The Armenian language has a long literary history, with a 5th-century Bible translation as its oldest surviving text. Another text translated into Armenian early on, and also in the 5th-century, was theArmenian Alexander Romance. The vocabulary of the language has historically been influenced byWestern Middle Iranian languages, particularlyParthian;[31] its derivational morphology and syntax were also affected bylanguage contact with Parthian, but to a lesser extent.[32][33] Contact with Greek,Persian, andSyriac also resulted in a number of loanwords. There are two standardized modern literary forms,Eastern Armenian (spoken mainly in Armenia) andWestern Armenian (spoken originally mainly in modern-day Turkey and, since theArmenian genocide, mostly in thediaspora). The differences between them are considerable but they aremutually intelligible after significant exposure.[34][35][36] Some subdialects such asHomshetsi are not mutually intelligible with other varieties.[37]
While Armenian constitutes the sole member of the Armenian branch of the Indo-European family, Aram Kossian has suggested that the hypotheticalMushki language may have been a (now extinct) Armenic language.[40]
W. M. Austin (1942) concluded[41] that there was early contact between Armenian andAnatolian languages, based on what he considered common archaisms, such as the lack of a feminine gender and the absence of inherited long vowels. Unlike shared innovations (orsynapomorphies), the common retention of archaisms (orsymplesiomorphy) is not considered conclusive evidence of a period of common isolated development. There are words used in Armenian that are generally believed to have been borrowed from Anatolian languages, particularly fromLuwian, although some researchers have identified possibleHittite loanwords as well.[42] One notable loanword from Anatolian is Armenianxalam, "skull", cognate to Hittiteḫalanta, "head".[43]
In 1985, the Soviet linguistIgor M. Diakonoff noted the presence inClassical Armenian of what he calls a "Caucasian substratum" identified by earlier scholars, consisting of loans from theKartvelian andNortheast Caucasian languages.[44] Noting thatHurro-Urartian-speaking peoples inhabited the Armenian homeland in the second millennium BC, Diakonoff identifies in Armenian a Hurro-Urartian substratum of social, cultural, and animal and plant terms such asałaxin "slave girl" ( ← Hurr.al(l)a(e)ḫḫenne),cov "sea" ( ← Urart.ṣûǝ "(inland) sea"),ułt "camel" ( ← Hurr.uḷtu), andxnjor "apple (tree)" ( ← Hurr.ḫinzuri). Some of the terms he gives admittedly have anAkkadian orSumerian provenance, but he suggests they were borrowed through Hurrian or Urartian. Given that these borrowings do not undergosound changes characteristic of the development of Armenian fromProto-Indo-European, he dates their borrowing to a time before the written record but after theProto-Armenian language stage.
Contemporary linguists, such asHrach Martirosyan, have rejected many of the Hurro-Urartian and Northeast Caucasian origins for these words and instead suggest native Armenian etymologies, leaving the possibility that these words may have been loaned into Hurro-Urartian and Caucasian languages from Armenian, and not vice versa.[45] A notable example isarciv, meaning "eagle", believed to have been the origin of UrartianArṣibi and Northeast Caucasianarzu. This word is derived from Proto-Indo-European*h₂r̥ǵipyós, with cognates inSanskrit (ऋजिप्य,ṛjipyá),Avestan (ərəzifiia), and Greek (αἰγίπιος,aigípios).[46][47] Hrach Martirosyan and Armen Petrosyan propose additional borrowed words of Armenian origin loaned into Urartian and vice versa, including grammatical words and parts of speech, such as Urartianeue ("and"), attested in the earliest Urartian texts and likely a loan from Armenian (compare to Armenianեւyev, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European*h₁epi). Other loans from Armenian into Urartian includes personal names, toponyms, and names of deities.[45][48][28][49][50] More recent scholarship is even more sceptical, suggesting that fewer than 10 Armenian words are of assuredly Hurro-Urartian origin, and that no secure loans can be established in the other direction.[51]
Loan words fromIranian languages, along with the other ancient accounts such as that of Xenophon above, initially led some linguists to erroneously classify Armenian as an Iranian language. Scholars such asPaul de Lagarde and F. Müller believed that the similarities between the two languages meant that Armenian belonged to theIranian language family.[52] The distinctness of Armenian was recognized when philologistHeinrich Hübschmann (1875)[52][53] used thecomparative method to distinguish two layers of Iranian words from the older Armenianvocabulary. He showed that Armenian often had two morphemes for one concept, that the non-Iranian components yielded a consistentProto-Indo-European pattern distinct from Iranian, and that the inflectional morphology was different from that of Iranian languages.
The hypothesis that Greek is Armenian's closest living relative originates withHolger Pedersen (1924), who noted that the number of Greek-Armenian lexical cognates is greater than that of agreements between Armenian and any other Indo-European language.Antoine Meillet (1925, 1927) further investigated morphological and phonological agreement and postulated that the parent languages of Greek and Armenian were dialects in immediate geographical proximity during the Proto-Indo-European period. Meillet's hypothesis became popular in the wake of his bookEsquisse d'une histoire de la langue latine (1936).Georg Renatus Solta (1960) does not go as far as postulating a Proto-Graeco-Armenian stage, but he concludes that considering both the lexicon and morphology, Greek is clearly the dialect to be most closely related to Armenian.Eric P. Hamp (1976, 91) supports the Graeco-Armenian thesis and even anticipates a time "when we should speak of Helleno-Armenian" (meaning the postulate of a Graeco-Armenian proto-language). Armenian shares theaugment and a negator derived from the set phrase in theProto-Indo-European language*ne h₂oyu kʷid ("never anything" or "always nothing"), the representation of word-initiallaryngeals by prothetic vowels, and other phonological and morphological peculiarities with Greek. Nevertheless, as Fortson (2004) comments, "by the time we reach our earliest Armenian records in the 5th century AD, the evidence of any such early kinship has been reduced to a few tantalizing pieces".
Graeco-(Armeno)-Aryan is a hypotheticalclade within theIndo-European family, ancestral to theGreek language, the Armenian language, and theIndo-Iranian languages. Graeco-Aryan unity would have become divided intoProto-Greek andProto-Indo-Iranian by the mid-3rd millennium BC. Conceivably,Proto-Armenian would have been located between Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian, consistent with the fact that Armenian shares certain features only with Indo-Iranian (thesatem change) but others only with Greek (s >h).
Used in tandem with the Graeco-Armenian hypothesis, the Armenian language would also be included under the labelAryano-Greco-Armenic, splitting into Proto-Greek/Phrygian and "Armeno-Aryan" (ancestor of Armenian andIndo-Iranian).[24][25]
Classical Armenian (Arm:grabar), attested from the 5th century to the 19th century as the literary standard (up to the 11th century also as a spoken language with different varieties), was partially superseded byMiddle Armenian, attested from the 12th century to the 18th century. Specialized literature prefers "Old Armenian" forgrabar as a whole, and designates as "Classical" the language used in the 5th century literature, "Post-Classical" from the late 5th to 8th centuries, and "Late Grabar" that of the period covering the 8th to 11th centuries. Later, it was used mainly in religious and specialized literature, with the exception of a revival during the early modern period, when attempts were made to establish it as the language of a literary renaissance, with neoclassical inclinations, through the creation and dissemination of literature in varied genres, especially by theMekhitarists. The first Armenian periodical,Azdarar, was published ingrabar in 1794.
TheBook of Lamentations byGregory of Narek (951–1003) is an example of the development of a literature and writing style of Old Armenian by the 10th century. In addition to elevating the literary style and vocabulary of the Armenian language by adding well above a thousand new words,[67] through his other hymns and poems Gregory paved the way for his successors to include secular themes and vernacular language in their writings. The thematic shift from mainly religious texts to writings with secular outlooks further enhanced and enriched the vocabulary. "A Word of Wisdom", a poem by Hovhannes Sargavak devoted to a starling, legitimizes poetry devoted to nature, love, or female beauty. Gradually, the interests of the population at large were reflected in other literary works as well. Konsdantin Yerzinkatsi and several others took the unusual step of criticizing the ecclesiastic establishment and addressing the social issues of the Armenian homeland. These changes represented the nature of the literary style and syntax, but they did not constitute immense changes to the fundamentals of the grammar or the morphology of the language. Often, when writers codify a spoken dialect, other language users are then encouraged to imitate that structure through the literary device known asparallelism.[68]
In the 19th century, the traditional Armenian homeland was once again divided. This timeEastern Armenia was conquered fromQajar Iran by theRussian Empire, whileWestern Armenia, containing two thirds of historical Armenia, remained underOttoman control. The antagonistic relationship between the Russian and Ottoman empires led to creation of two separate and different environments under which Armenians lived. Halfway through the 19th century, two important concentrations of Armenian communities were further consolidated.[69] Because of persecutions or the search for better economic opportunities, many Armenians living under Ottoman rule gradually moved toIstanbul, whereasTbilisi became the center of Armenians living under Russian rule. These two cosmopolitan cities very soon became the primary poles of Armenian intellectual and cultural life.[70]
The introduction of new literary forms and styles, as well as many new ideas sweeping Europe, reached Armenians living in both regions. This created an ever-growing need to elevate the vernacular, Ashkharhabar, to the dignity of a modern literary language, in contrast to the now-anachronistic Grabar. Numerous dialects existed in the traditional Armenian regions, which, different as they were, had certain morphological and phonetic features in common. On the basis of these features two major standards emerged:
Western standard: The influx of immigrants from different parts of the traditional Armenian homeland to Istanbul crystallized the common elements of the regional dialects, paving the way for a style of writing that required a shorter and more flexible learning curve than Grabar.
Eastern standard: TheYerevan dialect provided the primary elements of Eastern Armenian, centered in Tbilisi, Georgia. Similar to the Western Armenian variant, the Modern Eastern was in many ways more practical and accessible to the masses than Grabar.
Both centers vigorously pursued the promotion of Ashkharhabar. The proliferation of newspapers in both versions (Eastern & Western) and the development of a network of schools where modern Armenian was taught, dramatically increased the rate of literacy (in spite of the obstacles by the colonial administrators), even in remote rural areas. The emergence of literary works entirely written in the modern versions increasingly legitimized the language's existence. By the turn of the 20th century both varieties of the one modern Armenian language prevailed over Grabar and opened the path to a new and simplified grammatical structure of the language in the two different cultural spheres. Apart from several morphological, phonetic, and grammatical differences, the largely common vocabulary and generally analogous rules of grammatical fundamentals allows users of one variant to understand the other as long as they are fluent in one of the literary standards.[71]
AfterWorld War I, the existence of the two modern versions of the same language was sanctioned even more clearly. TheArmenian Soviet Socialist Republic (1920–1990) used Eastern Armenian as its official language, whereas the diaspora created after theArmenian genocide preserved the Western Armenian dialect.
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 theirTurkish lexical influences in the 20th century, primarily following theArmenian genocide.[72]
The proportion of words inArmenian inherited directly fromProto-Indo-European is lower than in most other Indo-European languages attested before the end of the first millennium CE. The development of Armenian involved numeroussound changes, the validity of several of which remains debated. A notable example isMeillet’s proposal that Proto-Indo-European *du̯o- developed into Armenianerk-.[73]
Because of the difficulty in identifying regular sound laws and the presence of apparent exceptions, scholars have often explained certain Armenian words through processes ofcontamination and blending. Comparable phenomena have been identified in other Indo-European languages; for instance, Georgiev (1979:34) suggested that 250 Slavic words could be explained in this way. A considerable proportion of inherited Armenian vocabulary has at some point been interpreted using contamination and blending, making it a recurrent topic in Armenian historical linguistics.[74]
In addition to Armenia and Turkey, where it isindigenous, Armenian is spoken among thediaspora. According toEthnologue, globally there are 1.6 million Western Armenian speakers and 3.7 million Eastern Armenian speakers, totalling 5.3 million Armenian speakers.[1]
Armenian speakers,Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023)[e][1]
The short-livedFirst Republic of Armenia declared Armenian its official language.Eastern Armenian was then dominating in institutions and among the population. When Armenia was incorporated into the USSR, theArmenian Soviet Socialist Republic made Eastern Armenian the language of the courts, government institutions and schools. Armenia was alsorussified. The currentRepublic of Armenia upholds the official status of the Armenian language.Eastern Armenian is the official variant used, making it theprestige variety while other variants have been excluded from national institutions. Indeed,Western Armenian is perceived by some as a mere dialect.[76] Armenian was also official in theRepublic of Artsakh. It is recognized as an official language of theEurasian Economic Union although Russian is the working language.
In Lebanon, Syria and Iran, Armenian communities were given greater autonomy than Assyrian, Kurdish, and other communities. In practice, Armenians were the only ethnic minority group in these countries allowed to teach their language in schools.[86][87] InIran, article 15 of theconstitution allows the use of "regional and tribal languages" in the mass media as well as within the schools. However, these languages do not receive formal status and are not officially regulated by the authorities.[88][89]Iranian Armenians are de facto the only non-Persian ethnic group in Iran enjoying this right, with private schools where Armenian is the medium of instruction.[90]
In Armenian, the stress falls on the last syllable unless the last syllable contains the definite article[ə] or[n], and the possessive articlesս andդ, in which case it falls on the penultimate one. For instance,[ɑχɔɾˈʒɑk],[mɑʁɑdɑˈnɔs],[ɡiˈni] but[vɑˈhɑɡən] and[ˈdɑʃtə]. Exceptions to this rule are some words with the final letterէ (ե in the reformed orthography) (մի՛թէ, մի՛գուցե, ո՛րեւէ) and sometimes the ordinal numerals (վե՛ցերորդ, տա՛սներորդ, etc.), as well asնաեւ, նամանաւանդ, հիմա, այժմ, and a small number of other words.
The following table lists the Eastern Armenian consonantal system. The occlusives andaffricates have an aspirated series, commonly transcribed with a reversedapostrophe after the letter. Each phoneme in the table is represented by IPA, Armenian script and romanization.
^abcdef/pʰ p b/ in Eastern Armenian dialects generally correspond to /pʰ b pʰ/ in Western dialects (more detailed table given below).
^abSome of the dialects may release the voiceless stops and affricates as ejectives.[97]
^abSources differ on the place of articulation of these consonants.
The major phonetic difference between dialects is in the reflexes of Classical Armenianvoice-onset time. The seven dialect types have the following correspondences, illustrated with the t–d series:[98]
Armenian corresponds to other Indo-European languages in structure, but it shares distinctive sounds and grammatical features with neighboringlanguages of the Caucasus region. Armenian orthography is rich in consonant clusters, but in pronunciation, they are broken up with schwas.[99][100] Both classical Armenian and the modern spoken and literary dialects have a system of noun declensions, with six or seven cases but no gender. In modern Armenian, the use of auxiliary verbs to show tense (comparable to "will" in "he will go") has generally supplanted the inflected verbs ofClassical Armenian. Negative verbs are conjugated differently from positive ones (as in English "he goes" and "he does not go") in many tenses, otherwise adding only the negativeչ to the positive conjugation. Grammatically, early forms of Armenian had much in common with classicalGreek andLatin, but the modern language has undergone manyanalytic transformations like modern Greek.
Armenian has nogrammatical gender, not even in pronouns, but there is a feminine suffix (-ուհի "-uhi") which has no grammatical effect. For example,ուսուցիչ (usucʻičʻ, "teacher") becomesուսուցչուհի (usucʻčʻuhi, female teacher). The nominal inflection preserves several types of inherited stem classes. Historically, nouns were declined for one of seven cases:nominative (ուղղականuġġakan),accusative (հայցականhaycʻakan),locative (ներգոյականnergoyakan),genitive (սեռականseṙakan),dative (տրականtrakan),ablative (բացառականbacʻaṙakan), orinstrumental (գործիականgorciakan), but in the modern language, the nominative and accusative cases, as well as the dative and genitive cases, have merged.
Examples of noun declension in Eastern Armenian
ՀեռախոսHeṙaxos (telephone)
Case
Singular
Plural
Nominative/ Accusative
հեռախոս(ը/ն)*
heṙaxos(ë/n)*
հեռախոս(ը/ն)*
heṙaxos(ë/n)*
հեռախոսներ(ը/ն)*
heṙaxosner(ë/n)*
հեռախոսներ(ը/ն)*
heṙaxosner(ë/n)*
Genitive/ Dative
հեռախոսի(ն)
heṙaxosi(n)
հեռախոսի(ն)
heṙaxosi(n)
հեռախոսների(ն)
heṙaxosneri(n)
հեռախոսների(ն)
heṙaxosneri(n)
Ablative
հեռախոսից
heṙaxosicʻ
հեռախոսից
heṙaxosicʻ
հեռախոսներից
heṙaxosnericʻ
հեռախոսներից
heṙaxosnericʻ
Instrumental
հեռախոսով
heṙaxosov
հեռախոսով
heṙaxosov
հեռախոսներով
heṙaxosnerov
հեռախոսներով
heṙaxosnerov
Locative
հեռախոսում
heṙaxosum
հեռախոսում
heṙaxosum
հեռախոսներում
heṙaxosnerum
հեռախոսներում
heṙaxosnerum
ՄայրMayr (mother)
Case
Singular
Plural
Nominative/ Accusative
մայր(ը/ն)*
mayr(ë/n)*
մայր(ը/ն)*
mayr(ë/n)*
մայրեր(ը/ն)*
mayrer(ë/n)*
մայրեր(ը/ն)*
mayrer(ë/n)*
Genitive/ Dative
մոր(ը/ն)*
mor(ë/n)*
մոր(ը/ն)*
mor(ë/n)*
մայրերի(ն)
mayreri(n)
մայրերի(ն)
mayreri(n)
Ablative
մորից
moricʻ
մորից
moricʻ
մայրերից
mayrericʻ
մայրերից
mayrericʻ
Instrumental
մորով
morov
մորով
morov
մայրերով
mayrerov
մայրերով
mayrerov
Which case the direct object takes is split based on animacy (a phenomenon more generally known asdifferential object marking). Inanimate nouns take the nominative, while animate nouns take the dative. Additionally, animate nouns can never take the locative case.
Verbs in Armenian have an expansive system ofconjugation with two main verb types in Eastern Armenian and three in Western Armenian changing form based ontense,mood andaspect.
-owm dialects, nearly corresponding to Eastern Armenian
-el dialects (intermediate)
-gë dialects, nearly corresponding to Western Armenian
Armenian is apluricentric language, having two modernstandardized forms:Eastern Armenian andWestern Armenian. There are also numerous other non-standard dialects, many of which are extinct.[101] The most distinctive feature of Western Armenian is that it has undergone several phonetic mergers; these may be due to proximity to Arabic- and Turkish-speaking communities.
A man speaking in Western Armenian
Classical Armenian (Grabar), which remained the standard until the 18th century, was quite homogeneous across the different regions that works in it were written; it may have been a cross-regional standard.[102] The Middle Armenian variety used in the court of Cilician Armenia (1080–1375) provides a window into the development of Western Armenian, which came to be based on what became the dialect of Istanbul, while the standard for Eastern Armenian was based on the dialect around Mount Ararat and Yerevan.[102] Although the Armenian language is often divided into "east" and "west", the two standards are actually relatively close to each other in light of wealth of the diversity present among regional non-standard Armenian dialects. The different dialects have experienced different degrees oflanguage contact effects, often with Turkic and Caucasian languages; for some, the result has been significant phonological and syntactic changes.[102] Fortson notes that the modern standard as well has now attained a subordinate clausal structure that greatly resembles a Turkic language.[103]
Eastern Armenian speakers pronounce (թ) as [tʰ], (դ) as [d], and (տ) as atenuis occlusive [t˭]. Western Armenian has simplified the occlusive system into a simple division between voiced occlusives and aspirated ones; the first series corresponds to the tenuis series of Eastern Armenian, and the second corresponds to the Eastern voiced and aspirated series. Thus, the Western dialect pronounces both (թ) and (դ) as [tʰ], and the (տ) letter as [d].
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.
Armenian can be divided into two major dialectal blocks and those blocks into individual dialects, though many of the Western Armenian dialects have become extinct due to the effects of the Armenian genocide. In addition, neither dialect is completely homogeneous: any dialect can be subdivided into several subdialects. Although Western and Eastern Armenian are often described as different dialects of the same language, many subdialects are not readily mutually intelligible. Nevertheless, a fluent speaker of one of two greatly varying dialects who is also literate in one of the standards, when exposed to the other dialect for a period of time will be able to understand the other with relative ease.
Western Armenian dialects are currently spoken also inGavar (formerly Nor Bayazet and Kamo, on the western shore ofLake Sevan),Aparan, andTalin in Armenia (Mush dialect), and by the large Armenian population residing inAbkhazia, where they are considered to be the first or second ethnic minority, or even equal in number to the local Abkhaz population[107]
TheArmenian alphabet (Armenian:Հայոց գրեր,romanized: Hayots grer orArmenian:Հայոց այբուբեն,romanized: Hayots aybuben) is a graphically uniquealphabetical writing system that is used to write the Armenian language. It was introduced around AD 405 byMesrop Mashtots, an Armenian linguist and ecclesiastical leader, and originally contained 36 letters. Two more letters, օ (ō) and ֆ (f), were added in the Middle Ages.
During the1920s orthography reform in Soviet Armenia, a new letter և (capital ԵՎ) was added, which was a ligature before ե+ւ, whereas the letter Ւ ւ was discarded and reintroduced as part of a new letter ՈՒ ու (which was a digraph before). This alphabet and associated orthography is used by most Armenian speakers ofArmenia and the countries of the former Soviet Union. Neither the alphabet nor the orthography has been adopted by Diaspora Armenians, including Eastern Armenian speakers of Iran and all Western Armenian speakers, who keep using the traditional alphabet and spelling.
Due to extensive loaning, only around 1,500 words (G. Jahukyan) are known to have been inherited from Indo-European by the Classical Armenian stage; the rest were lost, a fact that presents a major challenge to endeavors to better understand Proto-Armenian and its place within the family, especially as many of the sound changes along the way from Indo-European to Armenian remain quite difficult to analyze.[108]
This table lists some of the more recognizable cognates that Armenian shares with English words descended fromOld English.[109]
Բոլոր մարդիկ ծնվում են ազատ ու հավասար` իրենց արժանապատվությամբ և իրավունքներով: Նրանք օժտված են բանականությամբ ու խղճով, և պարտավոր են միմյանց նկատմամբ վարվել եղբայրության ոգով:
Bolor mardik tznvum en azat u havasar irents arzhanapatvuthyamb yev iravunqnerov. Nranq ozhtvatz en banakanuthyamb u xghcov, yev partavor en mimyants nkatmamb varvel yeghbayruthyan vogov.
Բոլոր մարդիկ կը ծնուին ազատ եւ հաւասար իրենց արժանապատուութեամբ եւ իրաւունքներով: Իրենք օժտուած են բանականութեամբ ու խիղճով, եւ պարտաւորուած են միմեանց հանդէպ եղբայրութեան ոգիով վարուիլ:
Polor martig gė dznvin azad yev havasar irents arzhanabadvuthyamp yev iravunqnerov. Irenq ozhtvadz yen panaganuthyamp u xighjov, yev bardavorvadz yen mimyants hantèb yeghpayruthyan voqiov varvil.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
^ The political status of Abkhazia is disputed. Having unilaterally declared independence fromGeorgia in 1992, Abkhaziais formally recognised as an independent state by 5 UN member states (two other states previously recognised it but then withdrew their recognition), while the remainder of the international community recognizes it asde jure Georgian territory. Georgia continues to claim the area as its own territory, designating it asRussian-occupied territory.
^1.6 million for Western Armenian and 3.7 million for Eastern Armenian
^Though Russian is the working language of the Union according to the Treaty on Eurasian Economic Union, Armenian and the languages of other member states are officially recognized.[2] The websites of the Eurasian Economic Union[3] and the Eurasian Economic Commission[4] are available in Armenian, among other languages.
^Only countries with at least 10,000 speakers are listed.
^"Treaty on Eurasian Economic Union"(PDF).eaeunion.org.Eurasian Economic Union. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 6 February 2021.Article 110 Working Language of the Bodies of the Union. Language of International Treaties within the Union and Decisions of the Commission: 2. International treaties within the Union and decisions of the Commission that are binding on the Member States shall be adopted in Russian with subsequent translation into the official languages of the Member States, if it is provided for by their legislation, in the procedure determined by the Commission.
^abHadjilyra, Alexander – Michael."The Armenians of Cyprus"(PDF).publications.gov.cy. Press and Information Office, Republic of Cyprus. p. 15. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 14 December 2019.According to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of the Council of Europe, Armenian was recognised as a minority language of Cyprus as of 1 December 2002.
^abKenesei, István (2009)."Minority languages in Hungary"(PDF).efnil.org. European Federation of National Institutions for Language. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 14 December 2019.As far as indigenous (autochthonous) minority languages are concerned, Hungarian legislation acknowledges the languages in the following list ...: Armenian, Boyash, Bulgarian, Croatian, German, Greek, Polish, Romani, Romanian, Ruthenian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovene, Ukrainian, and Hungarian Sign Language (HSL).
^ab"Iraqi Constitution: Article 4"(PDF). The Republic of Iraq Ministry of Interior General Directorate for Nationality. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 28 November 2016. Retrieved16 June 2014.The right of Iraqis to educate their children in their mother tongue, such as Turkmen, Syriac, and Armenian shall be guaranteed in government educational institutions in accordance with educational guidelines, or in any other language in private educational institutions.
^abZych, Maciej."New Polish legislation regarding national, ethnic and linguistic minorities"(PDF).gugik.gov.pl. Head Office of Geodesy and Cartography of Poland. p. 2. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 14 December 2019.There are 9 national minorities: Belorussian, Czech, Lithuanian, German, Armenian, Russian, Slovak, Ukrainian and Jewish; and 4 ethnic minorities – Karait, Lemko, Roma and Tartar.
^abPisarek, Walery (2009)."The relationship between official and minority languages in Poland"(PDF).efnil.org. European Federation of National Institutions for Language. p. 118. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 14 December 2019.In a Statement made by the Republic of Poland with relation to the ratification of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, Belarusian, Czech, Hebrew, Yiddish, Karaim, Kashubian, Lithuanian, Lemkian, German, Armenian, Romani, Russian, Slovak, Tatar and Ukrainian were recognized as minority languages.
^abBayır, Derya (2013).Minorities and nationalism in Turkish law. Cultural Diversity and Law. Farnham:Ashgate Publishing. pp. 89–90.ISBN978-1-4094-7254-4.Oran farther points out that the rights set out for the four categories are stated to be the 'fundamental law' of the land, so that no legislation or official action shall conflict or interfere with these stipulations or prevail over them (article 37). [...] According to the Turkish state, only Greek, Armenian and Jewish non-Muslims were granted minority protection by the Lausanne Treaty. [...] Except for non-Muslim populations - that is, Greeks, Jews and Armenians - none of the other minority groups' language rights have beende jure protected by the legal system in Turkey.
^abUzum, Melike; Demir, Nurettin (2017-10-24)."Minority Language Education and Policy in Turkey: The Case of Cankiri Poshas".Journal of Universality of Global Education Issues.4:5–6.ISSN2575-9388.In the Lausanne treaty, people of the republic were defined through a religion based definition, similar to the Ottoman concept of millet (nation). For example, the non-Muslim minorities such as Armenians, Greeks, and Jews were recognized as minorities, and their language rights were identified in articles 39, 40, and 41.
^ab"Law of Ukraine "On Principles of State Language Policy" (Current version – Revision from 01.02.2014)".Document 5029-17, Article 7: Regional or minority languages Ukraine, Paragraph 2 (in Ukrainian). rada.gov.ua. 1 February 2014. Retrieved30 April 2014.Стаття 7. Регіональні мови або мови меншин України ... 2. У контексті Європейської хартії регіональних мов або мов меншин до регіональних мов або мов меншин України, до яких застосовуються заходи, спрямовані на використання регіональних мов або мов меншин, що передбачені у цьому Законі, віднесені мови: російська, білоруська, болгарська, вірменська, гагаузька, ідиш, кримськотатарська, молдавська, німецька, новогрецька, польська, ромська, румунська, словацька, угорська, русинська, караїмська, кримчацька.
^"H. Acharian Institute of Language".sci.am. Archived fromthe original on 5 October 2014.Main Fields of Activity: investigation of the structure and functioning, history and comparative grammar of the Armenian language, exploration of the literary Eastern and Western Armenian Language, dialectology, regulation of literary language, development of terminology
^"Activity".langcom.am. Language Committee (The Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports of the Republic of Armenia). Archived fromthe original on 24 July 2025.
^Borjian, Maryam (2017).Language and Globalization: An Autoethnographic Approach. Routledge. p. 205.ISBN9781315394619.At the forefront of the development of Western Armenian in everyday life as well as in arts and technology is the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
^Martirosyan, Hrach (March 2, 2020)."All You Need to Know about Armenian Language".aspirantum.com. ASPIRANTUM: Armenian School of Languages and Cultures. Archived fromthe original on 2 May 2021.The total number of Armenians in the world is roughly estimated as 7–11 million, of which ca. 5-5.5 million speak Armenian.
^Holm, Hans J. (2011). "'Swadesh lists' of Albanian Revisited and Consequences for its position in the Indo-European Languages".The Journal of Indo-European Studies.39 (1–2).
^Clackson, James P. T. (2008). "Classical Armenian". In Woodard, Roger D. (ed.).The Ancient Languages of Asia Minor. Cambridge University Press. p. 124.doi:10.1017/CBO9780511486845.014.ISBN9780521684965.
^Vaux, B. (2010)."Armenian". InBrown, Keith; Ogilvie, Sarah (eds.).Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World. Elsevier. p. 70.ISBN978-0-08-087774-7.The relationship between the two modern literary dialects is somewhat complicated; there are many grammatical differences [...] and lexical differences [...], and most Western speakers have difficulty understanding Eastern, but many Eastern speakers are relatively comfortable with the Western dialect. [...] The fact that there is some mutual intelligibility in both directions can also be linked to the fact that the literary dialects tend to borrow the same forms from Classical Armenian, and (at least in recent decades) employ the same newly coined words.
^Dolatian, Hossep; Sharifzadeh, Afsheen;Vaux, Bert (2023-05-22). "Introduction".A grammar of Iranian Armenian(PDF). Language Science Press. p. 2.ISBN978-3-96110-419-2. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 2023-10-14. Retrieved2023-10-08.There are two standardized dialects that are mutually intelligible after significant exposure: Standard Western Armenian (SWA) and Standard Eastern Armenian (SEA); henceforth Standard Western and Standard Eastern.
^Comrie, Bernard (2020). "Languages of the World". InAronoff, Mark; Rees-Miller, Janie (eds.).The Handbook of Linguistics. Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 23.ISBN978-1-119-30207-0.Armenian, spoken primarily in Armenia though also in the Armenian diaspora originating in eastern Turkey, is another branch of Indo-European consisting of a single language, although the differences between Eastern Armenian (spoken mainly in Armenia) and Western Armenian (spoken originally mainly in Turkey) are considerable, and there are two written languages.
^Austin, William M. (January–March 1942). "Is Armenian an Anatolian Language?".Language.18 (1). Linguistic Society of America:22–25.doi:10.2307/409074.JSTOR409074.
^Martirosyan, Hrach (2015),"Notes on Anatolian loanwords in Armenian"(PDF),St. Petersburg, Institute for linguistic studies, Russian Academy of sciences, Russia,archived(PDF) from the original on 2022-10-09
^Grekyan, Yervand (2018)."Urartian State Mythology". In Grekyan, Y; Badalyan, M.; Tiratsyan, N.; Petrosyan, A (eds.).Biainili-Urartu: Gods, Temples, Cults (in Armenian). Yerevan: Yerevan Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography Press. pp. 44–45.ISBN978-9939-9178-0-1.
^Renfrew, Colin (2003). "Time Depth, Convergence Theory, and Innovation in Proto-Indo-European".Languages in Prehistoric Europe. Winter.ISBN3-8253-1449-9.
^Bammesberger, Alfred (1992). "The Place of Europe in Germanic and Indo-European".The Cambridge History of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 32.doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521264747.003.ISBN978-0-521-26474-7. The model "still remains the background of much creative work in Indo-European reconstruction" even though it is "by no means uniformly accepted by all scholars."
^Indoiranisch-griechische Gemeinsamkeiten der Nominalbildung und deren indogermanische Grundlagen (= Aryan-Greek Communities in Nominal Morphology and their Indoeuropean Origins; in German) (282 p.), Innsbruck, 1979
^Pisowicz, Andrzej (1995). "How Did New Persian and Arabic Words Penetrate the Middle Armenian Vocabulary? Remarks on the Material of Kostandin Erznkac'i's Poetry". In Weitenberg, Joseph Johannes Sicco (ed.).New Approaches to Medieval Armenian Language and Literature. Dutch Studies in Armenian Language and Literature. Vol. 3. p. 96.doi:10.1163/9789004455139_008.ISBN9789004455139.
^Schütz, E. (1964). "Tangsux in Armenia".Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae.17 (1). Akadémiai Kiadó: 106.JSTOR23656665.
^Panossian, Razmik.The Armenians: From Kings and Priests to Merchants and Commissars. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 39.ISBN9780231139267.
^Mezhdoyan, Slava (28 November 2012)."Challenges and problems of the Armenian community of Georgia"(PDF). Tbilisi: European Armenian Federation for Justice and Democracy.Archived(PDF) from the original on 2022-10-09. Retrieved26 May 2014.Armenian schools in Georgia are fully funded by the government ...
^Sanjian, Ara."Armenians and the 2000 Parliamentary Elections in Lebanon".Armenian News Network / Groong.University of Southern California. Archived fromthe original on 26 May 2014.Moreover, the Lebanese government approved a plan whereby the Armenian language was to be considered from now on as one of the few 'second foreign languages' that students can take as part of the official Lebanese secondary school certificate (Baccalaureate) exams.
^"English/Armenian Legal Glossary"(PDF). Superior Court of California, County of Sacramento. 22 June 2005.Archived(PDF) from the original on 2022-10-09. Retrieved26 May 2014.
^Fortson 2004, p. 340:"The modern standard language has not been free of these influences either; in many areas of syntax, such as subordinate clausal structure, it more greatly resembles a Turkic language than a European one."
^Baghdassarian-Thapaltsian, S. H. (1970).Շիրակի դաշտավայրի բարբառային նկարագիրը.Լրաբեր հասարակական գիտությունների (Bulletin of Social Sciences) (in Armenian).6 (6):51–60. Archived fromthe original on 15 September 2019. Retrieved24 March 2013.
^Hovannisian, Richard, ed. (2003).Armenian Karin/Erzerum. Costa Mesa, California: Mazda Publ. p. 48.ISBN9781568591513.Thus, even today the Erzerum dialect is widely spoken in the northernmost districts of the Armenian republic as well as in the Akhalkalak (Javakheti; Javakhk) and Akhaltskha (Akhaltsikh) districts of southern Georgia
^Fortson 2004, p. 338:"Armenian is still difficult for IE studies. This is primarily due to the small number of native forms left in the language by the time of its earliest attestation: no more than about 450 words are inherited. The small stock of native words has left precious few examples of many Armenian sound changes, some of which are among the most bizarre in the whole family..."
Fortson, Benjamin W. (2004).Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction. Blackwell textbooks in linguistics (1st ed.). Malden: Blackwell Publishing.ISBN978-1-4051-0316-9.OCLC863202575.
Seyfarth, Scott; Dolatian, Hossep; Guekguezian, Peter; Kelly, Niamh; Toparlak, Tabita (April 2024). "Armenian (Yerevan Eastern Armenian and Beirut Western Armenian)". Illustrations of the IPA.Journal of the International Phonetic Association.54 (1):445–478.doi:10.1017/S0025100323000130, with supplementary sound recordings.
.jpg)
