Western Armenian (
Classical spelling: , ) is one of the two
standardized
Standardization or standardisation is the process of implementing and developing technical standards based on the consensus of different parties that include firms, users, interest groups, standards organizations and governments. Standardization ...
forms of
Modern Armenian
Modern Armenian ( hy, աշխարհաբար, ''ashkharhabar'' or ''ašxarhabar'', literally the "secular/lay language") is the modern vernacular (vulgar) form of the Armenian language. Although it first appeared in the 14th century, it was not until ...
, the other being
Eastern Armenian
Eastern Armenian ( ''arevelahayeren'') is one of the two standardized forms of Modern Armenian, the other being Western Armenian. The two standards form a pluricentric language.
Eastern Armenian is spoken in Armenia, Artsakh, Russia, as we ...
. It is based mainly on the Istanbul Armenian dialect, as opposed to Eastern Armenian, which is mainly based on the Yerevan Armenian dialect.
Until the early 20th century, various Western Armenian dialects were also spoken in the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
, especially in the eastern regions historically populated by Armenians known as
Western Armenia
Western Armenia (Western Armenian: Արեւմտեան Հայաստան, ''Arevmdian Hayasdan'') is a term to refer to the eastern parts of Turkey (formerly the Ottoman Empire) that are part of the historical homeland of the Armenians. Weste ...
. The spoken or dialectal varieties of Western Armenian currently in use include
Homshetsi, spoken by the
Hemshin peoples
,
, native_name_lang =
, image =
, caption = Hamshen people by country
, population = 150,000 – 200,000
, popplace =
, regions =
, region1 =
, pop1 = 150,000
, ref1 ...
; the dialects of Armenians of
Kessab
Kessab, Kesab, or Kasab ( ar, كسب ; hy, Քեսապ, Kesab) is a mostly Armenian-populated town in northwestern Syria, administratively part of the Latakia Governorate, located 59 kilometers north of Latakia. It is situated near the border w ...
,
Latakia
, coordinates =
, elevation_footnotes =
, elevation_m = 11
, elevation_ft =
, postal_code_type =
, postal_code =
, area_code = Country code: 963 City code: 41
, geocode ...
and
Jisr al-Shughur
Jisr ash-Shughūr ( ar, جِسْرُ ٱلشُّغُورِ, jisr aš-šuġūr, , also rendered as ''Jisser ash-Shughour'' and other spellings), known in antiquity as Seleucobelus ( el, Σελευκόβηλος, translit=Seleukóbēlos), is a city i ...
of Syria,
Anjar of Lebanon, and
Istanbul
Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...
and
Vakıflı, of Turkey (part of the "Sueidia" dialect). Sasun and Mush dialect is also spoken in modern-day Armenia villages such as Bazmaberd and Sasnashen. The
Cilician dialect is also spoken in
Cyprus
Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...
, where it is taught in Armenian schools (Nareg), and is the first language of about 3,000 people of Armenian descent.
Forms of the
Karin dialect
The Karin dialect ( hy, Կարնոյ բարբառ, ''Karno barbař'') is a Western Armenian dialect originally spoken in and around the city of Erzurum (called Karin by Armenians), now located in eastern Turkey.
Before World War I, the Karin di ...
of Western Armenian are spoken by several hundred thousand people in Northern Armenia, mostly in
Gyumri
Gyumri ( hy, Գյումրի, ) is an urban municipal community and the second-largest city in Armenia, serving as the administrative center of Shirak Province in the northwestern part of the country. By the end of the 19th century, when the city w ...
,
Artik
Artik (Armenian: ), is a town and urban municipal community in the Shirak Province of Armenia. As of the 2011 census, the town had a population of 19,534. As per the 2016 official estimate, the population of Artik is around 18,800.
Artik is famou ...
,
Akhuryan
Akhuryan ( hy, , translit=Axuryan), is a major village and rural community (municipality) in the Shirak Province of Armenia. The Statistical Committee of Armenia reported its population was 7,113 as per the 2011 official census down from 9,696 at ...
, and around 130 villages in the
Shirak province
Shirak ( hy, wikt:Շիրակ, Շիրակ, ) is a provinces of Armenia, province (''Administrative divisions of Armenia, marz'') of Armenia. It is located in the north-west of the country, bordering Turkey to the west and Georgia (country), Geor ...
, and by
Armenians in Samtskhe–Javakheti province of Georgia (
Akhalkalaki
Akhalkalaki ( ka, ახალქალაქი, tr; hy, Ախալքալաք / Նոր-Քաղաք, translit=Axalk’alak’ / Nor-K’aġak’) is a town in Georgia's southern region of Samtskhe–Javakheti and the administrative centre of the Ak ...
,
Akhaltsikhe).
A mostly
diasporic
A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin. Historically, the word was used first in reference to the dispersion of Greeks in the Hellenic world, and later Jews after ...
language and one that is not an official language of any state, Western Armenian faces extinction as its native speakers lose fluency in Western Armenian amid pressures to assimilate into their host countries. Estimates place the number of fluent speakers of Western Armenian outside Armenia and Georgia at less than one million.
Classification
Western Armenian is an
Indo-European language
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch ...
and belongs to the
Armenic branch of the family, along with
Eastern
Eastern may refer to:
Transportation
*China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai
*Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways
*Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991
*Eastern Air Li ...
and
Classical Armenian
Classical Armenian (, in Eastern Armenian pronunciation: Grabar, Western Armenian: Krapar; meaning "literary anguage; also Old Armenian or Liturgical Armenian) is the oldest attested form of the Armenian language. It was first written down at ...
. According to ''
Glottolog
''Glottolog'' is a bibliographic database of the world's lesser-known languages, developed and maintained first at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany (between 2015 and 2020 at the Max Planck Institute for ...
''
Antioch
Antioch on the Orontes (; grc-gre, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου, ''Antiókheia hē epì Oróntou'', Learned ; also Syrian Antioch) grc-koi, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου; or Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπ ...
, Artial, Asia Minor,
Bolu
Bolu is a city in Turkey, and administrative center of the Bolu Province. The population is 131,264 (2012 census).
The city has been governed by mayor Tanju Özcan ( CHP) since local elections in 2019. It was the site of Ancient Claudiopolis ...
,
Hamshenic,
Kilikien,
Mush
In multiplayer online games, a MUSH (a backronymed variation on MUD most often expanded as Multi-User Shared Hallucination, though Multi-User Shared Hack, Habitat, and Holodeck are also observed) is a text-based online social medium to which mult ...
-Tigranakert, Stanoz,
Vanic and
Yozgat
Yozgat is a city and the capital district of Yozgat Province in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey. According to 2019 census, population of the district is 421,200 of which 106,280 live in the city of Yozgat.
History
The first surveys were ...
are the main dialects of Western Armenian.
Eastern Armenian and Western Armenian are, for the most part, mutually intelligible for educated or literate users of the other, while illiterate or semiliterate users of lower registers of each one may have difficulty understanding the other variant. One phonological difference is that
voiced
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to refer ...
stops
Stop may refer to:
Places
*Stop, Kentucky, an unincorporated community in the United States
* Stop (Rogatica), a village in Rogatica, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Facilities
* Bus stop
* Truck stop, a type of rest stop for truck dri ...
in Eastern Armenian are
voiceless
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...
in Western Armenian.
Speakers
Western Armenian is spoken by Armenians of most of the
Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...
except for
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
, and
Rostov-on-Don
Rostov-on-Don ( rus, Ростов-на-Дону, r=Rostov-na-Donu, p=rɐˈstof nə dɐˈnu) is a port city and the administrative centre of Rostov Oblast and the Southern Federal District of Russia. It lies in the southeastern part of the East Eu ...
in
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
. It is spoken by only a small percentage of
Armenians in Turkey
Armenians in Turkey ( tr, Türkiye Ermenileri; hy, Թուրքահայեր, also Թրքահայեր, "Turkish Armenians"), one of the indigenous peoples of Turkey, have an estimated population of 50,000 to 70,000, down from a population of over 2 ...
as a first language, with 18 percent among the community in general and 8 percent among younger people. Western Armenian used to be the dominant Armenian variety, but after the
Armenian genocide
The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was ...
, Western Armenia was wiped clean of Western Armenians. Those who fled to Eastern Armenia now speak either Eastern Armenian or have a diglossic situation between Western Armenian dialects in informal usage and an Eastern Armenian standard. The only Western Armenian dialect still spoken in Western Armenia is the
Homshetsi dialect
Homshetsi ( hy, Հոմշեցի, Homshetsi lizu; tr, Hemşince) is an archaic Western Armenian dialect spoken by the eastern and northern group of Hemshin peoples (''Hemşinli''), a people living in northeastern Turkey, Abkhazia, Russia, and Cent ...
, since the
Hemshin peoples
,
, native_name_lang =
, image =
, caption = Hamshen people by country
, population = 150,000 – 200,000
, popplace =
, regions =
, region1 =
, pop1 = 150,000
, ref1 ...
, who were Muslim converts, did not fall victim to the Armenian genocide.
On 21 February 2009,
International Mother Language Day
International Mother Language Day is a worldwide annual observance held on 21 February to promote awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity and to promote multilingualism. First announced by UNESCO on 17 November 1999, it was formally r ...
, a new edition of the ''Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger'' was released by
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
in which the Western Armenian language in Turkey was defined as a
definitely endangered language
An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a "dead langu ...
.
[UNESCO Culture Sector](_blank)
UNESCO Interactive Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger, 2009
Phonology
Vowels
Monophthongs
Western Armenian has eight monophthongs.
Diphthongs
Western Armenian has ten environments in which two vowels in the orthography appear next to each other, called diphthongs. By definition, they appear in the same syllable. For those unfamiliar with IPA symbols, represents the English "y" sound. The Armenian letter "ե" is often used in combinations such as (ya) and (yo). If used at the beginning of a word, "ե" alone is sufficient to represent (as in yes). The Armenian letter "յ" is used for the glide after vowels. The IPA (like English long i) and diphthongs are common, while (English long a), (a stretched-out long e), and (oy) are rare. The following examples are sometimes across syllable and morpheme boundaries, and gliding is then expected:
Consonants
This is the Western Armenian Consonantal System using letters from the
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic transcription, phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standa ...
(IPA), followed by the corresponding Armenian letter in brackets.
The in Armenian is rare; the letter "ֆ" was added to the alphabet much later. The glide is not used except for foreign proper nouns, like Washington (by utilizing the "u" vowel, Armenian "ու").
Differences from Classical Armenian
Differences in phonology between Western Armenian and
Classical Armenian
Classical Armenian (, in Eastern Armenian pronunciation: Grabar, Western Armenian: Krapar; meaning "literary anguage; also Old Armenian or Liturgical Armenian) is the oldest attested form of the Armenian language. It was first written down at ...
include the distinction of
stops
Stop may refer to:
Places
*Stop, Kentucky, an unincorporated community in the United States
* Stop (Rogatica), a village in Rogatica, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Facilities
* Bus stop
* Truck stop, a type of rest stop for truck dri ...
and
affricates
An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair. ...
.
Firstly, while
Classical Armenian
Classical Armenian (, in Eastern Armenian pronunciation: Grabar, Western Armenian: Krapar; meaning "literary anguage; also Old Armenian or Liturgical Armenian) is the oldest attested form of the Armenian language. It was first written down at ...
has a three-way distinction of stops and affricates (one voiced and two voiceless: one plain and one
aspirated), Western Armenian has kept only a two-way distinction (one voiced and one aspirated). For example, Classical Armenian has three bilabial stops ( , , and ), but Western Armenian has only two bilabial stops ( and /).
Secondly, Western Armenian has both changed the Classical Armenian voiced stops and voiced affricates to aspirated stops and ''aspirated'' affricates and replaced the plain stops and affricates with voiced consonants.
Specifically, here are the shifts from Classical Armenian to Western Armenian:
# Bilabial stops:
## merging of Classical Armenian and as
## voicing of Classical to
# Alveolar stops:
## merging of Classical Armenian and as
## voicing of Classical to
# Velar stops:
## merging of Classical Armenian and as
## voicing of Classical to
# Alveolar affricates:
## merging of Classical Armenian and as
## voicing of Classical to
# Post-alveolar affricates:
## merging of Classical Armenian and as
## voicing of Classical to
As a result, a word like 'water' (spelled in Classical Armenian) is cognate with Western Armenian (also spelled ). However, 'grandson' and 'stone' are pronounced similarly in both Classical and Western Armenian.
Orthography
Western Armenian uses
Classical Armenian orthography
Classical Armenian orthography, traditional orthography or Mashtotsian orthography ( in classical orthography and in reformed orthography, ''Hayereni tasagan ughakrutyun''), is the orthography that was developed by Mesrop Mashtots in the 5th centu ...
, also known as traditional ''Mashtotsian'' orthography. The
Armenian orthography reform
The Armenian orthography reform occurred between 1922 and 1924 in Soviet Armenia and was partially reviewed in 1940. Its main features were neutralization of classical etymological writing and the adjustment of phonetic realization and writing.
Th ...
, commonly known as the ''Abeghian'' orthography, was introduced in the
Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic
The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic,; russian: Армянская Советская Социалистическая Республика, translit=Armyanskaya Sovetskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika) also commonly referred to as Soviet A ...
and is still used by most Eastern Armenian speakers from modern Armenia. However, it has not been adopted by Eastern Armenian speakers of Iran and their diaspora or by speakers of Western Armenian, with the exception of periodical publications published in Romania and Bulgaria while under Communist regimes.
Morphology
Nouns
Western Armenian nouns have four
grammatical case
A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and Numeral (linguistics), numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In vari ...
s:
nominative
In grammar, the nominative case (abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Engl ...
-
accusative
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘the ...
(subject / direct object),
genitive
In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can al ...
-
dative
In grammar, the dative case (abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "Maria Jacobo potum dedit", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob a ...
(possession / indirect object),
ablative
In grammar, the ablative case (pronounced ; sometimes abbreviated ) is a grammatical case for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives in the grammars of various languages; it is sometimes used to express motion away from something, among other uses. T ...
(origin) and
instrumental
An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instru ...
(means). Of the six cases, the nominative and accusative are the same, except for personal pronouns, and the genitive and dative are the same, meaning that nouns have four distinct forms for case. Nouns in Armenian also decline for number (singular and plural), but do not decline for gender (i.e. masculine or feminine).
Declension in Armenian is based on how the genitive is formed. There are several
declension
In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence, by way of some inflection. Declensions may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and ar ...
s, but one is dominant (the genitive in ''i'') while a half-dozen other forms are in gradual decline and are being replaced by the ''i''-form, which has virtually attained the status of a regular form:
Articles
Like English and some other languages, Armenian has definite and indefinite articles. The indefinite article in Western Armenian is , which follows the noun:
''ator mə'' ('a chair', Nom.sg), ''atori mə'' ('of a chair', Gen.sg)
The definite article is a suffix attached to the noun, and is one of two forms, either -n (when the final sound is a vowel) or -ə (when the final sound is a consonant). When the word is followed by al (ալ = also, too), the conjunction u (ու), or the present or imperfect conjugated forms of the verb em (to be); however, it will always take -n:
: ''kirkə'' ('the book', Nom.sg)
: ''karin'' ('the barley' Nom.sg)
but:
: ''Sa kirkn e'' ('This is the book')
: ''Parin u charə'' ('The good and the bad')
: ''Inkn al'' ('S/he too')
The indefinite article becomes mən when it is followed by al (ալ = also, too) or the Present or imperfect conjugated forms of the verb em (to be):
: ''kirk mə'' ('a book', Nom.sg)
but:
: ''Sa kirk mən e'' ('This is a book')
: ''Kirk mən al'' ('A book as well')
Adjectives
Adjectives in Armenian do not decline for case or number, and precede the noun:
: ''agheg martə'' ('the good man', Nom.sg)
: ''agheg martun'' ('to the good man', Gen.sg)
Verbs
Verbs in Armenian are based on two basic series of forms, a "present" form and an "imperfect" form. From this, all other tenses and moods are formed with various particles and constructions. There is a third form, the preterite, which in Armenian is a tense in its own right, and takes no other particles or constructions.
The "present" tense in Western Armenian is based on three
conjugations (a, e, i):
The present tense (as we know it in English) is made by adding the particle gə before the "present" form, except the defective verbs ''em'' (I am), ''gam'' (I exist, I'm there), ''unim'' (I have), ''kidem'' (I know) and ''gərnam'' (I can), while the future is made by adding bidi:
: ''Yes kirk′ə gə gartam'' (I am reading the book or I read the book, Pres)
: ''Yes kirk′ə bidi gartam ''(I will read the book, Fut).
For the exceptions: (I shall be, have, know, be able).
In vernacular language, the particle "gor" is added after the verb to indicate present progressive tense. The distinction is not made in literary Armenian.
: (I am reading the book)
[In vernacular language, the particle is added after the verb to indicate present progressive tense. The distinction is not made in literary Armenian.]
The verb without any particles constitutes the subjunctive mood, such as "if I eat, should I eat, that I eat, I wish I eat":
Personal pronouns
Demonstrative pronouns
Relative pronouns
See also
*
Armenian verbs The verbal morphology of Armenian is complicated by the existence of two main dialects, Eastern and Western. The following sketch will be a comparative look at both dialects.
Non-finite forms
Infinitive
The infinitive of Armenian verbs is formed ...
*
Hidden Armenians
Hidden Armenians ( tr, Gizli Ermeniler) or crypto-Armenians ( hy, ծպտեալ հայեր, tsptyal hayer; tr, Kripto Ermeniler) is an umbrella term to describe Turkish citizens hiding their full or partial Armenian ancestry from the larger Turk ...
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
External links
Arak29 Eastern ArmenianArak29 Western ArmenianArak29 A Course in Modern Western ArmeniaArak29 On-Line DictionariesArak29 EtymologyVideos of people speaking Armenian
Western Armenian Online Dictionaries
Nayiri.com(Library of Armenian dictionaries):
*
Բառգիրք հայերէն լեզուիby Rev. Antranig Granian (about 18,000 terms; published in 1998 in Beirut). Great dictionary for students.
*
ՀԱՅՈՑ ԼԵԶՈՒԻ ՆՈՐ ԲԱՌԱՐԱՆpublished in two volumes in Beirut in 1992 (about 56,000 headwords). Arguably the best Western Armenian dictionary currently available.
*
ՀԱՅԵՐԷՆ ԲԱՑԱՏՐԱԿԱՆ ԲԱՌԱՐԱՆby
Stepan Malkhasiants (about 130,000 entries). One of the definitive Armenian dictionaries. (Definitions are in Eastern Armenian, but include Western Armenian meanings of headwords.)
*
ՀԱՅԵՐԷՆ ԱՐՄԱՏԱԿԱՆ ԲԱՌԱՐԱՆby
Hrachia Acharian
Hrachia Acharian ( hy, Հրաչեայ Աճառեան, reformed spelling: Հրաչյա Աճառյան ; 8 March 1876 – 16 April 1953) was an Armenian linguist, lexicographer, etymologist, and philologist.
An Istanbul Armenian, Acharian stu ...
(5,062 word roots). The definitive study of the history and origins of word roots in Armenian. Also includes explanations of each word root as it is used today. (Explanations are in Eastern Armenian, but root words span the entire Armenian language, including Western Armenian.)
*
Armenian-English dictionary(about 70,000 entries).
*
English-Armenian dictionary(about 96,000 entries).
*
Armenian-French dictionary(about 18,000 entries).
*
French-Armenian dictionary(about 20,000 entries).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Western Armenian Language
Armenian languages
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Languages of France
Languages of Greece
Armenian, Western
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