulgaria, the United States, and elsewhere.
Several distinct varieties of the Armenian language can be distinguished: Old Armenian (Grabar), Middle Armenian (Miǰin hayerên), and Modern Armenian, or Ašxarhabar (Ashkharhabar). Modern Armenian embraces two written varieties—Western Armenian (Arewmtahayerên) and Eastern Armenian (Arewelahayerên)—and many dialects are spoken. About 50 dialects were known before 1915, when the Armenian population of Turkey was drastically reduced by means of massacre and forced exodus; some of these dialects were mutually unintelligible.
Armenian belongs to the satem (satəm) group of Indo-European languages; this group includes those languages in which the palatal stops became palatal or alveolar fricatives, such as Slavic (with Baltic) and Indo-Iranian. Armenian also shows at least one characteristic of the centum group—comprising Celtic, Germanic, Italic, and Greek—in that it preserves occasional palatal stops as k-like sounds.
Precisely how and when the first Armenians arrived in eastern Anatolia and the areas surrounding Lakes Van, Sevan, and Urmia is not known. It is possible that they reached that territory as early as the second half of the 2nd millennium bc. Their presence as the successors to the local Urartians can be dated to approximately 520 bc, when the names Armina and Armaniya first appear in the Old Persian cuneiform inscription of Darius I (the Great) at Behistun (present-day Bisitun, Iran). A variation of that early designation, Armenian, is the name by which the people who call themselves Hay are known worldwide.
Britannica Quiz
Languages & Alphabets
Click Here to see full-size tableThe invention of the Armenian alphabet is traditionally credited to the monk St. Mesrop Mashtots, who in ad 405 created an alphabet consisting of 36 signs (two were added later) based partly on Greek letters; the direction of writing (left to right) also followed the Greek model. This new alphabet was first used to translate the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament.
Grabar, as the language of the first translation was known, became the standard for all subsequent literature, and its use produced what has come to be considered the golden age of Armenian literature. It concealed the noticeable dialectal variations of the spoken language and was used for literary, historical, theological, scientific, and even practical everyday texts. The first Armenian periodical, Azdarar (1794), was also printed in Grabar, although by the end of the 18th century the spoken language had so diverged from the written that the language of the periodical was not widely understood.
Old Armenian had seven vowel phonemes: /a/, /e/, /ê/ (from *ey; an asterisk indicates a reconstructed rather than an attested form), /ə/, /i/, /o/, and /u/ (written o + w). In the modern language there is only one /e/. The vowel /ə/ is reduced and cannot be stressed. Semivowels were /y/ and /w/, consonantal variants of /i/ and /u/ that in certain positions in Modern Armenian have developed into the fricatives /h/ and /v/ or have merged with adjacent vowels. Sonants included the trilled r /ṛ/ and single-flap r, a velarized l /ł/ (which developed into the velar fricative gh /γ / in all dialects), l /l/, and the nasals m /m/ and n /n/.
Old Armenian and modern fricatives are v /v/ (perhaps a positional variant of w), s /s/ (originating partly from Proto-Indo-European palatal k’, as in other satem languages), š /sh/, z /z/, ž /zh/, x /χ/ (= kh, uvular), and h /h/. The modern language also has an f /f/.
The most characteristic of the Armenian consonants are plosives (i.e., stops and affricates). In Old Armenian they formed a system of 15 phonemes with three types of articulation—voiced, voiceless, and voiceless aspirated—in every point of articulation: b-p-p‘; d-t-t‘; g-k-k‘; j-c-c‘ ( /= dz/-/= ts/- /= ts‘/); ǰ-č-č‘ (/ = English j/-/= English ch/-/= ch‘/). According to some linguists, Old Armenian b, d, g, j, and ǰ were voiced aspirated and p, t, k, c, and č glottalized.
That system had developed from Proto-Indo-European plain consonants and some clusters as a result of palatalization processes as well as the so-called consonant shift, a process including the devoicing of Proto-Indo-European voiced consonants. The consonant shift in Proto-Armenian had some similarities to the Proto-Germanic shift (see Grimm’s law), although these processes were independent of one another. It should be mentioned that this explanation of the origin of Armenian plosives is a traditional one. Some glottalist linguists claim that the Old Armenian system had not undergone any important changes from the Proto-Indo-European system, which they interpret in a manner quite different from the traditional view. Namely, they argue that Proto-Indo-European stops traditionally reconstructed as voiced *b, d, g, j, and ǰ were in fact glottalized voiceless *p’, t’, k’, c’, and č’.
Modern dialects as well as the two modern literary languages have retained many aspects of the Old Armenian system. In modern forms of Armenian the stress falls on the last syllable of a word. In the initial position, Eastern Armenian has voiced or, in some dialects, voiced aspirated consonants corresponding to Old Armenian b, d, g, j, and ǰ; intensive voiceless slightly glottalized plosives in place of Old Armenian p, t, k, c, and č; and voiceless slightly aspirated plosives in place of Old Armenian p‘, t‘, k‘, c‘, and č ‘. In medial and final position the correspondences are different.
In Western Armenian, Old Armenian b, d, g, j, and ǰ are pronounced as voiceless and, in some dialects, voiceless aspirated, having merged with Old Armenian p‘, t‘, k‘, c‘, and č ‘, whereas Old Armenian p, t, k, c, and č are pronounced as /b/, /d/, /g/, /j/, and /ǰ/ in all Western dialects. An example of the difference between the two varieties of Modern Armenian can be seen in two common personal names of Greek origin that are pronounced /Petros/ and /Grigor/ in Eastern Armenian, without any change as regards the voicing, but /Bedros/ and /Krikor/ in Western Armenian. This reveals consonant shifts in Armenian dialects that, all told, represent as many as seven types of development of the Old Armenian plosive system. The highly variegated picture of Modern Armenian consonants seems to corroborate the idea that Armenian has been a “shift” language from its very beginning.
Armenia is located in the Caucasus region of south-eastern Europe. Armenian is the official language in Armenia and is spoken as a first language by the majority of its population. Armenian is a pluricentric language with two modern standardized forms: Eastern Armenian and Western Armenian. Armenia's constitution does not specify the linguistic ...
People also ask
What language is spoken in Armenia?
Is Armenian a reformed language?
What type of Armenian was spoken in the 5th century?
How many people speak Armenian?
Armenian is the offical language of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, and has official status as a minority language in Cyprus, Hungary, Iraq, Poland, Romania and Ukraine. Until the early 1990s schools in Armenian taught in either Armenian or Russian, however after the collapse of the USSR, Armenian became the main medium of instruction and the ...
Armenian language, Indo-European language of the Armenian people. It is spoken by some 6.7 million individuals worldwide. Its long history of contact with Iranian languages has resulted in the adoption of many Persian loanwords. According to tradition, the unique Armenian alphabet was created in ad 405 by the cleric Mesrop Mashtots, who based ...
Armenian 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 also widely spoken throughout the Armenian diaspora. Armenian is written in its own writing system, the Armenian alphabet, introduced in ...
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. Armenian is written in its own writing ...
Ad
related to: Armenian languagePurchased by the FBI — Hurry, Don't Miss this Great Offer! Find Out How Over 1,000,000 People Learned A Second Language In Just 30 Days.
