This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||
|
To-do list for Armenian alphabet:
|
On 8 May 2024, it was proposed that this article be moved to Armenian script. The result of the discussion was no consensus. |
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).
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)
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)
this page looks awful on 800x600 screens
"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)
Can we get an IPA column in the chart? -- YellowLeftHand 17:35, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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.
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)
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)
"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)
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.
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
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
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)
But ejectives are not typical for Eastern Armenian in general.
Kuddeldaddeldu (
talk) 14:23, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
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.
An anonymous user has added data on "Middle Armenian" to the Armenian alphabet. I propose removal of this section:
Go for it. kwami ( talk) 05:54, 6 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)
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)
No reason to think that Armenian and Georgian are sisters. kwami ( talk) 01:02, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
""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)
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)
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)
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 image used in this article,
File:Matenadaran Armenian alphabet.jpg, has been nominated for deletion at
Wikimedia Commons in the following category: Deletion requests February 2012
Don't panic; a discussion will now take place over on Commons about whether to remove the file. This gives you an opportunity to contest the deletion, although please review Commons guidelines before doing so.
To take part in any discussion, or to review a more detailed deletion rationale please visit the relevant image page (File:Matenadaran Armenian alphabet.jpg) This is Bot placed notification, another user has nominated/tagged the image -- CommonsNotificationBot ( talk) 18:52, 16 February 2012 (UTC) |
At the beginning, the article states that the Armenian alphabet was created in 405 or 406 AD. But in the "History and Development" section, we see "Armenian alphabet has been used as a foundation for the Greek alphabet", which is clearly incompatible with that date. It then goes on to say something incomprehensible about Greek borrowing words from Armenian, and the implication seems to be, rather absurdly, that the existence of borrowed words somehow means that the Greek alphabet must be based on the Armenian alphabet. Can someone who knows more about Armenian than I please clean up this silliness? 66.68.80.131 ( talk) 13:56, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
I write the Spanish language with the Armenian alphabet. -- 198.248.159.19 ( talk) 18:23, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
There are no evidences of Armenian writing influencing J.R.R Tolkien. Furthermore - the edit says 'Elvish alphabet'. There are actually three Elvish alphabets - so which one of them? None of those are described as being based on Armenian writings. While this statement sounds really odd to me, acknowledging Wikipedia rules, I demand its verification. -- Henry McClean ( talk) 21:07, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
The Armenian alphabet is related to Avestan, Pahlavi and GEEZ SCRIPT. It ONLY has one letter related to Greek. Who wrote this total rubbish? It is OBVIOUS it has nothing to do with Greek. I am adding Geez script and waiting for this to be fixed. -- Vitilsky ( talk) 01:22, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
I see some bitter back-and-forth between two editors here, so thought I'd give my two cents. After reading the latest comment and then looking at the article, I do see a problem with the article. There indeed seems to be a discrepancy between the "infoboxes", which confidently attribute the Abuben's graphic development to the Greek alphabet (though it is true without a source), and the actual article text, which currently seems more cautious and even-handed, when it says: "Various scripts have been credited with being a prototype for the Armenian alphabet. Pahlavi was the priestly script in Armenia before the introduction of Christianity, and Syriac, along with Greek, was one of the alphabets of Christian scripture. It has also been suggested that the Ge'ez script had an influence on certain letters of the alphabet.[5]" This version has the benefit of having a reference present, to the well-known Ethiopisant Richard Pankhurst, although I have not verified it and am accepting it says that on good faith. Since the text does not even state the Greek alphabet as a direct ancestor, and there is no citation, the solution seems to be to request a citation for the infobox claim of Greek and see what comes up. So for these reasons, I am adding a citation request to the infobox claim of Greek parentage. Til Eulenspiegel / talk/ 00:19, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
There is no Amharic script. The Amharic alphabet uses the Ethiopic script. Saying Armenian is based on Amharic would be like saying French is based on English, when by "English" you meant Latin. Amharic has letters that Ge'ez did not have, just as English has letters that Latin did not have. — kwami ( talk) 22:21, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
I find the Ethiopic origin claim an extreme afrocentric POV. The claim was first made by the africanist Dmitri Olderogge. In Olderogge's theory, Daniel, a Syriac bishop invents Armenian inspired by Ge'ez. Now all we know of Daniel comes from the Armenian legend of the invention of the alphabet, and that story says nothing of his knowledge of Ethiopic or why he would choose a script used by people living 3000km from his native Mesopotamia instead of his native Syriac. On the other hand Vrej Nersessian an actual expert on Armenian Alphabet mentions no such connection in his lengthy discussion on the origin of the alphabet. Another reference suggests that 20 letters from Mesrop's alphabet came from Greek, 4 from Syriac, and 12 were modelled after Greek.-- Kathovo talk 15:40, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
On Georgian alphabet article, people requested archeological proof when we brought source which said it was created in 3th century B.C. but as here is no archeological proof of it, its wrote that its made in Vth century as we have earliest script from this time. But on Armenian alphabet article, here is everything basing on one work and no archeological proof brought here it is made in 405 or 406 AD. I request for earliest Armenian script archeologically dated as 405-6 year, agreed by scholars internationally or I request to fix its date of creation to the earliest found script. -- Obitauri ( talk) 12:33, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
"Armenian alphabet, script developed for the Armenian language in the 5th century ad and still in use. It was probably derived from the Pahlavi alphabet of Persia, with some Greek influences. According to local tradition, the Armenian alphabet was invented in 405 by Mesrop Mashtots, aided by Isaac (Sahak) the Great, supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, and by a Greek called Rufanos. Isaac founded a school of translators and had the Bible translated into Armenian in the new script. The oldest surviving documents in Armenian date from the 9th to 10th century ad." Source: Britannica
According to Britannica, alphabet was created in 5th century, but oldest surviving archaeological proof is found and is dated between 9-10th century. Britannica also says, that creation of Alphabet by Armenian scholar Mesrop Mashtots, is according to Armenian traditions. Article now says date of creation as 405-6 AD. We can write, that oldest surviving script is from 9-10th century AD, but we can also include Armenian traditional point of view on date. We must discuss to achieve consensus. -- Volksjäger162 ( talk) 13:17, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
406-407 AD according to Armenian traditional view, 9-10th century as of oldest script date. -- Volksjäger162 ( talk) 14:48, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: No consensus. EdJohnston ( talk) 01:37, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
Armenian alphabet →
Armenian script – This article is about more than just the alphabet, it covers the entire script. The alphabet is just one section of the article. Relisted.
BDD (
talk) 00:38, 20 December 2013 (UTC) —
kwami (
talk) 00:45, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
Actually, it has been used for other languages, such as Turkish, though I don't know if separate alphabets were established. I'm not arguing hard for a move. It makes sense to me, but I don't think it's a big deal either way, since we're not likely to have separate articles any time soon. — kwami ( talk) 03:17, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
Another "fringe pseudo" article for you, so-called Wikischolars
Read this. How can it be possible that they're so similar yet you say "it comes from Greek" NO IT DOES NOT EVEN LOOK SIMILAR, JUST THE LETTER ORDER IS SIMILAR (apart from the letter Eta). The Armenian alphabet at least may have a connection to the Ge'ez script. What, you hate to admit the alphabet may relate to South Arabian culture? -- Vitilsky ( talk) 03:05, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
Hi,
The full stop is called "verjaket" here. In Unicode it's called "vertsaket". For an example see http://www.unicode.org/charts/beta/nameslist/n_0530.html .
Is there a preferred name? -- Amir E. Aharoni ( talk) 11:38, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
The "History and development" section talks about "principal calligraphic hands" - Erkatagir, Bolorgir, Notrgir, and Sheghagir. A chart comparing the letter forms to the printed and written letter forms would be useful here. Are there any sources for such a chart? Alternative, does anyone have the resources to create such a chart? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.0.15.171 ( talk) 09:24, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
I see that Georgian butt-hurt wiki"scholars" have decided that not only will they lie on their own page, but also must do it on the Armenian alphabet page to be "consistent". Which one of you morons is it? I have not investigated this yet but I will find out later and expose you. For now I will just start this section to identify your VANDALISM. In particular I am talking about this passage: "most scholars link the creation of the Georgian script to the process of Christianization of Iberia, a core Georgian kingdom of Kartli. The alphabet was therefore most probably created between the conversion of Iberia under King Mirian III (326 or 337) and the Bir el Qutt inscriptions of 430,[8] contemporaneously with the Armenian alphabet." Seriously Morons? Firstly Georgian has NOTHING to do with the creation of the Armenian Alphabet, but the reverse is NOT true, the Georgian alphabet is derived from the Armenian. Why? Very simple: Georgian writing does not exist until AFTER Mashtots invented it. I suppose we should congratulate you butt-hurt Georgians for managing to come up with a "politically correct" form of saying "Mashtots the Armenian did not create the Georgian alphabet because this hurts our national pride". And who are these "most scholars" by the way? The unknown Hewitt writing about "Georgian alphabet" in the 21st century and Barbara A. West - SAYING NOTHING when stating "Georgian existed in fifth century" no duh. Is that supposed to be your "proof"? A bunch of ridiculous people. There used to be numerous sources, including non-Armenian ones which clearly stated that the Georgian alphabet was invented by Mashtots and therefore derived from Armenian. You can't deal with this and it is causing you depression? Tough luck. This information WILL be back here and you disruptive vandalism WILL be dealt with. Note: this same section is now going on the Georgian page as well. 2602:306:3077:A580:517E:F559:4B7D:6CFC ( talk) 23:30, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
In Note 1, below the alphabet table, there seems to be a lack of clarity on whether or not the note refers to something as applying to all three categories, or as only applying to one of the three categories, which are "used in classical orthography", "used word-initially", and "used in some compounds words". This led to some confusion for me when looking at the letter "յ". Looking at the pronunciation column of the letter "յ", you'll see two possible pronunciations in the "Eastern" part of the pronunciation column. The endnote next to /h/ there implies that it doesn't belong in the "Eastern" part, due to the note possibly making the "/h/" apply to "Only used in classical orthography."
If the true meaning is that all three categories apply, words should be added to the note.
If the true meaning is that only one or two of the categories apply, the note should be split into three notes.
I only hesitate to do any of this myself as I'm sincerely confused about the meaning.-- Ντόναλντ ( talk) 12:18, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Two places on this page (the big table Armenian_alphabet#Alphabet and the smaller table Armenian_alphabet#Transliteration), and one place on a different page ( Romanization_of_Armenian#Transliteration_tables) list the ISO 9985 transliteration of each Armenian letter. But these places don't agree. I noticed that these letters: (ղ ռ ր ո ու) do not have the same transliteration given in all three places, and there may be other such letters. Can someone verify what is actually correct according to ISO 9985? (To be clear, I am only talking about ISO 9985, not the other romanization systems.) Damangio ( talk) 04:59, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
There are exact same letters in both Armenian and Ethiopian alphabets but they have different pronunciations. How did it happen? LeticiaLL ( talk) 16:17, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
just wondering, how is Latin a sister language of Armenian? :0 2600:6C50:B00:6201:E90A:C775:33A1:77E2 ( talk) 07:46, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
The table states that Classical ր is /ɹ/, but what's a citation for that? Macak (2017, "The phonology of Classical Armenian", page 1042) states that it's /ɾ/ Hovsepig ( talk) 01:21, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
The Wiktionary page for Հ has the image below, which shows variations of Հ.
I think the present article page should mention that. Also, I have checked all the Wiktionary pages for the Armenian letters, and it’s the only one that shows glyph variations. Is it indeed the only letter which has variations? Some background would be interesting.
CielProfond ( talk) 18:06, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: no consensus. ( non-admin closure) Safari Scribe Edits! Talk! 14:32, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
Armenian alphabet → Armenian script – This article encompasses more than just the alphabet; it covers the entire script. The alphabet is merely one part of it. I noticed that a move was already requested. Previously, the main argument against this was that the Armenian script is used exclusively for the Armenian language. However, similar articles about native Caucasian scripts are titled Caucasian Albanian script and Georgian scripts, even though they are predominantly used for a single language as well. Moreover, the Armenian script has occasionally been used for other languages, as exemplified by the Armeno-Turkish alphabet and the relevant section in this article. Therefore, to ensure consistency, I propose the move. Aldij ( talk) 13:54, 8 May 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. ASUKITE 17:34, 16 May 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. BilledMammal ( talk) 22:30, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||
|
To-do list for Armenian alphabet:
|
On 8 May 2024, it was proposed that this article be moved to Armenian script. The result of the discussion was no consensus. |
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).
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)
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)
this page looks awful on 800x600 screens
"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)
Can we get an IPA column in the chart? -- YellowLeftHand 17:35, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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.
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)
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)
"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)
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.
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
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
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)
But ejectives are not typical for Eastern Armenian in general.
Kuddeldaddeldu (
talk) 14:23, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
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.
An anonymous user has added data on "Middle Armenian" to the Armenian alphabet. I propose removal of this section:
Go for it. kwami ( talk) 05:54, 6 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)
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)
No reason to think that Armenian and Georgian are sisters. kwami ( talk) 01:02, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
""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)
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)
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)
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 image used in this article,
File:Matenadaran Armenian alphabet.jpg, has been nominated for deletion at
Wikimedia Commons in the following category: Deletion requests February 2012
Don't panic; a discussion will now take place over on Commons about whether to remove the file. This gives you an opportunity to contest the deletion, although please review Commons guidelines before doing so.
To take part in any discussion, or to review a more detailed deletion rationale please visit the relevant image page (File:Matenadaran Armenian alphabet.jpg) This is Bot placed notification, another user has nominated/tagged the image -- CommonsNotificationBot ( talk) 18:52, 16 February 2012 (UTC) |
At the beginning, the article states that the Armenian alphabet was created in 405 or 406 AD. But in the "History and Development" section, we see "Armenian alphabet has been used as a foundation for the Greek alphabet", which is clearly incompatible with that date. It then goes on to say something incomprehensible about Greek borrowing words from Armenian, and the implication seems to be, rather absurdly, that the existence of borrowed words somehow means that the Greek alphabet must be based on the Armenian alphabet. Can someone who knows more about Armenian than I please clean up this silliness? 66.68.80.131 ( talk) 13:56, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
I write the Spanish language with the Armenian alphabet. -- 198.248.159.19 ( talk) 18:23, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
There are no evidences of Armenian writing influencing J.R.R Tolkien. Furthermore - the edit says 'Elvish alphabet'. There are actually three Elvish alphabets - so which one of them? None of those are described as being based on Armenian writings. While this statement sounds really odd to me, acknowledging Wikipedia rules, I demand its verification. -- Henry McClean ( talk) 21:07, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
The Armenian alphabet is related to Avestan, Pahlavi and GEEZ SCRIPT. It ONLY has one letter related to Greek. Who wrote this total rubbish? It is OBVIOUS it has nothing to do with Greek. I am adding Geez script and waiting for this to be fixed. -- Vitilsky ( talk) 01:22, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
I see some bitter back-and-forth between two editors here, so thought I'd give my two cents. After reading the latest comment and then looking at the article, I do see a problem with the article. There indeed seems to be a discrepancy between the "infoboxes", which confidently attribute the Abuben's graphic development to the Greek alphabet (though it is true without a source), and the actual article text, which currently seems more cautious and even-handed, when it says: "Various scripts have been credited with being a prototype for the Armenian alphabet. Pahlavi was the priestly script in Armenia before the introduction of Christianity, and Syriac, along with Greek, was one of the alphabets of Christian scripture. It has also been suggested that the Ge'ez script had an influence on certain letters of the alphabet.[5]" This version has the benefit of having a reference present, to the well-known Ethiopisant Richard Pankhurst, although I have not verified it and am accepting it says that on good faith. Since the text does not even state the Greek alphabet as a direct ancestor, and there is no citation, the solution seems to be to request a citation for the infobox claim of Greek and see what comes up. So for these reasons, I am adding a citation request to the infobox claim of Greek parentage. Til Eulenspiegel / talk/ 00:19, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
There is no Amharic script. The Amharic alphabet uses the Ethiopic script. Saying Armenian is based on Amharic would be like saying French is based on English, when by "English" you meant Latin. Amharic has letters that Ge'ez did not have, just as English has letters that Latin did not have. — kwami ( talk) 22:21, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
I find the Ethiopic origin claim an extreme afrocentric POV. The claim was first made by the africanist Dmitri Olderogge. In Olderogge's theory, Daniel, a Syriac bishop invents Armenian inspired by Ge'ez. Now all we know of Daniel comes from the Armenian legend of the invention of the alphabet, and that story says nothing of his knowledge of Ethiopic or why he would choose a script used by people living 3000km from his native Mesopotamia instead of his native Syriac. On the other hand Vrej Nersessian an actual expert on Armenian Alphabet mentions no such connection in his lengthy discussion on the origin of the alphabet. Another reference suggests that 20 letters from Mesrop's alphabet came from Greek, 4 from Syriac, and 12 were modelled after Greek.-- Kathovo talk 15:40, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
On Georgian alphabet article, people requested archeological proof when we brought source which said it was created in 3th century B.C. but as here is no archeological proof of it, its wrote that its made in Vth century as we have earliest script from this time. But on Armenian alphabet article, here is everything basing on one work and no archeological proof brought here it is made in 405 or 406 AD. I request for earliest Armenian script archeologically dated as 405-6 year, agreed by scholars internationally or I request to fix its date of creation to the earliest found script. -- Obitauri ( talk) 12:33, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
"Armenian alphabet, script developed for the Armenian language in the 5th century ad and still in use. It was probably derived from the Pahlavi alphabet of Persia, with some Greek influences. According to local tradition, the Armenian alphabet was invented in 405 by Mesrop Mashtots, aided by Isaac (Sahak) the Great, supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, and by a Greek called Rufanos. Isaac founded a school of translators and had the Bible translated into Armenian in the new script. The oldest surviving documents in Armenian date from the 9th to 10th century ad." Source: Britannica
According to Britannica, alphabet was created in 5th century, but oldest surviving archaeological proof is found and is dated between 9-10th century. Britannica also says, that creation of Alphabet by Armenian scholar Mesrop Mashtots, is according to Armenian traditions. Article now says date of creation as 405-6 AD. We can write, that oldest surviving script is from 9-10th century AD, but we can also include Armenian traditional point of view on date. We must discuss to achieve consensus. -- Volksjäger162 ( talk) 13:17, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
406-407 AD according to Armenian traditional view, 9-10th century as of oldest script date. -- Volksjäger162 ( talk) 14:48, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: No consensus. EdJohnston ( talk) 01:37, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
Armenian alphabet →
Armenian script – This article is about more than just the alphabet, it covers the entire script. The alphabet is just one section of the article. Relisted.
BDD (
talk) 00:38, 20 December 2013 (UTC) —
kwami (
talk) 00:45, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
Actually, it has been used for other languages, such as Turkish, though I don't know if separate alphabets were established. I'm not arguing hard for a move. It makes sense to me, but I don't think it's a big deal either way, since we're not likely to have separate articles any time soon. — kwami ( talk) 03:17, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
Another "fringe pseudo" article for you, so-called Wikischolars
Read this. How can it be possible that they're so similar yet you say "it comes from Greek" NO IT DOES NOT EVEN LOOK SIMILAR, JUST THE LETTER ORDER IS SIMILAR (apart from the letter Eta). The Armenian alphabet at least may have a connection to the Ge'ez script. What, you hate to admit the alphabet may relate to South Arabian culture? -- Vitilsky ( talk) 03:05, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
Hi,
The full stop is called "verjaket" here. In Unicode it's called "vertsaket". For an example see http://www.unicode.org/charts/beta/nameslist/n_0530.html .
Is there a preferred name? -- Amir E. Aharoni ( talk) 11:38, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
The "History and development" section talks about "principal calligraphic hands" - Erkatagir, Bolorgir, Notrgir, and Sheghagir. A chart comparing the letter forms to the printed and written letter forms would be useful here. Are there any sources for such a chart? Alternative, does anyone have the resources to create such a chart? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.0.15.171 ( talk) 09:24, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
I see that Georgian butt-hurt wiki"scholars" have decided that not only will they lie on their own page, but also must do it on the Armenian alphabet page to be "consistent". Which one of you morons is it? I have not investigated this yet but I will find out later and expose you. For now I will just start this section to identify your VANDALISM. In particular I am talking about this passage: "most scholars link the creation of the Georgian script to the process of Christianization of Iberia, a core Georgian kingdom of Kartli. The alphabet was therefore most probably created between the conversion of Iberia under King Mirian III (326 or 337) and the Bir el Qutt inscriptions of 430,[8] contemporaneously with the Armenian alphabet." Seriously Morons? Firstly Georgian has NOTHING to do with the creation of the Armenian Alphabet, but the reverse is NOT true, the Georgian alphabet is derived from the Armenian. Why? Very simple: Georgian writing does not exist until AFTER Mashtots invented it. I suppose we should congratulate you butt-hurt Georgians for managing to come up with a "politically correct" form of saying "Mashtots the Armenian did not create the Georgian alphabet because this hurts our national pride". And who are these "most scholars" by the way? The unknown Hewitt writing about "Georgian alphabet" in the 21st century and Barbara A. West - SAYING NOTHING when stating "Georgian existed in fifth century" no duh. Is that supposed to be your "proof"? A bunch of ridiculous people. There used to be numerous sources, including non-Armenian ones which clearly stated that the Georgian alphabet was invented by Mashtots and therefore derived from Armenian. You can't deal with this and it is causing you depression? Tough luck. This information WILL be back here and you disruptive vandalism WILL be dealt with. Note: this same section is now going on the Georgian page as well. 2602:306:3077:A580:517E:F559:4B7D:6CFC ( talk) 23:30, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
In Note 1, below the alphabet table, there seems to be a lack of clarity on whether or not the note refers to something as applying to all three categories, or as only applying to one of the three categories, which are "used in classical orthography", "used word-initially", and "used in some compounds words". This led to some confusion for me when looking at the letter "յ". Looking at the pronunciation column of the letter "յ", you'll see two possible pronunciations in the "Eastern" part of the pronunciation column. The endnote next to /h/ there implies that it doesn't belong in the "Eastern" part, due to the note possibly making the "/h/" apply to "Only used in classical orthography."
If the true meaning is that all three categories apply, words should be added to the note.
If the true meaning is that only one or two of the categories apply, the note should be split into three notes.
I only hesitate to do any of this myself as I'm sincerely confused about the meaning.-- Ντόναλντ ( talk) 12:18, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Two places on this page (the big table Armenian_alphabet#Alphabet and the smaller table Armenian_alphabet#Transliteration), and one place on a different page ( Romanization_of_Armenian#Transliteration_tables) list the ISO 9985 transliteration of each Armenian letter. But these places don't agree. I noticed that these letters: (ղ ռ ր ո ու) do not have the same transliteration given in all three places, and there may be other such letters. Can someone verify what is actually correct according to ISO 9985? (To be clear, I am only talking about ISO 9985, not the other romanization systems.) Damangio ( talk) 04:59, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
There are exact same letters in both Armenian and Ethiopian alphabets but they have different pronunciations. How did it happen? LeticiaLL ( talk) 16:17, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
just wondering, how is Latin a sister language of Armenian? :0 2600:6C50:B00:6201:E90A:C775:33A1:77E2 ( talk) 07:46, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
The table states that Classical ր is /ɹ/, but what's a citation for that? Macak (2017, "The phonology of Classical Armenian", page 1042) states that it's /ɾ/ Hovsepig ( talk) 01:21, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
The Wiktionary page for Հ has the image below, which shows variations of Հ.
I think the present article page should mention that. Also, I have checked all the Wiktionary pages for the Armenian letters, and it’s the only one that shows glyph variations. Is it indeed the only letter which has variations? Some background would be interesting.
CielProfond ( talk) 18:06, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: no consensus. ( non-admin closure) Safari Scribe Edits! Talk! 14:32, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
Armenian alphabet → Armenian script – This article encompasses more than just the alphabet; it covers the entire script. The alphabet is merely one part of it. I noticed that a move was already requested. Previously, the main argument against this was that the Armenian script is used exclusively for the Armenian language. However, similar articles about native Caucasian scripts are titled Caucasian Albanian script and Georgian scripts, even though they are predominantly used for a single language as well. Moreover, the Armenian script has occasionally been used for other languages, as exemplified by the Armeno-Turkish alphabet and the relevant section in this article. Therefore, to ensure consistency, I propose the move. Aldij ( talk) 13:54, 8 May 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. ASUKITE 17:34, 16 May 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. BilledMammal ( talk) 22:30, 23 May 2024 (UTC)