Armenian language
Categories: Armenian languages | Languages of Armenia | Languages of Turkey
| Armenian (Հայերէն / Hayerēn) | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Armenia, Russia, France, and 27 other countries |
| Region: | Europe |
| Total speakers: | 9 million |
| Ranking: | Not in top 100 |
| Genetic classification: | Indo-European Armenian |
| Official status | |
| Official language of: | Armenia |
| Regulated by: | - |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | hy |
| ISO 639-2 | arm (B) / hye (T) |
| SIL | ARM |
| See also: Language – List of languages | |
Armenian is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people in the Armenian Republic and also used by the Armenian Diaspora. It is its own independent branch of the family of the Indo-European languages, with no living close relatives.
Contents |
General considerations
Many now believe that Armenian is a close relative of the extinct Phrygian language. Modern Armenian has numerous loan words from the Old Persian Language Pahlavi, which still exist in Modern Persian. From the modern languages, Greek seems to be the most closely related to Old Armenian. As Hans K. Vogt sums up in the 1997 Britannica, "Whereas Old Armenian was rather close to ancient Greek in many respects, Modern Armenian is typologically much closer to Turkish".
While Armenian contains many Indo-European roots, its phonology has been influenced by neighboring Persia, and Caucasian languages.
Armenian was historically split in to two vaguely-defined primary dialects: Eastern Armenian, the form spoken in modern-day Armenia, and Western Armenian, the form spoken by Armenians in Anatolia. After the Armenian massacres, the western form was primarily spoken only by those belonging to the diaspora.
Armenian is written in the Armenian alphabet, created by Saint 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 pronounced kuh-ra-par, 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, especially in affricative sounds such as j, ch, and ts. 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, Arabic, Chinese and Latin, but the modern language, like modern Greek, has undergone many transformations.
The famous Romantic poet Lord Byron took up the study of the Armenian language. He helped to compile an Armenian grammar textbook and translated a few Armenian books into English to help preserve the Armenian culture he was so impressed by.
Phonology
Classical Armenian distinguishes seven vowels: a, i, schwa, open e, closed e, o, and u (transcribed as a, i, ə, e, ē, o, and ow, respectively).
The occlusives have a special aspirated series (transcribed with a Greek asper after the letter): p῾, t῾, c῾, č῾, 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 six cases, nominative, accusative, locative, genitive/dative, ablative, instrumental.
Verb
Main article: Armenian verbs
Verbs in Armenian have an expansive system of 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, the Armenian language has the letter "t" (թ) as in "tiger", the letter "d" (դ) as in "develop", and another letter which is a cross between the two as in "fatter" (տ). Western Armenians will pronounce the "tiger" and "develop" examples in the same way, where as Eastern Armenian speakers pronounced each of the three differently.
Armenian also has many other unique letters not heard in many other languages. There are two different "k"s; as well as a letter sounding like a cross between "p" and "b"; two "r" letters, one pronounced with a rolling "r" sound; the letter "gh" pronounced like the French "r"; "kh" a harder pronunciation also found in many Middle Eastern languages; as well as the letters "ts", "tz", "dz", "dch", "uh" like the "a" sound in the word "arrange"; and many more. These are just a few examples that make Armenian a rich and unique language.
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'dahayeren):
- example
- Eastern Armenian (Arevelahayeren):
- example
In addition, neither dialect is completely homogenous: 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:
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Western Armenian
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Eastern Armenian (ex-USSR and Iran)
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English - Western Armenian / Eastern Armenian
- Yes = Ayo (այո)
- No = Voch (ոչ)
- Excuse me = Neroghoutioun (ներողութիւն)
- Hello = Parev / Barev (բարեւ)
- Please = Hadjis (հաճիս) / Khndrem (խնդրեմ)
- Thank you = Shnorhagal em / Shnorhakal em (շնորհակալ եմ)
- Thank you very much = Shad Shnorhagal em / Shat Shnorhakal em (շատ շնորհակալ եմ)
- Welcome = Pari yegar (բարի եկար) / Barov eq yekel
- Goodbye = Tsdesoutioun (ցտեսութիւն) / Tstesoutioun (ցտեսութիւն)
- Good morning = Pari louys (բարի լոյս) / Bari louys (բարի լոյս)
- Good afternoon = Pari gesor (բարի կէսօր) / Bari or
- Good evening = Pari irigoon (բարի իրիկուն, բարի'րկուն) / Bari yereko (բարի երեկոյ)
- Good night = Kisher pari (գիշեր բարի) / Bari gisher (բարի գիշեր)
- I love you = Yes kezee gu seerem (ես քեզի կը սիրեմ) / Yes sirum em qez
See also
External links
- 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 Dictionaries Online:
- Nayiri.com - this one is great. It spell checks and has a plug-in for Internet Explorer allowing quick searches on any Armenian websitebg:Арменски език
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