The oldest recorded variety of Armenian, attested from the fifth century and in continuous use as a literary language until the eighteenth century.
Dictionary:
Clas·si·cal Armenian (klăs'ĭ-kəl) ![]() |
The oldest recorded variety of Armenian, attested from the fifth century and in continuous use as a literary language until the eighteenth century.
| Wikipedia: Classical Armenian |
| Classical Armenian | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in | Armenian Highlands | |
| Language extinction | developed into Middle Armenian | |
| Language family | Indo-European
|
|
| Writing system | Armenian alphabet | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1 | None | |
| ISO 639-2 | – | |
| ISO 639-3 | xcl | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Classical Armenian (Armenian: գրաբար Grabar, meaning "literary"; also Old Armenian or Liturgical Armenian) is the oldest attested form of the Armenian language. It was first written down at the beginning of the 5th century, and all Armenian literature from then through the 18th century is in the Grabar Armenian language. Many ancient Greek, Persian, Hebrew, Syriac, and Latin manuscripts survive only in their Armenian translation. Classical Armenian continues to be the liturgical language of the Armenian Apostolic Church and is therefore often learned by Biblical, Intertestamental, and Patristic scholars dedicated to textual studies. Classical Armenian is also important for the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European language, since it preserves many archaic features.
Contents |
Classical Armenian has seven monophthong vowels:
There are also traditionally six diphthongs:
In the following table there is listed the Classical Armenian consonantal system. The occlusives and affricates have in addition to the more common voiced and unvoiced series also a separate aspirated series (transcribed with a spiritus asper after the letter): p῾, t῾, c῾, č῾, k῾. For each phoneme there are three symbols in the table. The leftmost indicates the pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA); in the middle there is the corresponding symbol in the Armenian alphabet; and the rightmost is its transliteration in Latin alphabet (following ISO 9985).
| Labial | Alveolar | Post- alveolar / Palatal |
Velar / Uvular |
Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasals | m մ m | n ն n | ||||
| Plosives | voiced | b բ b | d դ d | g գ g | ||
| unvoiced | p պ p | t տ t | k կ k | |||
| aspirated | pʰ փ p’ | tʰ թ t’ | kʰ ք k’ | |||
| Affricates | voiced | dz ձ j | dʒ ջ ǰ | |||
| unvoiced | ts ծ ç | tʃ ճ č̣ | ||||
| aspirated | tsʰ ց c’ | tʃʰ չ č | ||||
| Fricatives | voiced | v վ v | z զ z | ʒ ժ ž | ʁ ղ ġ | |
| unvoiced | f ֆ f | s ս s | ʃ շ š | χ խ x | h հ h | |
| Approximants | lateral | l լ l | ||||
| central | ɹ ր r | j յ y | ||||
| Trill | r ռ ṙ | |||||
The letter f (or ֆ) was introduced in the Medieval Period to represent the foreign sound /f/, or the voiceless labiodental fricative, and was not originally a letter in the Armenian Alphabet.
Classical Armenian uses traditional Armenian orthography.
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
| Derian (family name) | |
| Derderian (family name) | |
| Donabedian (family name) |
Copyrights:
![]() | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Classical Armenian". Read more |
Mentioned in