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Armenian language
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Columbia Encyclopedia:
Armenian language,
member of the Thraco-Phrygian subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Indo-European). There is evidence that in ancient times a distinct subfamily of Indo-European languages existed that is now called Thraco-Phrygian. To it belonged Phrygian (an ancient and now extinct Indo-European language of Anatolia) and Thracian (a now dead Indo-European tongue of the Balkans in antiquity). Modern Armenian may well be a direct descendant of Phrygian. Today Armenian is the mother tongue of more than 5 million people, of whom over 3 million live in Armenia; 1 million live elsewhere in the republics of the former Soviet Union; and the rest are in the Middle East, the Balkans, and the United States. Armenian is an old, rich, and vital language. Although spoken in antiquity, it was not recorded in writing until the early 5th cent. A.D. At that time an alphabet of 36 letters was specially designed for Armenian by St. Mesrop, who used Greek and Iranian letters as a basis. Later, two more letters were added to the alphabet. In its early, or classical, form, Armenian is called Grabar or Krapar. This was the literary language until the 19th cent. and is still the liturgical language of the Armenian Church (see Armenian literature). It differed greatly from the spoken language. Grammatically, it has six cases for the noun and nine tenses for the verb, but it has lost gender. The modern form of Armenian, now used for literature as well as for speaking, dates from the 16th cent. and is known as Ashksarhik or Ashksarhabar. Its grammar is simpler than that of Classical Armenian. The history of the Armenian people is reflected in the sources of the words borrowed by their language. For example, Armenian has absorbed words from Persian, owing to Parthian domination in the centuries immediately before and after Jesus, from Greek and Syriac as a result of Christian influence, from French during the Crusades, and from Turkish in the course of several centuries of Turkish rule. For grammars see S. L. Kogian (1949) and K. H. Gulian (1954); John A. Greppin and A. A. Khachaturian, Handbook of Armenian Dialectology (1986).
WordNet:
Armenian language
Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.
The noun has one meaning:
Meaning #1:
the Indo-European language spoken predominantly in Armenia
Synonym: Armenian
Wikipedia:
Armenian language
| Armenian Հայերեն Hayeren |
||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh (de facto a republic, de-jure part of Azerbaijan), and the Armenian diaspora | |
| Total speakers: | 7 million | |
| Ranking: | 87 | |
| Language family: | Indo-European Armenian |
|
| Writing system: | Armenian alphabet | |
| Official status | ||
| Official language of: | Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh | |
| Regulated by: | National Academy of Sciences of Armenia | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | hy | |
| ISO 639-2: | arm (B) | hye (T) |
| ISO 639-3: | hye | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
The Armenian language (հայերեն լեզու, IPA: [hajɛɹɛn lɛzu] — hayeren lezu, conventional short form hayeren) is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia as well as Nagorno-Karabakh (a de facto republic but de-jure part of Azerbaijan). The language is also widely spoken by Armenian communities in the Armenian diaspora.
Linguists standardly classify Armenian as an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. Some Indo-Europeanists, notably Clackson (1994), have proposed that Armenian may have been grouped together with the Hellenic branch (Greek). This is called the Graeco-Armenian Hypothesis, in combination with a Graeco-Aryan hypothesis (Colin Renfrew, Clackson and Fortson 1994).
History
| History of the Armenian language (see also: Armenian alphabet) |
| Proto-Armenian Graeco-Armenian hypothesis |
| Classical Armenian (from 405)
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| Middle Armenian (c. 1100–1700)
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| Modern Armenian (c. 1820 to present) Eastern Armenian Western Armenian |
Origins
- See also: Armenian hypothesis
The Armenian language dates to the early period of Indo-European differentiation and dispersion some 5000 years ago, or perhaps as early as 7,800 years ago according to some recent research. [1]
Graeco-Armenian hypothesis
Armenian is regarded by some linguists as a close relative of Phrygian. Many scholars such as Clackson (1994) hold that Greek is the most closely related surviving language to Armenian. The characteristically Greek representation of word-initial laryngeals by prothetic vowels is shared by Armenian, which also shares other phonological and morphological peculiarities of Greek. The close relatedness of Armenian and Greek sheds light on the paraphyletic nature of the Centum-Satem isogloss. Armenian also shares major isoglosses with Greek; some linguists propose that the linguistic ancestors of the Armenians and Greeks were either identical or in a close contact relation. However other linguists including Fortson (2004) comment "by the time we reach our earliest Armenian records in the 5th century A.D., the evidence of any such early kinship has been reduced to a few tantalizing pieces."
Speculations on Anatolian influence
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Indo-European topics |
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| Indo-European studies |
W. M. Austin in 1942 concluded[2] that there was an
early contact between Armenian and Anatolian languages, based on what he considered
common archaisms, such as the lack of a feminine, the absence of inherited long vowels and the
Iranian influence
The Classical Armenian language (often referred to as grabar, literally "written (language)") imported numerous words from Middle Iranian languages, primarily Parthian, and contains smaller inventories of borrowings from Greek, Syriac, Latin, and autochthonous languages such as Urartian. Middle Armenian (11th–15th centuries AD) incorporated further loans from Arabic, Turkish, Persian, and Latin, and the modern dialects took in hundreds of additional words from Modern Turkish and Persian. Therefore, determining the historical evolution of Armenians is particularly difficult because Armenian borrowed many words from Parthian and Persian (both Iranian languages) as well as from Greek.
The large percentage of loans from Iranian languages initially led linguists to classify Armenian as an Iranian language. The distinctness of Armenian was only recognized when Hübschmann (1875) used the comparative method to distinguish two layers of Iranian loans from the true Armenian vocabulary. 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 their Turkish lexical influences in the 20th century, primarily following the Armenian Genocide.
Phonology
Vowels
|
Modern Armenian has eight monophthong vowel sounds.
| Front | Central | Back | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unrounded | Rounded | Unrounded | Rounded | ||
| Close | i | ʏ | u | ||
| Mid | ɛ | œ | ə | o | |
| Open | ɑ | ||||
Classical Armenian distinguishes seven vowels: /a/, /ɪ/, /ə/ (schwa), /ɛ/ (open e), /e/ (closed e), /o/, and /u/ (transcribed as a, i, ə, e, ē, o, ow and u respectively).
Consonants
The following table lists the Eastern Armenian consonantal system. The occlusives and affricates have a special aspirated series (transcribed with a Greek spiritus asper after the letter): p῾, t῾, c῾, č῾, k῾. Each phoneme in the table is represented by three symbols. The topmost indicates the phoneme's pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA); below that appears the corresponding letter of the Armenian alphabet; and the bottom symbol is its Latin-alphabet transliteration (according to ISO 9985).
| bilabial | labio- dental |
alveolar | post- alveolar |
palatal | velar / uvular |
glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plosive | p b պ բ p b |
t d տ դ t d |
k g կ գ k g |
||||
| aspirated plosive | pʰ փ p‘ |
tʰ թ t‘ |
kʰ ք k‘ |
||||
| nasal | m մ m |
n ն n |
|||||
| fricative | f v ֆ վ f v |
s z ս զ s z |
ʃ ʒ շ ժ š ž |
χ ʁ խ ղ x ġ |
h հ h |
||
| affricate | t͡s d͡z ծ ձ ç j |
t͡ʃ t͡ʒ ճ ջ č̣ j |
|||||
| aspirated affricate | t͡sʰ ց c‘ |
t͡ʃʰ չ č |
|||||
| approximant | ɹ ր r |
j -յ- y |
|||||
| trill | r ռ ṙ |
||||||
| lateral approximant | l լ l |
Morphology
Armenian corresponds with other Indo-European languages in its structure, but it shares distinctive sounds and features of its grammar with neighboring languages of the Caucasus region. Armenian is rich in combinations of consonants. Both classical Armenian and the modern spoken and literary dialects have a complicated system of declining nouns, with six or seven noun cases but no gender. In modern Armenian the use of auxiliary verbs to show tense (comparable to will in "he will go") has generally supplemented the inflected verbs of classical Armenian. Negative verbs are conjugated differently from positive ones (as in English "he goes" and "he does not go"). Grammatically, early forms of Armenian had much in common with classical Greek and Latin, but the modern language, like modern Greek, has undergone many transformations. Interestingly enough, it shares the common -tion suffix with Latin (the Armenian cognate is t'youn, թյուն).
Lord Byron studied the Armenian language. He helped to compile an Armenian grammar textbook and translated a few Armenian books into English.
Noun
Classical Armenian has no grammatical gender, not even in the pronoun. The nominal inflection, however, preserves several types of inherited stem classes. The noun may take seven cases, nominative, accusative, locative, genitive, dative, ablative, instrumental.
Verb
Verbs in Armenian have an expansive system of conjugation with two main verb types (three in Western Armenian) changing form based on tense, mood and aspect.
Dialects
The major division is between the Eastern and Western dialects. 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.
For example, Eastern Armenian speakers pronounce (թ) as an aspirated "t" as in "tiger", (դ) like the "d" in "develop", and (տ) as an unaspirated voiceless stop, sounding somewhere between the two as in "stop." Western Armenian has simplified the stop system into a simple division between voiced stops and voiceless aspirate ones; the first series corresponds to the unaspirated voiceless series of Eastern Armenian, and the second corresponds to the Eastern voiced and aspirated voiceless series. Thus, the Western dialect pronounces both (թ) and (դ) as an aspirated "t" as in "tiger," and the (տ) letter is pronounced like the letter "d" as in "develop."
There is no precise linguistic border between one dialect and another because there is nearly always a dialect transition zone of some size between pairs of geographically identified dialects). The main difference between both blocks are:
- Western Armenian (Arevm'tahayeren):
- example
- Eastern Armenian (Arevelahayeren):
- example
Armenian can be subdivided in two major dialectal blocks and those blocks into individual dialects, though many of the Western Armenian dialects have died due to the effects of the Armenian Genocide. In addition, neither dialect is completely homogeneous: any dialect can be subdivided into several subdialects. While Western and Eastern Armenian are often described as different dialects of the same language, some subdialects are not readily mutually intelligible. It is true, however, that a fluent speaker of two greatly varying subdialects who are exposed to the other dialect over even a short period of time will be able to understand the other with relative ease.
English - Eastern Armenian
- Yes = Ayo (այո)
- No = Voch (ոչ)
- Excuse me = Neroghoutioun (ներողություն)
- Hello = Barev (բարեւ)
- Please = Khntrem (խնդրեմ)
- Thank you = Shnorhakal em (շնորհակալ եմ)
- Thank you very much = Shat shnorhakal em (շատ շնորհակալ եմ)
- Welcome = Bari galust (բարի գալուստ) / Barov eq yekel
- Goodbye = Tstesoutioun (ցտեսություն)
- Good morning = Bari louys (բարի լույս)
- Good afternoon = Bari or (բարի օր)
- Good evening = Bari yereko (բարի երեկո)
- Good night = Bari gisher (բարի գիշեր)
- I love you = Yes sirum em qez (ես սիրում եմ քեզ)
English - Western Armenian
- Yes = Ayo (այո)
- No = Voch (ոչ)
- Excuse me = Neroghoutioun (ներողութիւն)
- Hello = Parev (բարեւ)
- Please = Khntrem (խնդրեմ)
- Thank you = Shnorhagal em (շնորհակալ եմ)
- Thank you very much = Shad shnorhagal em (շատ շնորհակալ եմ)
- Welcome = Pari yegar / Pari yegak (բարի եկար / բարի եկաք)
- Goodbye = Tsdesoutioun (ցտեսութիւն)
- Good morning = Pari louys (բարի լոյս)
- Good afternoon = Pari or (բարի օր)
- Good evening = Parirgoun / Pari irigoun (բարի իրկուն / բարի իրիկուն)
- Good night = Kisher pari (գիշեր բարի)
Indo-European linguistic comparison
Armenian is an Indo-European language, and so many of its Proto-Indo-European-descended words are cognates of words in other Indo-European languages such as English, Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit. This table lists only some of the more recognizable cognates that Armenian shares with English (more specifically, with English words descended from the Old English(Anglo-Saxon) language). (Source: Online Etymology Dictionary.[3])
| Armenian | English | Latin | Classical and Hellenistic Greek | Sanskrit | PIE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| mayr "mother" | mother (< OE modor) | mater "mother" | meter "mother" | matar "mother" | *mater- "mother" |
| hayr "father" | father (< OE fæder) | pater "father" | pater "father" | pitar "father" | *pater- "father" |
| eghbayr "brother" | brother (< OE brothor) | frater "brother" | phrater "brother" | bhratar "brother" | *bhrater "brother" |
| dustr "daughter" | daughter (< OE dohtor) | thygater "daughter" | duhitar "daughter" | *dhugheter "daughter" | |
| kin "woman" | queen (< OE cwen "queen, woman, wife") | gyne "a woman, a wife" | janis "woman" | *gwen- "woman, wife" | |
| im "my" | my, mine (< OE min) | mei "my" | emeo "my" | mama "my" | *mene- "my, mine" |
| anun "name" | name (< OE nama) | nomen "name" | onoma "name" | nama "name" | *nomn- "name" |
| out "8" | eight (< OE eahta) | octo "eight" | okto "eight" | astau "eight" | *okto "eight" |
| ine "9" | nine (< OE nigen) | novem "nine" | ennea "nine" | nava "nine" | *newn "nine" |
| tase "10" | ten (< OE ten, tien) (< P.Gmc. *tekhan) | decem "ten" | deka "ten" | dasa "ten" | *dekm "ten" |
| achk "eye" | eye (< OE ege, eage) | oculus "eye" | opsis "a sight" | akshi "eye" | *oqw- "to see" |
| armunk "elbow" | arm (< OE earm "joined body parts below shoulder") | armus "shoulder" | arthron "a joint" | irmah "arm" | *ar- "fit, join (that which is fitted together)" |
| tsunk[4] "knee" | knee (< OE cneo, cneow) | genu "knee" | gony "knee" | janu "knee" | *geneu "knee" |
| votk "foot" | foot (< OE fot) | pedis "foot" | podos "foot" | padam "foot" | *pod-, *ped- "foot" |
| sirt "heart" | heart (< OE heorte) | cor, cordis "heart" | kardia "heart" | hrdaya "heart" | *kerd- "heart" |
| kashi "skin" | hide (< OE hyd "animal skin cover") | cutis "skin" | keutho "to cover, to hide" | kutira "shelter" | *keu- "to cover, conceal" |
| muk "mouse" | mouse (< OE mus) | mus "mouse" | mys "mouse" | mus "mouse" | *muhs "mouse, small rodent" |
| kov "cow" | cow (< OE cu) | bos, bovis "cow" | bous "cow" | gaus "cow" | *gwous "cow" |
| shun "hound" | hound (< OE hund "hound, dog") | canis, caninus "hound, dog" (canine) | kyon "hound, dog" | svan "dog" | *kwon- "hound, dog" |
| tari "year" | year (< OE gear, ger) | hornus "of this year" | hora "year" | varsa "year" | *yer-, *yor- "year" |
| amis "month" | moon, month (< OE mona, monath) | mensis "month" | mene, men "moon, month" | masah "moon, month" | *menses- "moon, month" |
| amar "summer" | summer (< OE sumor) | sama "season" | *sem- "hot season of the year" | ||
| jerm "warm" | warm (< OE wearm) | formus "warm" | thermos "warm" | gharmah "heat" | *ghwerm- "warm" |
| luys "light" | light (< OE leht, leoht "brightness") | lucere, lux, lucidus "to shine, light, clear" | leukos "bright, shining, white" | aloka "light" | *leuk- "light, brightness" |
| hur "fire, torch" | fire (< OE fyr) | pyr "fire" | pu "fire" | *paewr- "fire" | |
| heru "far" | far (< OE feorr "to a great distance") | per "through" | pera "beyond" | parah "farther" | *per- "through, across, beyond" |
| helum "I pour" | flow (< OE flowan) | pluere "to rain" | plyno, pleo "I wash, swim or go by sea" | plavate "swim" | *pleu- "flow, float" |
| utem "I eat" | eat (< OE etan) | edere "to eat" (edible) | edo "I eat" | admi "I eat" | *ed- "to eat" |
| gitem "I know" | wit (< OE wit, witan "intelligence, to know") | video "I see" | woida "I know" | veda "I know" | *weid- "to know, to see" |
| gorts[4] "work " | work (< OE weorc, worc) | urgere "push, drive" | ergon "work" | varcas "activity" | *werg- "to work" |
| mets[4] "great " | much (< OE micel "great, big, many") | magnus "great" | megas "great, large" | maha "great" | *meg- "great" |
| antsanot[4] "stranger, unfamiliar" | unknown (< OE uncnawen, ungecnawen (un "not" + ge "to get to" + cnawen "know")) | incognitus "in (not) + co (to get to) + gnitus (know)" (incognito) | agnotos "unknown" | ajnatah "unfamiliar" | *n- + *gno- "not" + "to know" |
| merats "dead" | murder (< OE morthor) | mortalis "mortal" | ambrotos "immortal" | mrtih "death" | *mrtro-, from (*mor-, *mr-) "to die" |
| mejtegh "middle" | mid, middle (< OE mid, middel) | medius "middle" | mesos "middle" | madhya "middle" | *medhjo- from *me- "mid, middle" |
| jour "water" | water (< OE wæter) | unda "wave" | hydor "water" | udnah "water" | (*wodor, *wedor, *uder-) from *wed- "water" |
| ayl "other" | else (< OE elles "other, otherwise, different") | alius, alienus "other, another" | allos "other, another" | anya "other" | *al- "beyond, other" |
| nore "new" | new (< OE neowe) | novus "new" | neos "new" | navah "new" | *newos "new" |
| p'ul gal "downfall" | fall (< OE feallan) | galita "fallen" | *phol- "to fall" | ||
| dur "door" | door (< OE dor) | foris "door" | thura "door" | dvarah "door" | *dhwer-, *dhwor- "door, doorway, gate" |
| toun "house" | timber (< OE timber "trees used for building material, structure") | domus "house" | domos "house" | damah "house" | *domo-, *domu- "house" |
See also
- Language families and languages
- List of Indo-European languages
- Armenian alphabet
- Western Armenian language
- Eastern Armenian language
- Graeco-Armenian
Footnotes
- ^ Nicholas Wade, "Biological dig for the roots of language," International Herald Tribune, (March 18, 2004) 10; Gray & Atkinson, "Anatolian Theory of Indo-European origin," 437.
- ^ Austin, William M. (Jan. - Mar., 1942). "Is Armenian an Anatolian Language?:Language, Vol. 18, No. 1": 22-25. Linguistic Society of America. DOI:10.2307/409074.
- ^ Online Etymology Dictionary. etymonline.com. Retrieved on 2007-06-07.
- ^ a b c d The consonant cluster 'ts', in the Armenian words "tsunk", "gorts", "mets", and "antsanot", corresponds to the PIE *g.
References
- Clackson, James. 1994. The Linguistic Relationship Between Armenian and Greek. London: Publications of the Philological Society, No 30. (and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing)
- Fortson, Benjamin W. (2004) Indo-European Language and Culture. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
- Hübschmann, Heinrich (1875) "Über die Stellung des armenischen im Kreise der indogermanischen Sprachen," Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Sprachforschung 23.5-42. English translation
- Mallory, J. P. (1989) In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology and Myth. London: Thames & Hudson.
- Vaux, Bert. 1998. The Phonology of Armenian. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
External links
Armenian language
edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Armenian
language edition of Wiktionary, the free dictionary/thesaurus
- Armeniapedia.org - free Armenian lessons on the Armenian Wiki
- Ethnologue report on Armenian
- The Armenian alphabet
- On-line Armenian dictionaries
- Online Eastern Armenian Bible
Armenian Language Samples:
be-x-old:Армянская моваhsb:Armenšćinalij:Lengua armenn-adiq:Ermeniki
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 | Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/ Read more |
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| WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Armenian language". Read more |
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