Talk:Armenian alphabet

This page needs to be fixed

A few things seem wrong to me, but i want someone else to confirm my thoughts before making changes. In eastern Armenian letter "ու", "oo", should be part of the alphabet where "ւ" is, and the letter և, "yev", should be 37, making the total number of leters in the alphabet 39. Or at least thats what I remember from my few years of school in Yerevan. Can someone let me know if I'm wrong, or fix the page if I am right. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.84.56.236 (talk • contribs).

<և> is a ligature, not a letter. We've got a section now on how <ու> replaces <ւ> as the 34^the under Reformed Armenian orthography. Serouj 20:14, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Hiun

Why in the Alphabet "34 Hiun", but under "Modifiers and punctuation" the small ligature "Ech` Wiwn"? Hiun and Wiwn is the same letter, isn't it? Same with "5 Yech`" and "Ech`". DorisAntony 08:58, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Hiun and Wiwn aren't the same letter in this case. The Wiwn in question is part of a ligature, and in this case is only used to mean "and" (as opposed to a letter like IJ). As a separate concern, I'm wondering if someone more knowledgable in this alphabet than I could have a column for the IPA transcription of the letters. Melange Thief 08:19, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Diphthong?

I've recently come across "ու" which translates as ou or oo but is correctly spelled u, so is this a diphthong or not? I don't see any information about it on the page if someone could write a bit about it please.ZlatkoT 03:34, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

<Ու> is a monophthong that represents the sound [u]. In Traditional Armenian orthography, <ու> is considered written using the two distinct letters <ո> and <ւ>. Reformed Armenian orthography considers <ու> as a separate letter (replacing <ւ> as the 34^th letter of the Armenian alphabet). Serouj 20:10, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

800x600

this page looks awful on 800x600 screens

Vandalism

"Armenian has two different dialects: Eastern and Western.No it doesnt. Both use the same alphabet, however some of the letters have different names and pronunciations."

I couldn't help but laugh when I read this. I am deleting the "No it doesn't" whoever put it there.--Kagan the Barbarian 17:21, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

IPA

Can we get an IPA column in the chart? --YellowLeftHand 17:35, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

This has been fixed for some time now. Serouj 20:15, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Opposing but complemntary pronunciation of letter pairs

Since many of the letter pairs have opposing but complementary pronunciation between the eastern and western dialects, like eastern Ben/Peh (b/p) vs. western Pen/Beh (p/b) and eastern Gim/Ken (g/k) vs. western Keem/Gen (k/g), maybe it's reasonable to clarify whether words are spelled using opposing letters and pronouned the same or spelled using the same letters and pronounced opposingly. Does this make since at all?

Being an Arabic speaker I can think of examples where Arabic is sometimes spelt differently in common speach, specially on the web, according to the local pronounciation of the letter; and I wonder if this is the case. --Alif 19:26, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi Alif.

There are three issues to take into consideration when analyzing the various "flavors" of the Armenian language.

1. Grammar / dialect

i. Eastern Armenian

ii. Western Armenian

This mainly has to do with noun declension and verb conjugation (and to a lesser extent, word choice - e.g. when synonyms are involved).

2. Pronunciation of Letters

i. Eastern

ii. Western

Eastern Armenian pronunciation of letters is the more "authentic," traditional pronunciation. Overtime, Western Armenians, being closer (geographically) to Europe evolved the pronunciation, keeping only those consonant phonemes in common with Romance languages. (A minor note here is that only Armenians from Iran correctly differentiate between ր and ռ, since both Western Armenians and Eastern Armenians from Armenia trill them both in practice, even though they might be aware that only ռ should be trilled.)

3. Spelling / orthography

i. Mashdotsian orthography (a.k.a. traditional spelling, classical spelling) - Used by the Armenian Diaspora (including all Western Armenian speakers)

ii. Reformed orthography (a.k.a. Soviet orthography, Hayasdanian orthography) - Used mainly in Armenia and Russia

Note that not all Eastern Armenians use the Reformed orthography; all Armenians in Iran use traditional orthography, and some Armenians in Armenia (notably many academics and many in the Armenian church) use traditional orthography, too.

Serouj 21:23, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

To answer your question more directly in a nutshell, words are spelled the same but pronounced differently (between Western Armenian speakers - who always write using traditional spelling - and Eastern Armenian speakers (if the Eastern Armenian speakers in question are using traditional spelling, too). However, if the Eastern Armenian speakers in question use Reformed spelling (as do most Armenians living in Armenia), then most words are spelled the same, except for some words that are spelled differently between Classical orthography and Reformed orthography (...). Serouj 22:04, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Alveolar approximant

I suggest that the correct expression of ր is not a simple [ɹ] (alveolar approximant) but like [r̝] in Czech (see here). Is this correct? --Ulf-S. 12:59, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I dont think this is correct. The Armenian letter having alveolar trill is ռ (the 28th letter), ր (the 32nd) is correctly denoted as alveolar approximant. TeakTak 18:12, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

և, dictionaries and the origin of compounds

Whoever wrote the 9th sidenote under the alphabet not only was far away from knowing Eastern Armenian, but must have been really angry at it. Firstly the second part of the 9th sidenote under the alphabet is a total absurd. The name Երևան, Երեվան (Yerevan is etymologically derived from Էրեբունի, (Erebuni), the name of the fortress, that put the begining of human settlement at the site of present Yerevan. Thus there is no "van" compound to the word Yerevan.
Furthemore, the name Ստեփանավան (Ստեպանավան in the Western Armenian diction, Stepanavan) is formed from Stepan + avan. The first one being the first name of Stepan Shaumyan (an armenian revolutionary whose name was also put into the name of Stepanakert, and the Shaumyan region in Nagorno Karabakh Republic, the second word - ավան (avan) is Armenian for small town, village. So there is no (van) compound to Stepanavan either.
Further yet, the spelling rules of Eastern Armenian contain a rule that explicitely prohibits the usage of և if it modifies the spelling of the compound roots, thus the explanation give there was not only a use of bad example, but totally wrong.

Better yet, the first part about the order and how it is formed in the dictionaries must have been writen by a person who had never held an Eastern Armenian dictionary in his/her hand. As there is no capitalization of և, the proper names starting in "ev" in Eastern Armenian are writen as "Եվ", thus the rule described above (that prohibits the usage of the ligature if it modifies the original) would make it wrong to transform the ”Եվ” into ”և” when forming derivatives from word spelled with ”Եվ”...

Both this article, and the article Spelling reform of the Armenian language 1922-1924 almost make it sound like the reformers, as well as the users of Eastern Armenian are complete morons. And since I wouldnt even know where to begin editing them (without pretty much rewriting them from scratch), I thought to bring the obvious inaccuracy to the attention of those maintaining these articles.TeakTak 00:03, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your remarks. Is the current version acceptable for you? Ulf-S. 10:49, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Ulf-S, I am not trying to mock the efforts of those who put them into this article, but the entire article is less than acceptable. For example in the section of the names of the letters there is a statement about them not having been taught at the schools of Soviet Armenia, which isn't only not true, but creates a false impression of existing political pressure on those who did teach it. That's why the tag of missing references is the best thing that is doable to this article at this point, since I certainly dont want to create an edit war, and putting a long explanation of why I made each of the edits is not very high on my time-priority list. And everyone who made a contribution to the article should probably try and find a reference for every claim made. At least that's my understanding of what a Wikipedia article is. And time permitting I'll try to skim through it and bring other particular inaccuracies to the attention of the article maintainers.

Dear TeakTak, My source -- Lehrbuch der armenischen Sprache (Textbook of The Armenian Language) by Margret Eggenstein-Harutunian -- says: “Nowadays, the names are mentioned in schoolbooks but not taught.” Moreover, I do not know a single Armenian who knows the names because of attending school in Soviet Armenia. If you do not protest I will change the sentence of the article in “mentioned but not taught”. Sorry, the sentence was misleading. There will not be an edit war. The problem is that there are so far no really competent editors. Ulf-S. 19:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC) Ulf-S. 19:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I guess we'll just find the "truth" in our continual discussion :). Can't say I am familiar with the book you quoted, but I dont understand what kind of "teaching" the letter names beyond mentioning and assigning them to learn is expected, this isn't quite the rocket science that you need to spend years explaining... And the logic of not knowing a single Armenian who knows the names because of attending school is not really bullet-proof. I don't know many people who can list all the punctuation signs of Armenian, doesnt mean they weren't taught it in school (or even remeber being taught them in school). The names of letters is not something you remember beyond the month you were taught it in, due to the lack of usage in everyday life. And it's not customary in Armenian to spell a word by using their alphabet names, as it is in English, which makes everyone know and always remember the alphabet pronounciation of the letters in the English alphabet. But believe me, and I say this having know several generations of school attendants as well as teachers of Armenian in Soviet Armenia, the letter names were taught in the schools. They weren't made a subject of worship, but you were supposed to learn and recite them by heart for a grade (sure enough you were let to forget it in a week). But of course I never made a point of digging up references for this, since this was always a common and easily veryfiable truth.
Besides, what's the point of giving the letter names in Armenian? People who know Armenian wouldn't probably need this article at all, and those who cant read Armenian, wouldn't know what the names of the letters are, since they can't read them... Wouldn't it be better to include their IPA transcripts in the alphabet table? TeakTak 13:10, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

In the old chart the names were included but it was not sufficiant and partially incorrect (f.e. transliteration and transcription were mixed up). The current chart is already big and I would prefer not to enlarge it. Of course, I can add IPA. Eastern Armenians have -- in contrast to me -- no problems to distinguish ճ and չ but do not understand me when I say ճե or չա. So this section is definately one that could be interesting for both native speakers (who often do not know them) and learners (when I heard f.e. ճիշտ for the first time I could only guess the diction). Generally, native speakers can find information about the history of the alphabet (some Armenians I met in Russia even do not know the alphabet and I assume that there are such Armenians in the English-speaking world too).

The point about “taught” is that when people read this they likely conclude that it is like in English. Maybe something like “mentioned in schoolbooks and principally taught but as pupils are not ought to know them only few people use the names at school and in daily life” (if this does not sound strange). Ulf-S. 19:10, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Then how about creating two charts, one for Eastern Armenian pronounciation/letter names/transliteration and one with Western Armenian, and then even include a chart of comaprisons between the differing pronounciations in the different dialects, now that's something I, and I think many Armenians and non-Armenians would be interested in (seldom one knows all the pronounciations of both Western Armenian and Eastern Armenian). As of now, the chart is not very readable in the sense of comparison, the confusion with the order of the last 4 letters, etc.

As to the letter names a simple "the letter names are not used in everyday life, and unlike English, it's not customary for speakers of Armenian to use the names for aloud spelling purposes, thus these names are not widely know even in Armenian speaking communities, even though they are taught as part of the elementary school curriculum." will solve the issue, and I dont quite understand why there should be any difference between the Western Armenian communities and the Eastern Armenian communities (which is implied by the inclusion of the statement about them not being taught in Soviet Armenia -> not known). TeakTak 23:59, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I hope the current version about the names is acceptable. I think the current chart is good taking into consideration that the history of the Armenian alphabet is in fact intangled and therefore there cannot exist a chart what makes understandable everything at the fisrt glance. The advantage of one chart is the one can easily compare the differnces in pronunciation. The alternative to one chart are at least three (for Classical, Eastern and Western) or four (for Eastern Armenian in the traditional orthography). Are the following spellings correct? կետ, ստորակետ, շեշտ, բացականչական նշան, բութ, հարցական նշան, պատիվ, ենթամնայ. Can you say the names of the others? I want to rewrite the section “Punctuation Marks”. Ulf-S. 21:12, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

The history is indeed intangled, but the proposal was about the common usages of literary Eastern Armenian and literary Western Armenian. Grabar, while being an interesting version of the language (both from historic and linguistic points of view) has nothing to do in this question. All I was suggesting is the alphabet is use in the present day Armenian in its two literary variants. The alternative to his would actually be listing all the dialects of Armenian, which is an impossible task. And I do still think that there can and should be an easily readable chart of phonetic correspondence between the pronountiations of letters in literary Eastern and Western Armenian. I'll hopefully get to the alphabet article in hy: soon, and would like to use this chart as a starting point, but in the meantime I'll think about how to incorporate either everthing together, or a good way of breaking things into 2-3 charts. There is a need for easily readable comparison...

I added a punctuation section to hy:Հայերեն (#Կետադրություն) couple of days ago, it contains all the signs in use. Let me know if you need anything else. TeakTak 02:23, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Small error

In the Image with the caption "This word (Hayastanee) means Armenia" That is untrue, the correct way to say it is Haysatan. The image is also wrong, that last character needs to chopped off. In it's current form, it implies ownership. Like "America's" as opposed to America.

So, chop off the last character, ի, needs to be gotten rid of, and the caption should read: "This word (Hayastan) means Armenia"

surprised its gone so long without anyone noticing. Someone else fix, as I don't know how to image edits and uploads, nor do I want to fuck around with the formatting.

Thanks. Fixed this a couple of weeks ago with by removing this image, replacing it with հանրագիտարան (the word for encyclopedia in Armenian). Serouj 21:13, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Question: Armenian և (unicode 0587)

I have a question relating to some information in this article and discussion page pertaining to a particular Armenian character, և (0587 in Unicode). As I know next to nothing about the Armenian language, I am hoping someone here can help me to clarify the issue.

In the article itself, the "Letters" table shows և in the minuscule column, and in the majuscule column to the left it shows (ԵՎ). That և is a ligature of ե and վ is also mentioned above on this discussion page. This is consistent with what I have found on a couple of other web resources (e.g. here and here), as well as some printed (Eastern) Armenian books.

However, in the Unicode Standard, 0587 և is listed as ARMENIAN SMALL LIGATURE ECH YIWN, indicating that it is the equivalent of ե and ւ (0565+0582). In the Unicode special casing file, it shows the uppercase equivalent of և for ALL CAPS text as being ԵՒ(0535 + 0552), or a direct uppercase mapping of եւ. This is not consistent with the information found here or in the other sources mentioned in the paragraph above.

So my questions for this forum are:
What is the reason for this discrepancy?
Is և a actually a ligature of եվ, or of եւ?
What reason might there be for the Unicode standard to list և as being compatible with 0565+0582 (եւ) rather than 0565+057E (եվ)?
Is this discrepency related to differences between Western and Easter Armenian in some way?

Any explanations or clarifications on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

--MattMadden 20:41, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

That's probably one of the errors of the Soviet orthography (a.k.a. Reformed spelling), whose changes to the Armenian alphabet were imperfect. There are two ways to say "and" in Armenian: ու and եւ. In soviet orthography, the letter ւ is always replaced by the letter վ when it's used to make the "v" sound. (ու is kept ու since the ւ is not pronounced as a "v" but rather ու is pronounced "oo" as in "goo".) You only see և used in Soviet orthography; classical (Mashdotsian) orthography continues to used եւ, and և really is an ampersand (&). Hence, since և is prounouced "yev," it is written as եվ (not եւ) in soviet orthography; and the capital of եվ is ԵՎ. Hope that helps. (related article: Spelling_reform_of_the_Armenian_language_1922-1924)Serouj 20:52, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Soviet Armenian made use of a capital Ech Yiwn ligature as well. This has not been encoded, and it is not possible to represent some Soviet-era text without it. -- Evertype·✆ 21:52, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I have never seen a capital ligature for ԵՒ. How is it used? I know that Երևան, for example, is always spelled ԵՐԵՎԱՆ in all caps in Soviet Armenian. Sclerolith (talk) 20:04, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I am grossly uninformed regarding the Armenian language, so please forgive me if this question seems obtuse. What is the difference, then, between Eastern (Soviet) Armenian and Western (Classical) Armenian? I know that the orthography is different, but this character actually decomposes in two different ways, depending on where I’m at geographically. ISO 639-3 only defines “Armenian” and makes no distinction between Eastern and Western. How can the difference be resolved, if I am developing content in both languages/dialects from a single application? Should ISO 639-3 define one code for Eastern and another for Western?

--Mhambster 18:48, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Re: Armenian letter names

"There are traditional names for the letters but they are not used in everyday life, and unlike English, it's not customary for speakers of Armenian to use the names for aloud spelling purposes, thus these names are not widely know even in Armenian speaking communities, even though they are taught as part of the elementary school curriculum."

This statement is simply not true. (I'm speaking at least on behalf of Western Armenian speakers.) The letter names are used for spelling purposes particularly in Western Armenian wherein two letters may sound the same if simply pronounced (e.g. բ and փ are both pronounced as a p), making it necessary to annunciate the letters of the names (e.g. բեն - pen - and փիւր - pyur).

I think the above quote is not necessary for this article, and simply shows a lack of education and awareness by some Armenian speakers.Serouj 05:47, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

In the notes following the alphabet table, the pronunication of some letter names is not accurate. For one thing, [y] and [j] are used inconsistently (cf. [tʼyun] vs. [pʰjuɾ]). Besides, there is no distinct [j] sound there. It's more like an onglide in an ascending or catachrestic diphthong: [tʼɪ̯un], [pʰɪ̯uɾ]. Sclerolith (talk) 20:29, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Ligatures

I am proposing that we place <և> under a new "Ligatures" section (please see the Greek alphabet for an example), and removed from the Main Alphabet table, and that we remove <ու> from the main Alphabet table.

1. In both dialects of modern Armenian, և is used as a ligature. In reformed orthography, it seems that և was introduced as a ligature, but incorrectly started being used between words as well. (the Unicode standard considers և a ligature)
2. <Ու> is simply not a letter; it is the combination of two distinct letters, <ո> and <ւ>. (the Unicode standard neither notes <ու> as a letter, nor a ligature.) Serouj 19:43, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Parent and Sister Writing Systems

There seems to be some inconsistency across Wikipedia articles on this one: Genealogy of scripts derived from Proto-Sinaitic places the Armenian alphabet under the Greek, and Georgian under Syriac.

It's my understanding that the Armenian language was an original invention by Mashdots; however, I do recall reading somewhere that he had mastered Greek and Syriac, and was probably inspired by them. (The Armenian alphabet also has sounds that don't exist in Greek, not sure about Syriac, though).

Perhaps the Genealogy article needs some work, too. Serouj 11:21, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Ա

Incorrect statement about և ligature

The article states incorrectly that: “և ligature was introduced in reformed Armenian orthography in the 1920s, and is similar to the ampersand in Latin.” In reality և ligature was introduced in the 5th century by Mesrop Mashtoc and has been in wide use ever since. To those who still think that “և was introduced in reformed Armenian orthography in the 1920s” I would recommend to walk to Matenadaran where they can see with their own eyes the vast number of ancient Armenian manuscripts all of which use և ligature. A quick search on google found this page of ancient Armenian manuscripts all of which again use the և ligature throughout. Both between words and withing words. The first Armenian printed book (published in 1666) also used և ligature along with many other Armenian ligatures. In fact the use of և ligature was so common and pervasive that in 1920s it has become a separate letter of the Armenian alphabet.

It is not new but now it is considered as an own letter whereas մն is still seen as a ligature. In the past both were considered to be ligatures. The current spelling of Europe in Eastern Armenian is ԵՎրոպա (EVropa). No mistake! I hate it, too, but that is the way they do it (the adjective is written ևրոպային (e͡wropayin)). It is the same with ու -- they really consider it to be one letter. de:user:Kuddeldaddeldu

ejectives?

East Arm. is listed with ejective reflexes of Classical tenuis C's. This contradicts the phonology section of Armenian language. Which is correct? kwami (talk) 22:24, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Ejectives occur only in some dialects. Kuddeldaddeldu (talk) 16:24, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

The Armenian language article needs to be updated. Serouj (talk) 10:49, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Very Poor Article

• The ancient pronunciation of Է was [e]. This explains the switch to [i]. E.g. sér > sirel, Yovhannés, Yovhannisean.

• In Classical Armenian, ե was initially pronounced without [j].

• The Eastern pronunciation ist not [lyn] but [ljun].

• What is "[ts’]"??? Only [ts] is correct.

• What is "[k’]" regarding կ??? Only [k] ist correct.

• Same with "[at’]".

• "ո [o], initially [vo]". (i) This is a Close-mid back unrounded vowel. Lay your fingers at your lips while pronouncing it and you will feel the difference to the rounded version [o]. (ii) The anciant initial pronunciation is without [v]. That's why some Armenian scholars promoted a new diction in the Middle Ages (without success). E.g. վոտ instead of ոտ.

• "became /u/". No, Armenians use the Close back unrounded vowel. Consequently, Esatern Armenians do not say [tyn] but [tjɯ n].

• What is "[p’]"??? Only [p] ist correct.

• The diction ւիւն should be mentioned. The Eastern pronunciation is not [hyn] but [hjɯn] or [vjɯn].

• "[ɹɛ]6 In practice, only Iranian-Armenians say [ɹ]; Eastern Armenians from the Republic of Armenia have shifted the Classical Armenian [ɹ] (ր) to [ɾ]." Sorry, this is just nonsense. Yes, there are some (!) words which are widely (not exclusively!) pronounced with [r], e.g. eresown. But note, that there is offen an ancient connection between ր and ռ: the adjective եռամեայ (three-year) has always been written with ռ.

I am not an Armenian speaker myself, but it has been my observation that Armenians from Yerevan do not pronounce ր and ռ the same way. The difference is especially noticeable in the word-final position, where ռ is rolled while ր sounds like the Czech ř. In other positions, the pronunciation is [r] and [ɾ], respectively. It doesn't seem right to use the same symbol to show the pronunciation of these consonants in the main table. Sclerolith (talk) 18:43, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

• There is no classical pronunciation of օ. If there were any, it had to be [aw]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kuddeldaddeldu (talk • contribs) 09:49, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

• What is "[ts’]"??? Only [ts] is correct.

The apostrophe represents an ejective Serouj (talk) 10:47, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

• What is "[k’]" regarding կ??? Only [k] ist correct.

Again, the apostrophe represents an ejective Serouj (talk) 10:47, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

• The Eastern pronunciation ist not [lyn] but [ljun].

This is correct only for Eastern Armenian spoken mostly in the Armenian Republic (noted in the Notes section below the main table). Iranian Armenian pronounce իւ as [ʏ] for the most part. Serouj (talk) 10:47, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

But ejectives are not typical for Eastern Armenian in general. Kuddeldaddeldu (talk) 14:23, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, nearly all speakers of Eastern Armenian use ejectives -- both in the Republic of Armenia as well as those from Iran. It is Western Armenian that does not contain ejectives. Some examples in Eastern Armenian are: ծ, կ, ճ, պ, տ. (I think that's all of them.) Serouj (talk) 20:28, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I was surprised when I read in Wikipedia that the Armenian ծ, կ, ճ, պ, տ were treated simply as unaspirated consonants whereas their Georgian counterparts წ, კ, ჭ, პ, ტ were treated as ejectives. So I asked a native Armenian speaker and a native Georgian speaker listen to each other pronounce these sounds. They found no difference. Sclerolith (talk) 18:43, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Sclerolith, look more closely -- in the main table for this article, notice that there is an apostrophe symbol (') after each letter's IPA under eastern Armenian. The ejectives exist only under Eastern Armenian. They exist neither in Classical Armenian nor Western Armenian -- it is most likely the influence of the Georgian language on the Eastern Armenian dialect -- keep in mind that Tbilisi was the center of Eastern Armenian culture during the 19th century to early 20th century. Serouj (talk) 22:04, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I apologize for the confusion. I was referring to the Armenian language article, which you, Serouj, said needed to be updated. Sclerolith (talk) 16:49, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Ethiopian Influence

One needs to stress more the fact that Saint Mesrob may have been influenced by the Ethiopian Bibles found in the Caucasian Monasteries while creating the Armenian Alphabet. Although it is clear that the letter order is of Greek influence, that would suit better an indo-european language such as Armenian, it is clear that the shapes, except some letters, are of Amharic origin.

Cheers! --Eae1983 (talk) 18:37, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

PS: While doing this, I am also conducting a research to prove that the Georgian Alphabet is also an invention of Saint Mesrob, anyone knowledgeable enough to help me with that? I have Carl Faulmann's theories on the subject.

It is more likely that the similarities with Ethiopian are just a coincidence. The similarities with Georgian are a result of the influence from the Aramaic derived Pahlavi on both Georgian and Armenian.-- Ευπάτωρ ^Talk!! 23:56, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Middle Armenian

An anonymous user has added data on "Middle Armenian" to the Armenian alphabet. I propose removal of this section:

1. Because there is no supporting evidence.
2. It is highly doubtful that "Middle Armenian" was spoken the same in Ottoman vs Persian/Russian Armenian (let alone ALL of Armenia).
3. Even if it IS backed by evidence, "Middle Armenian" is very minor to be included in this article, and that information may be simply placed in the Middle Armenian article itself. This table is already WAY too crowded. Serouj (talk) 05:38, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Go for it. kwami (talk) 05:54, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Done.Serouj (talk) 23:27, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't have a wikipedia account, but Middle Armenian is usually understood to be the literary language of Cilicia. Its voicing qualities were closer to Modern Western than Modern Eastern (identical with modern Cilicia and Sasun dialects), as evidenced by the spellings of the borrowings from French cruisaders such as baron and prints. The voicing qualities of Middle Armenian are described by many linguists:

Garrett, Andrew. 1991. Indo-European Reconstruction and Historical Methodologies. Language 67, 790-804.

Garrett, Andrew. 1998. Adjarian’s Law, the Glottalic Theory and the Position of Armenian. Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society; Special Session on Indo-European Subgrouping and Internal Relations, 12-23.

Kortlandt, Frederik. 1985. Proto-Indo-European Glottalic Stops: The Comparative Evidence. Folia Linguistica Historica VI:2, 183-201.

Kortlandt, Frederik. 1989. The Making of a Puzzle. Annual of Armenian Linguistics, 10, 43-52.

Pisowicz, Andrzej. 1976. Le développement du consonantisme arménien. Wrocaw : Zakod Narodwy imienia Ossolinskich.

Vaux, Bert. 1998. The Phonology of Armenian. Oxford : Clarendon Press.

Vogt, Hans. 1988. Les occlusives de l’arménien (originally published in 1958). In: Hovdhaugen, Even & Fridrik Thordarson (eds.), Studia Caucasologica II: Linguistique caucasienne et arménienne. Oslo: Norwegian University Press, 430-448. 69.157.128.50 (talk) 03:24, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Armenian alphabet is NOT based on Greek, but an independent creation

The Armenian alphabet is not a child system of the Greek alphabet. There have been many scholarly debates about this issue in the past (since the end of the 19th century), with some classifying the Armenian script as Greek (Lepsius (1855), Lagarde (1883) and Hübschmann (1897) Gardthausen (1876 and 1921), others as Aramaic (Friedrich Müller (1864), Isaac Taylor (1883), J. Marquart (1917), Strzygowski (1918), H. Junker (1925, 1926) and Jensen (1935) ). That was the debate of the "old generation". Today, everybody agrees that while three letters hyun, pyur and ke are direct adaptions from the Greek alphabet and the general vowel designating system is inspired by the Greek system, the Armenian alphabet is essentially a free invention inspired by all surrounding alphabets at the time of its creation, i.e. the various Persian Pahlavi alphabets (based on Aramaic and very clearly illustrated e.g. in the Armenian ayb [a]) and amongst others also the Greek alphabet (I have cited leading modern scholars who come to this conclusion). I would thus suggest removing the Armenian alphabet as a child system of the Greek or any other alphabet and classify it as an independent alphabet with only the Georgian (also created by Mashtots) and the Caucasus-Albanian ones as sisters.

Selected Literature:

For the historical discussion of the various theories:

JENSEN, HANS, Die Schrift in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart. Glückstadt, Hamburg: J. J. Augustin, 1935

Up to date books:

HAARMANN, HARALD, Universalgeschichte der Schrift. 2., durchges. Auflage. Frankfurt/Main, New York: Campus Verlag, 1991

SCHMITT, RÜDIGER, Grammatik des Klassisch-Armenischen mit sprachvergleichenden Erläuterungen. 2., durchgesehene Auflage. Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachen und Literaturen der Universität Innsbruck, 2007

DANIELS, PETER T. (Hg.) und BRIGHT, WILLIAM (Hg.), The World’s Writing Systems. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.167.154.82 (talk) 23:05, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Like Georgian, the Armenian alphabet is strongly influenced by Pahlavi but it's structure and the fact that it's written from right to left stems from Greek.-- Ευπάτωρ ^Talk!! 00:44, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

No reason to think that Armenian and Georgian are sisters. kwami (talk) 01:02, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I concur. The similarities between Armenian and Georgian are due to the fact that both alphabets are very strongly influenced by Pahlavi, a script which was used by the pre-Christian priestly class in both nations.-- Ευπάτωρ ^Talk!! 01:08, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I assume Greek was the language of the Christianity that was introduced? kwami (talk) 05:44, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Primarily but Syriac as well.-- Ευπάτωρ ^Talk!! 17:50, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Georgian alphabet

""Medieval Armenian sources also claim that Mashtots invented the Georgian [...] alphabet around the same time."" - An old tall story but can anyone quote this so-called "mediaval armenian sources"?!...... Thanks!--Serafita (talk) 09:55, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

By the way, one of my austrian guest told me an anecdote how Mashtots come up with this invention. He just was eating spaghetti when a miserable georgian come to him and begged for the food. Mashtots dropped him spaghetti.(And he inspired by this vowed noodles lying on the soil what was a caus to create georgian letters). And this even several century befor the Italians invented macaroni! --Serafita (talk) 10:34, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, to be sure, the old (original) Georgian script (the Asomtavruli script) does look suspiciously similar to Armenian... Indeed, some are exact copies of Armenian letters. (e.g. Ⴅ, Ⴡ, Ⴎ, Ⴐ, Ⴕ, Ⴖ, Ⴘ, etc, etc) Serouj (talk) 03:53, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I ask myself: Why Armenians hit up on an idea that they are a centre of the world?! It could be even very opposite! Couldn't? Why can't be Armenian letters "exact copies " of the Georgian's? --Serafita (talk) 06:45, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps because the Armenian alphabet was clearly invented by Mashdots? And that the early Georgian alphabet does not have a clear author, other than medieval Armenian sources claiming it was invented by Mashdots. Also how some Armenian churches were appropriated by Georgians and later claimed to be Georgian (e.g. Banak Cathedral and now many churches in Georgia proper.) Serouj (talk) 07:05, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

"And that the early Georgian alphabet does not have a clear author..." - my dear Serouj, it can't be a cause for the thought the explanation all of the covered things in Armenian to seek. About Bana Cathedral entered a georgian balanced user very usufel informations. When you something objection against have can dispute with this user I think. "Also how some Armenian churches were appropriated by Georgians and later claimed to be Georgian ([...] many churches in Georgia proper.)" - it requres to be good proved! And it is an typical armenian tall story too with like inaccuraces accuse georgians. Isn't yet the time to free onself from the role of victims?!... " "[...] many churches in Georgia [...]". Please enter the names of those churches!!! My best regards! --Serafita (talk) 08:18, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

There is a good book on this topic by Research on Armenian Architecture (the particular volume on Armenian churches in Georgia). Their website seems to be down at the moment... There is a prominent dispute now going on for 17 years over an Armenian church in Tbilisi called Norashen Church. This has included defacing Armenian inscription on the church by a Georgian priest and the bringing in of stones with Georgian inscriptions from an unknown cemetery. Among others:

1. S. Gevorg of Mughni Church in Tbilisi
2. S. Astvatsatsin Church of Bethlehem in Tbilisi
3. S. Stepanos Convent in Tbilisi (destroyed)
4. Karap S. George Church of Tbilisi
5. Karmir Avetaran Church of Tbilisi (blown up)
6. Armenian Pantheon of Tbilisi (Armenian cemetery whose Armenian-inscribed stones have been removed)

Clearly, this is a state-sponsored cultural genocide of Armenian history in Georgia. Tiflis was the center of Eastern Armenian culture for centuries. Indeed, many of the mayors of Tiflis were Armenians, including the last one before Georgia gained independence in 1918. (See here for reference) Serouj (talk) 15:47, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Dear Seroujdjan! First of all I’d like to say something about the so often mentioned Tbilisi-population before the XX century. I’m astonished why not any Armenian makes mention of the population of Erevan at the same time. I’d point you at this circumstance: The majority of population in Erevan for example in the XIX wasn’t Armenian. Even more: It was Turkish! Secondly, Armenians must grateful to Russia (Russian Empire, Soviet Union) to have nowadays a state with fixed borders! And the genocide, if you want the state-sponsored genocide by Russia (!) must not blend with the so called “machinations” by Georgian state. Even the existence of soviet national states consisted of the titular-nations is to attribute to the early Soviet nationalities policy promoted mostly in the 1920s: Korenizatsiya. Thirdly, I’ve found a list of the armenian cultural heritage (maybe not complete) in Europe: [1]. It is clear – the nation dispersed over the world needs to have places to pray. It isn’t to deny. But to declare all of those places as a part of the Great Armenia it makes a nation with certainly great culture to degrade oneself. I’m sorry about Norashen Church in Tbilisi but I’m sure it must be a firm will by the both sides to find out the future of the controversial churches at last! I know it’s typical for small nations to make their story very big (both Armenians and Georgians!). But I’m very sorry for that Armenians hadn’t found a fixed place between Anatolia and Caucasus yet. As soon as I sources have I’ll inform you of the georgian inscriptions on georgian churches wiped off by Armenians. I’d say such acts will not contribute to the relations between two (I wouldn’t say brotherly but) neighbor states. About over mentioned six armenian churches I will write later. My best regards --Serafita (talk) 13:24, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Dear Serafita, absolutely. Yerevan was but a village before the first Armenian republic was created. I'm not sure why that would be so relevant to the Armenian population of Tiflis, except that it reinforces the fact that Tiflis was the center of the Eastern Armenian culture (while Constantinople was the center of Western Armenian culture). There were many Armenians living in Baku at the time, too. Sorry if I sometimes misunderstand what you're saying as your English writing is good, but sometimes incomprehensible. All of the Armenian churches aren't claimed to be part of Greater Armenia. Greater Armenia is considered to be the Armenian highland. This does not include Tbilisi! However, it does include the region of Javakheti that is now in Georgia. It also includes Northern Artsakh (now in Azerbaijan, basically the mountainous area east of Lake Sevan and north of the NKR), Artsakh (including NKR), all of the Republic of Armenia (obviously), Nakhichevan, parts of Northwestern Iran, and much of Eastern Turkey that is north of the Taurus mountains and as west as Kharpert (Elazig) and Yerznga (Erzinjan); nevertheless, the cradle of Armenia civilization is the Vaspurakan regiond, which is the area around Lake Van, particularly in the south and eastern parts of it. Do inform me of any Georgian inscription removed from Georgian churches in Armenia. I am not aware of any. Armenians pretty much leave alone the few Georgian churches inside the ROA, except those which were originally Armenian and converted to Georgian by the Zakarids (e.g. Kobayr Monastery). Cheers. Serouj (talk) 18:06, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Serouj, I can’t make a promise to improve my English in the near future but I will try to express clearly what I have to say. I make it in the near future in any case. Now I would only emphasize: Tbilisi has been remained as a capital city of Georgia since her declaration. But absolute unclear for me why Armenians tried hard to build up eleven capitals, before they declared Yerevan as a twelfth capital city at last. I’m satisfied that Georgians haven’t to seek the lost capitals out of their borders.True! --Serafita (talk) 22:39, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

You need to brush up on your Georgian history. So the Kingdom of Imereti, Kingdom of Kakheti, Kingdom of Kartli, Kingdom of Hereti, Kingdom of Tao-Klarjeti etc. all shared Tibilisi as their capital? lol Have you ever heard of Kutaisi ?-- Ευπάτωρ ^Talk!! 23:06, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

The original source of that claim is Koryun. Ironically some people claim that he was Georgian. In all likelihood both were independently invented and the similarities are a result of Parthian Pahlavi influences. That script was used widely in Georgia and Armenia during the Arsacid period.-- Ευπάτωρ ^Talk!! 13:33, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Very interesting. Serouj (talk) 15:47, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

About ու and և

Serouj, ու and և are officially the 34th and 37th letters of Armenian alphabet, according to Reformed Armenian Orthography, you must know that. But because they were not historically a part of it, I have separated those two with a (:) sign. This situation is explained in the article's body. --Vahagn Petrosyan (talk) 12:53, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

An alphabet is a set of LETTERS. Ու and եւ are each composed of two letters. They are not letters in themselves. Serouj (talk) 23:28, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

You are mixing the orthography and alphabet articles. This article is about the Armenian ALPHABET, and not Reformed Armenian orthography. Either way, it is quite ridiculous to say that ու and եւ are letters when they are in fact the juxtaposition of two letters, like իւ or աւ or այ or ոյ... It would be equally silly to say that "ou" or "oo" are letters in English! But if there were some strange English orthography in existence, then those claims would belong there. Serouj (talk) 23:50, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Reformed Armenian orthography changed not only the orthography, but also the alphabet. Yes, letters can be added to alphabet and removed from it, the order of letters can be changed. Ու was declared an independent letter, this means that words starting with ու are sorted in a dictionary after ց and before փ, and not inside ո. Also, թուք comes after թոք. As for the “ridiculousness” of calling a juxtaposition of two letters an independent letter, see Albanian alphabet where dh, gj, ll, nj, rr, sh, th, xh, zh are letters, or Hungarian alphabet, where cs, dz, dzs (!), gy, ly, ny, sz, ty, zs are letters, or the Serbo-Croatian alphabet, and a host of others. Just because unicode has not assigned a single glyph to ու like it has to nj and ы means nothing: it's a letter. So, unfortunately, is the ligature և. I strongly disagree with Reformed Armenian Orthography and its alphabet, but we're stuck with it and can do nothing.

Also, I object to the removal of the alphabet from the first paragraph. The huge unreadable table below does not replace it. If you go through, say, Category:Latin-derived alphabets, you'll see almost all of them mention the alphabet in the leading paragraph. If you want to save space, we can delete sentence on այբուբեն, instead. --Vahagn Petrosyan (talk) 15:02, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

The Armenian alphabet was defined by Mesrob Mshdots and in later years two more letters were added. Ու and եւ are not letters. Period. That can go inside the Reformed Armenian orthography article or later in the same article. Ու and եւ are not letters in Eastern Armenian of Iran, and they are certainly not letters in Western Armenian. This section needs to be revised as it is not accurate: you are mixing dialects (Eastern and Western) with orthography (reformed and traditional) which is incorrect. The alphabet consists of 38 letters. The reformed orthography article can explain that ւ was replaced by ու in reformed orthography and that եւ is also considered some special letter. But this doesn't mean that new letters were added to the alphabet! The alphabet (letters) remained the same. The orthography (spelling) changed, true... Serouj (talk) 19:11, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Digraphs (like ու and եւ) are not considered letters. Please read the alphabet article as well. Serouj (talk) 19:16, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

After this edit the section in the first paragraph does not claim anything about the letterness of ու and և: it merely lists the letters and digraphs of Armenian alphabet with pronunciation, and it is important to have the pronunciation of ու among traditional letters, because it's not equal to ո + ւ. --Vahagn Petrosyan (talk) 19:32, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

An "alphabet" is a set of letters, not digraphs. Ու ([u]) is the same as ո + ւ. It's a digraph. Not a letter. It's like իւ ([ʏ]) which is ի + ւ, or աւ (classical Armenian) which is ա + ւ, or էօ ([œ]) which is է + օ. This doesn't make իւ, աւ, or էօ letters! They are simply digraphs which are composed of two letter. Serouj (talk) 21:00, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

The digraphs belong to the article on orthography, NOT on the alphabet. Look at the English alphabet article. The digraphs (like "sh", "oo", "ch", "ee", etc.) are not enumerated there, only the letters are. This article should follow the same paradigm. Serouj (talk) 21:03, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I have a feeling that you are using this article as your soapbox for a crusade against Reformed Orthography by which you are visibly annoyed. I am not enabling you anymore. I added a Western Armenian source confirming ու and և are considered letters (not digraphs or whatnot) by 3 million Armenians of Armenia; I can add a wealth of more. --Vahagn Petrosyan (talk) 23:56, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Umm, you didn't refer to my arguments and instead are making a personal commentary. As I mentioned earlier, you are confusing and mixing Orthography into an article on an Alphabet. Eastern Armenian uses both traditional orthography (in Iran) and reformed (in Armenia). The way you have presented it, it seems in Eatern Armenian ու and եւ are letters, and you further have added them to the Western Armenian. In any case, digraphs are not part of an alphabet, no matter which Armenian children's textbook author says so. I can provide a wealth of sources from San Lazar that show that neither ու nor եւ are part of the alphabet. We should follow the paradigm in the English alphabet article that separates alphabet (letters) from orthography (the usage of those letters, which includes digraphs and trigraphs). Serouj (talk) 05:56, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Enough of this. Who or what uses what alphabet outside of Armenia is irrelevant. In Armenia ու and և are letters in the alphabet and presented as such in every single schoolbook. ւ has been deprecated and doesn't exist in any shape or form. End of story.-- Ευπάτωρ ^Talk!! 17:16, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

The use of the Armenian alphabet outside of Armenia is indeed relevant. Once again, issues of orthography belong to its respective article on orthography: Reformed Armenian orthography and Traditional Armenian orthography. The letters of the Armenian alphabet are the 36 defined by Mesrob Mashdots and the 2 letters (օ and ֆ) some centuries later. Ու and եւ are digraphs that appear in both Eastern and Western Armenian, as well as in both Reformed and Traditional orthographies. In neither case are they "letters". Serouj (talk) 17:34, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with orthography or Eastern and Western Armenian dialects. The Armenian alphabet has 39 letters that include և and ու (digraph or not). This is the only Armenian alphabet with official recognition in the world, attempting to erase this very obvious fact from this article is futile.-- Ευπάτωρ ^Talk!! 17:41, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Not true: in traditional Armenian orthography there are 38 letters, among which ու and եւ are not considered "letters". They are digraphs. Traditional Armenian orthography is used in the Armenian Diaspora as well as in Armenia. All Western Armenian speakers use traditional Armenian orthography and all eastern Armenians from Iran use it as well. In addition, the Armenian church (both Ejmiatsin inside Armenia as well as the diasporan Armenian churches) use traditional Armenian orthography. Anyone with some education in the Armenian language knows this. This issue of orthographies does not belong in the Armenian alphabet article (and at most can be mentioned as a footnote that ւ is not used on its own in reformed orthography but as part of եւ and ու). Serouj (talk) 17:49, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

That may be so, but so what? Good for them. Foreigners with Armenian heritage have no say in the matter neither does the Church. They could use twelve letters or fifty letters or add Chinese characters for all anyone cares. The fact remains that in Armenia, all official bodies and the government recognize 39 letters of the alphabet that include և and ու but not ւ. The Armenian Academy of Sciences, in charge of regulating the Armenian language does so as well. Stop pushing your political propaganda on Wikipedia.-- Ευπάτωρ ^Talk!! 00:16, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Judging by your comments, I think you have no idea of the history of the Armenian alphabet, language, and orthography. You should yield to those who are better trained in this subject. Serouj (talk) 00:55, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

There is already a footnote in the main alphabet table for the letter Ւ that reads: "In reformed orthography, this letter has been replaced with the monophthong <ու> which represents [u]." The reformed orthography is not a "trumps all" that replaces traditional Armenian orthography. It does not matter that it is used in official documents of the Armenian government. This article isn't about the government of Armenia. Serouj (talk) 14:49, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

a) Of course it is. b) This has nothing to do with orthography.-- Ευπάτωρ ^Talk!! 23:41, 24 December 2009 (UTC)