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Armenian has its own unique script, the ], invented in 405–406 AD by the ancient linguist and cleric ]. Armenian has its own unique script, the ], invented in 405–406 AD by the ancient linguist and cleric ].


Linguists classify Armenian as an independent branch of the ].<ref></ref> Armenian shares a number of major innovations with ],<ref>{{cite web|title=The Armenian Language|url=http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/language/about/armenian.html}}</ref> and some linguists group these two languages together with the ]<ref>''Handbook of Formal Languages'' (1997) .</ref><ref></ref> family into a higher-level subgroup of Indo-European, which is defined by such ] as the ]. Armenia was a monolingual country no later than by the second century BC.<ref>Strabo, Geographica, XI, 14, 5; Հայոց լեզվի համառոտ պատմություն, Ս. Ղ. Ղազարյան։ Երևան, 1981, էջ 33 (Concise History of Armenian Language, S. Gh. Ghazaryan. Yerevan, 1981, p. 33).</ref> Linguists classify Armenian as an independent branch of the ].<ref></ref> Armenian shares a number of major innovations with ],<ref>{{cite web|title=The Armenian Language|url=http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/language/about/armenian.html}}</ref> and some linguists group these two languages together with ]{{citation needed|date=April 2014}} and the ]<ref>''Handbook of Formal Languages'' (1997) .</ref><ref></ref> family into a higher-level subgroup of Indo-European, which is defined by such ] as the ]. More recently, others have proposed a ] grouping including Greek, Armenian, Phrygian, and ].<ref>''Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction'', Benjamin W. Fortson, John Wiley and Sons, 2009, p383.</ref><ref>Hans J. Holm (2011): “Swadesh lists” of Albanian Revisited and Consequences for its position in the Indo-European Languages. The Journal of Indo-European Studies, Volume 39, Number 1&2.</ref>

Armenia was a monolingual country no later than by the second century BC.<ref>Strabo, Geographica, XI, 14, 5; Հայոց լեզվի համառոտ պատմություն, Ս. Ղ. Ղազարյան։ Երևան, 1981, էջ 33 (Concise History of Armenian Language, S. Gh. Ghazaryan. Yerevan, 1981, p. 33).</ref> Its language has long literary history, with a fifth-century Bible translation as its oldest surviving text. Its vocabulary has been heavily influenced by ], particularly ], and to a lesser extent by Greek, ], ], ], ], ], and other languages throughout its history. There are two standardized modern literary forms, ] and ], with which most contemporary dialects are ]. The divergent and almost extinct ] is a ]-influenced dialect with an Armenian grammar and a largely Romani-derived vocabulary, including Romani numbers.


==Classification and origins== ==Classification and origins==

Revision as of 09:22, 11 May 2014

Armenian
Հայերեն Hayeren
Pronunciation[hɑjɛˈɾɛn]
Native toArmenia and in the Armenian diaspora
Native speakersc. 6 million (2001)
Language familyIndo-European
  • Armenian
Early formsProto-Armenian (reconstructed)
Dialects
Writing systemArmenian alphabet
Armenian Braille
Official status
Official language inArmenia; Nagorno-Karabakh Republic
Recognised minority
language in
Cyprus; Hungary; Poland; Romania
Regulated byArmenian National Academy of Sciences
Language codes
ISO 639-1hy
ISO 639-2arm (B)
hye (T)
ISO 639-3Variously:
hye – Modern Armenian
xcl – Classical Armenian
axm – Middle Armenian
Glottologarme1241
Linguasphere57-AAA-a
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

The Armenian language (հայերեն [hɑjɛˈɾɛn] hayeren) is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenians. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia and the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. It has historically been spoken throughout the Armenian Highlands and today is widely spoken in the Armenian diaspora. It is of interest to linguists for its distinctive phonological developments within the Indo-European family of languages.

Armenian has its own unique script, the Armenian alphabet, invented in 405–406 AD by the ancient linguist and cleric Mesrop Mashtots.

Linguists classify Armenian as an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. Armenian shares a number of major innovations with Greek, and some linguists group these two languages together with Phrygian and the Indo-Iranian family into a higher-level subgroup of Indo-European, which is defined by such shared innovations as the augment. More recently, others have proposed a Balkan grouping including Greek, Armenian, Phrygian, and Albanian.

Armenia was a monolingual country no later than by the second century BC. Its language has long literary history, with a fifth-century Bible translation as its oldest surviving text. Its vocabulary has been heavily influenced by Western Middle Iranian languages, particularly Parthian, and to a lesser extent by Greek, Latin, Old French, Persian, Arabic, Turkish, and other languages throughout its history. There are two standardized modern literary forms, Eastern Armenian and Western Armenian, with which most contemporary dialects are mutually intelligible. The divergent and almost extinct Lomavren language is a Romani-influenced dialect with an Armenian grammar and a largely Romani-derived vocabulary, including Romani numbers.

Classification and origins

Main article: Proto-Armenian language See also: Armenian hypothesis
History of the Armenian language
Armenian alphabet
Romanization of Armenian
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While the Armenians were known to history much earlier (for example, they were mentioned in the 6th century BC Behistun Inscription and Xenophon's 4th century BC history, The Anabasis), the oldest surviving Armenian language text is the 5th century AD Bible translation of Mesrob Mashtots. Mesrob Mashtots created the Armenian alphabet in 405 AD, at which time it had 36 letters. He is also credited by some with the creation of the Georgian alphabet.

Early contacts

The large percentage of loans from Iranian languages initially led linguists to erroneously 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 older Armenian vocabulary.

W. M. Austin (1942) concluded 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 and the absence of inherited long vowels. However, unlike shared innovations (or synapomorphies), the common retention of archaisms (or symplesiomorphy) is not necessarily considered evidence of a period of common isolated development.

Soviet linguist Igor Diakonov (1985) noted the presence in Old Armenian of what he calls a Caucasian substratum, identified by earlier scholars, consisting of loans from the Kartvelian and Northeast Caucasian languages such as Udi. Noting that the Hurro-Urartian peoples inhabited the Armenian homeland in the second millennium b.c., Diakonov identifies in Armenian a Hurro-Urartian substratum of social, cultural, and animal and plant terms such as ałaxin "slave girl" ( ← Hurr. al(l)a(e)ḫḫenne), cov "sea" ( ← Urart. ṣûǝ "(inland) sea"), ułt "camel" ( ← Hurr. uḷtu), and xnjor "apple(tree)" ( ← Hurr. ḫinzuri). Some of the terms he gives admittedly have an Akkadian or Sumerian provenance, but he suggests they were borrowed through Hurrian or Urartian. Given that these borrowings do not undergo sound changes characteristic of the development of Armenian from Proto-Indo-European, he dates their borrowing to a time before the written record but after the Proto-Armenian language stage.

Graeco-Armenian hypothesis

Main article: Graeco-Armenian hypothesis

The hypothesis that Greek is Armenian's closest living relative originates with Pedersen (1924), who noted that the number of Greek-Armenian lexical cognates is greater than that of agreements between Armenian and any other Indo-European language. Meillet (1925, 1927) further investigated morphological and phonological agreement, postulating that the parent languages of Greek and Armenian were dialects in immediate geographical proximity in the parent language. Meillet's hypothesis became popular in the wake of his Esquisse (1936). Solta (1960) does not go as far as postulating a Proto-Graeco-Armenian stage, but he concludes that considering both the lexicon and morphology, Greek is clearly the dialect most closely related to Armenian. Hamp (1976, 91) supports the Graeco-Armenian thesis, anticipating even a time "when we should speak of Helleno-Armenian" (meaning the postulate of a Graeco-Armenian proto-language). Armenian shares the augment, a negator derived from the set phrase PIE *ne hoiu kwid ("not ever at all"), the representation of word-initial laryngeals by prothetic vowels, and other phonological and morphological peculiarities with Greek. The closeness of the relationship between Armenian and Greek sheds light on the paraphyletic nature of the Centum-Satem isogloss. Nevertheless, linguists, including Fortson (2004), comment "by the time we reach our earliest Armenian records in the 5th century AD, the evidence of any such early kinship has been reduced to a few tantalizing pieces."

Evolution

Armenian manuscript, 5th–6th century.

Early in the fifth century, Classical Armenian, or Grabar, was one of the great languages of the Near East and Asia Minor. Although an autonomous branch within the Indo-European family of languages, it had some affinities to Middle Iranian, Greek and the Balto-Slavic languages but belonged to none of them. It was characterized by a system of inflection unlike the other languages, as well as a flexible and liberal use of combining root words to create derivative and compound words by the application of certain agglutinative affixes.

The classical 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 Armenian is particularly difficult because Armenian borrowed many words from Parthian and Persian (both Iranian languages) as well as from Greek.

In the period that followed the invention of the alphabet and up to the threshold of the modern era, Grabar (Classical Armenian) lived on. An effort to modernize the language in Greater Armenia and the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia (11–14th centuries) resulted in the addition of two more characters to the alphabet, bringing the total number to 38.

The Book of Lamentations by Gregory of Narek (951–1003) is an example of the development of a literature and writing style in Middle Armenian. In addition to elevating the literary style of the Armenian language, Gregory of Nareg paved the way for his successors to include secular themes in their writings. The thematic shift from mainly religious texts to writings with secular outlooks further enhanced and enriched the vocabulary. “A Word of Wisdom”, a poem by Hovhannes Sargavak devoted to a starling, legitimizes poetry devoted to nature, love, or female beauty. Gradually, the interests of the population at large were reflected in other literary works as well. Konsdantin Yerzinkatsi and several others even take the unusual step of criticizing the ecclesiastic establishment and addressing the social issues of the Armenian homeland. Not surprisingly, these changes altered the nature of the literary style and syntax, but they did not constitute radical changes to the fundamentals of the grammar or the morphology of the language.

The Treaty of Turkmenchay of 1828 once again divided the traditional Armenian homeland. This time, two thirds of historical Armenia fell under Ottoman control, while the remaining territories were divided between the Russian and Persian empires. The antagonistic relationship between the Russian and Ottoman Empires led to creation of two separate and different environments under which Armenians lived and suffered. Halfway through the 19th century, two important concentrations of Armenian communities were constituted.

Because of persecutions or the search for better economic opportunities, many Armenians living under Ottoman rule gradually moved to Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, while Tiflis (Tbilisi) in Georgia became the center of Armenians living under Russian rule. These two cosmopolitan cities very soon became the primary poles of Armenian intellectual and cultural life.

The introduction of new literary forms and styles, as well as many new ideas sweeping Europe, reached Armenians living in both regions. This created an ever-growing need to elevate the vernacular, Ašxarhabar, to the dignity of a modern literary language, in contrast to the now-anachronistic Grabar. Numerous dialects developed in the traditional Armenian regions, which, different as they were, had certain morphological and phonetic features in common. On the basis of these features two major variants emerged:

  • Western variant: The influx of immigrants from different parts of the traditional Armenian homeland to Constantinople crystallized the common elements of the regional dialects, paving the way to a style of writing that required a shorter and more flexible learning curve than Grabar.
  • Eastern variant: The dialect of the Ararat plateau provided the primary elements of Eastern Armenian, centered in Tiflis (Tbilisi, Georgia). Similar to the Western Armenian variant, the Modern Eastern was in many ways more practical and accessible to the masses than Grabar.

Both centers vigorously pursued the promotion of Ašxarhabar. The proliferation of newspapers in both versions (Eastern & Western) and the development of a network of schools where modern Armenian was taught, dramatically increased the rate of literacy (in spite of the obstacles by the colonial administrators), even in remote rural areas. The emergence of literary works entirely written in the modern versions increasingly legitimized the language’s existence. By the turn of the 20th century both varieties of the one modern Armenian language prevailed over Grabar and opened the path to a new and simplified grammatical structure of the language in the two different cultural spheres. Apart from minor morphological, phonetic, and grammatical differences, the largely common vocabulary and identical rules of grammatical fundamentals allows users of one variant to understand the other easily.

After the First World War, the existence of the two modern versions of the same language was sanctioned even more clearly. The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (1920–1990) used Eastern Armenian as its official language, while the Diaspora created after the Genocide of 1915 carried with it the only thing survivors still possessed: their native language, Western Armenian.

Modern changes

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

Proto-Indo-European voiceless occlusives are aspirated in Proto-Armenian, one of the circumstances that is often linked to the Glottalic theory, part of which postulated that the voiceless occlusives of Proto-Indo-European were aspirated.

Stress

In Armenian the stress falls on the last syllable unless the last syllable contains , in which case it falls on the penultimate one. For instance, , , but and . Exceptions to this rule are some words with the final letter է (ե in the reformed orthography) (մի՛թէ, մի՛գուցե, ո՛րեւէ) and sometimes the ordinal numerals (վե՛ցերորդ, տա՛սներորդ, etc.).

Vowels

Part of a series on
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Armenian: Eastern (Zok) • Western (Homshetsi)
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Persecution

Modern Armenian has six monophthongs. Each vowel phoneme in the table is represented by three symbols. The first indicates the phoneme's pronunciation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). After that appears the corresponding letter of the Armenian alphabet. The last symbol is its Latin transliteration (according to ISO 9985).

Armenian vowel phonemes
Front Central Back
Close i
ի
i
u
ու
u
Mid ɛ
ե, է
e, ē
ə
ը
ë
ɔ
ո, օ
o, ò
Open     ɑ
ա
a

Consonants

The following table lists the Eastern Armenian consonantal system. The occlusives and affricates have a special aspirated series (transcribed with an apostrophe after the letter): p’, t’, c’, k’ (but č). Each phoneme in the table is represented by three symbols. The first indicates the phoneme's pronunciation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), after that appears the corresponding letter of the Armenian alphabet, and the last symbol is its Latin transliteration (according to ISO 9985).

Eastern Armenian consonant phonemes
Labials Dental/
Alveolar
Post-
Alveolar
Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal
Nasal /m/ մ – m /n/ ն – n
Stop voiceless /p/ պ – p /t/ տ – t /k/ կ – k
voiced /b/ բ – b /d/ դ – d /ɡ/ գ – g
aspirated /pʰ/ փ – p’ /tʰ/ թ – t’ /kʰ/ ք – k’
Affricate voiceless /t͡s/ ծ – ç /t͡ʃ/ ճ – č̣
voiced /d͡z/ ձ – j /d͡ʒ/ ջ – ǰ
aspirated /t͡sʰ/ ց – c’ /t͡ʃʰ/ չ – č
Fricative voiceless /f/ ֆ – f /s/ ս – s /ʃ/ շ – š /x ~ χ/ խ – x /h/ հ – h
voiced /v/ վ – v /z/ զ – z /ʒ/ ժ – ž /ɣ ~ ʁ/ ղ – ġ
Approximant /l/ լ – l /j/ յ – y
Trill /r/ ռ – ṙ
Tap /ɾ/ ր – r
  1. Sources differ on the place of articulation of these consonants.

The major phonetic difference between dialects is in the reflexes of Classical Armenian voice-onset time. The seven dialect types have the following correspondences, illustrated with the t/d series:

Correspondence in initial position
Indo-European *d *dʰ *t
Sebastia d
Erevan t
Istanbul d d
Kharpert, Middle Armenian d t
Malatya, SWA d
Classical Armenian, Agulis, SEA t d
Van, Artsakh t t

The consonants transcribed ⟨dʱ⟩ are breathy voiced.

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 agglutinative, one of only two Indo-European languages with this characteristic, the other one being Persian. 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. With time the Armenian language made a transition from a synthetic language (Old Armenian or Grabar) to a typical analytic language (Modern Armenian) with Middle Armenian as a midpoint in this transition.

Noun

Classical Armenian has no grammatical gender, not even in the pronoun, but there is a feminine suffix (-ուհի "-uhi"). For example, ուսուցիչ (usuts'ich, "teacher") becomes ուսուցչուհի (usuts'chuhi, female teacher). This suffix, however, does not have a grammatical effect on the sentence. The nominal inflection, however, preserves several types of inherited stem classes. Nouns are declined for one of seven cases: nominative, accusative, locative, genitive, dative, ablative, or instrumental.

Verb

Main article: Armenian verbs

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

Map of the Armenian dialects in early 20th century:   -owm dialects, corresponding to Eastern Armenian.   -el dialects.   -gë dialects, corresponding to Western Armenian.

Armenian is a pluricentric language, having two modern standardized forms: Eastern Armenian and Western Armenian. 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 a tenuis occlusive, sounding somewhere between the two as in "stop." Western Armenian has simplified the occlusive system into a simple division between voiced occlusives and aspirated ones; the first series corresponds to the tenuis series of Eastern Armenian, and the second corresponds to the Eastern voiced and aspirated series. Thus, the Western dialect pronounces both (թ) and (դ) as 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.

Armenian can be divided into two major dialectal blocks and those blocks into individual dialects, though many of the Western Armenian dialects have become extinct due to the effects of the Armenian Genocide. In addition, neither dialect is completely homogeneous: any dialect can be subdivided into several subdialects. Although Western and Eastern Armenian are often described as different dialects of the same language, some subdialects are not readily mutually intelligible. Nevertheless, a fluent speaker of one of two greatly varying dialects who is exposed to the other dialect for even a short period of time will be able to understand the other with relative ease.

Examples
English Eastern Armenian Western Armenian
Yes Ayo (այո) Ayo (այո)
No Voč' (ոչ) Voč' (ոչ)
Excuse me Neroġout'ioun (ներողություն) Neroġout'ioun (ներողութիւն)
Hello Barev (բարև) Parev (բարև)
How are you (formal) Vonts' ek (ո՞նց եք) Inč'bes ek (ինչպէ՞ս էք)
How are you (informal) Inč' ka č'ka (ի՞նչ կա չկա) Inč' ga č'ga (ի՞նչ կայ չկայ)
Please Khntrem (խնդրեմ) Khntrem (խնդրեմ), Hadjiss (հաճիս)
Thank you Šnorhakal em (շնորհակալ եմ) Šnorhagal em (շնորհակալ եմ)
Thank you very much Šat šnorhakal em (շատ շնորհակալ եմ) Šad šnorhagal em (շատ շնորհակալ եմ)
Welcome (to a place) Bari galoust (բարի գալուստ) singular: Pari yegar (բարի եկար)
plural or polite: Pari yegak' (բարի եկաք)
Welcome (as a response to 'thank you') Khntrem (խնդրեմ) Khntrem (խնդրեմ)
Goodbye C'tesout'ioun (ցտեսություն) C'desout'ioun (ցտեսութիւն)
Good morning Bari louys (բարի լույս) Pari louys (բարի լոյս)
Good afternoon Bari òr (բարի օր) Pari ges òr (բարի կէս օր)
Good evening Bari yereko (բարի երեկո) Pari irigoun (բարի իրիկուն)
Good night Bari gišer (բարի գիշեր) Kišer pari (գիշեր բարի)
I love you Yes k'ez siroum em (ես քեզ սիրում եմ) Yes ëzk'ez gë sirem (ես զքեզ կը սիրեմ)
I am Armenian Yes hay em (ես հայ եմ) Yes hay em (ես հայ եմ)
I miss you Yes k'ez karotum em (ես քեզ կարոտում եմ) Yes k'ezi garodtzadz em (ես քեզի կարօտցած եմ)

Other distinct dialects include the Homshetsi language of the Hemshin people and Lomavren language of the Bosha people, both of which are categorized as belonging to the Armenian language family.

Writing system

Main articles: Armenian alphabet and Armenian braille

Indo-European cognates

Armenian is an Indo-European language, 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.)

Armenian English Latin Persian Classical and Hellenistic Greek Sanskrit Russian PIE
mayr "mother" mother ( ← OE mōdor) māter "mother" mādar "mother" mētēr "mother" mātṛ "mother" mat' *máH₂ter- "mother"
hayr "father" father ( ← OE fæder) pater "father" pedar "father" patēr "father" pitṛ "father" *pH₂tér- "father"
eġbayr "brother" brother ( ← OE brōþor) frāter "brother" barādaṛ "brother" phrātēr "brother" bhrātṛ "brother" brat *bʱráH₂ter- "brother"
dustr "daughter" daughter ( ← OE dohtor) Latin cognate lost doxtar "daughter" thugatēr "daughter" duhitṛ "daughter" doč' *dʱugH₂-tér- "daughter"
kin "woman" queen ( ← OE cwēn "queen, woman, wife") cognate is unknown Old Persian kiana "woman, wife" gunē "a woman, a wife" gnā/jani "woman" žena "wife" *gʷén-eH₂- "woman, wife"
im "my" my, mine ( ← OE min) mei "my" man/am "my" emeo "my, of mine" mama "my" moy *mene- "my, mine"
anun "name" name ( ← OE nama) nōmen "name" nām "name" onoma "name" nāman "name" im'a *H₁noH₃m-n̥- "name"
utʿ "8" eight ( ← OE eahta) octō "eight" (h)aşt "eight" oktō "eight" aṣṭa "eight" vosem' *H₁oḱtō(u) "eight"
inn "9" nine ( ← OE nigon) novem "nine" noh "nine" ennea "nine" nava "nine" dev'at' *(H₁)néwn̥ "nine"
tas "10" ten ( ← OE tien) ( ← P.Gmc. *tekhan) decem "ten" dah "ten" deka "ten" daśa "ten" des'at' *déḱm̥ "ten"
ačʿkʿ "eye" eye ( ← OE ēge) oculus "eye" čaşm "eye" ophthalmos "eye" akṣan "eye" oko *H₃okʷ- "to see"
armunk "elbow" arm ( ← OE earm "joined body parts below shoulder") armus "shoulder" arenj "elbow" arthron "a joint" īrma "arm" ramo "shoulder" (archaic) *H₁ar-mo- "fit, join (that which is fitted together)"
cunk "knee" knee ( ← OE cnēo) genū, "knee" zānu "knee" gonu "knee" jānu "knee" knitsa "bracket" *ǵénu- "knee"
otkʿ "foot" foot ( ← OE fōt) pedis "foot" "foot" podi "foot" pāda "foot" p'ata "heel" *pod-, *ped- "foot"
sirt "heart" heart ( ← OE heorte) cor "heart" del "heart" kardia "heart" hṛdaya "heart" serdtse *ḱerd- "heart"
kaši "skin" hide ( ← OE hȳdan "animal skin cover") cutis "skin" pust "skin" keuthō "I cover, I hide" kuṭīra "hut" *keu- "to cover, conceal"
muk "mouse" mouse ( ← OE mūs) mūs "mouse" muş "mouse" mus "mouse" mūṣ "mouse" myš' *muH₁s- "mouse, small rodent"
kov "cow" cow ( ← OE ) bos "cattle", bum "cow" gāv "cow" bous "cow" gauḥ "cow" gov'adina "beef" *gʷou- "cow"
šun "dog" hound ( ← OE hund "hound, dog") canis "hound, dog" (canine) sag "dog" kuōn "hound, dog" śvan "dog" suka "bitch" *ḱwon- "hound, dog"
tari "year" year ( ← OE gēar) hōrnus "of this year" yare "year" hōra "time, year" yare "year" jara "springtime" (archaic) *yeH₁r- "year"
amis "month" moon, month ( ← OE mōnaþ) mēnsis "month" māh "moon, month" mēn "moon, month" māsa "moon, month" mes'ats *meH₁ns- "moon, month"
amaṙ "summer" summer ( ← OE sumor) samā "season" *sem- "hot season of the year"
ǰerm "warm" warm ( ← OE wearm) formus "warm" garm "warm" thermos "warm" gharma "heat" žarko "hot" *gʷʰerm- "warm"
luys "light" light ( ← OE lēoht "brightness") lucere, lux, lucidus "to shine, light, clear" ruz "day" leukos "bright, shining, white" roca "shining" luč' "beam" *leuk- "light, brightness"
hur "flame" fire ( ← OE fȳr) pir "fire" azer "fire" pur "fire" pu "fire" *péH₂wr̥- "fire"
heṙu "far" far ( ← OE feor "to a great distance") per "through" farā "beyond" pera "beyond" paras "beyond" pere-, pro- *per- "through, across, beyond"
heġel "to pour" flow ( ← OE flōwan) pluĕre "to rain" pur "pour" plenō "I wash" plu "to swim" plavat' "swim" *pleu- "flow, float"
utel "to eat" eat ( ← OE etan) edō "I eat", edulis "edible" xur "eat" edō "I eat" admi "I eat" jest' *ed- "to eat"
gitem "I know" wit ( ← OE wit, witan "intelligence, to know") vidēre "to see" Old Persian vida "knowledge" eidenai "to know" vid "to know" videt' "see" *weid- "to know, to see"
get "river" water ( ← OE wæter) utur "water" rōd "river" hudōr "water" udan "water" voda (*wodor, *wedor, *uder-) from *wed- "water"
gorc "work " work ( ← OE weorc) urgēre "push, drive" kār "work" ergon "work" varcas "activity" *werǵ- "to work"
mec "great " much ( ← OE mycel "great, big, many") magnus "great" mega "great, large" megas "great, large" mahant "great" mnogo "many" *meǵ- "great"
ancanotʿ "stranger, unfamiliar" unknown ( ← OE uncnawen) ignōtus, ignōrāntem "unknown, ignorant" ajnabi "stranger, unfamiliar" agnōstos "unknown" ajñāta "unfamiliar" neznakomyj *n- + *ǵneH₃- "not" + "to know"
meṙac "to die" murder ( ← OE morþor) mors "death", mortalis "mortal" marg "death" / morde "dead" ambrotos "immortal" mṛta "dead" mertvyj *mrtro-, from (*mor-, *mr-) "to die"
miǰin "middle" mid, middle ( ← OE mid, middel) medius "middle" meyān "middle" mesos "middle" madhya "middle" meždu "between" *medʱyo- from *me- "mid, middle"
ayl "other" else ( ← OE elles "other, otherwise, different") alius, alienus "other, another" allos "other, another" anya "other" *al- "beyond, other"
nor "new" new ( ← OE nīwe) novus "new" now "new" neos "new" nava "new" novyj *néwo- "new"
duṙ "door" door ( ← OE dor, duru) fores "door" dar "door" thura "door" dvār "door" dver' *dʱwer- "door, doorway, gate"
tun "house" timber ( ← OE timber "trees used for building material, structure") domus "house" khune "home" domos "house" dama "house" dom *domo-, *domu- "house"
berri, berel "fertile, to carry" bear ( ← OE beran "give birth, carry") ferre, fertilis "to bear, fertile" bordan, bar- "to bear, carry" pherein "to carry" bharati "he/she/it carries" brat' "to take" *bʱer- "to bear, to carry"

See also

Footnotes

  1. Modern Armenian at Ethnologue (17th ed., 2013) Closed access icon
    Classical Armenian at Ethnologue (17th ed., 2013) Closed access icon
    Middle Armenian at Ethnologue (17th ed., 2013) Closed access icon
  2. Armenian language – Britannica Online Encyclopedia
  3. "The Armenian Language".
  4. Handbook of Formal Languages (1997) p. 6.
  5. Indo-European tree with Armeno-Aryan, exclusion of Greek
  6. Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction, Benjamin W. Fortson, John Wiley and Sons, 2009, p383.
  7. Hans J. Holm (2011): “Swadesh lists” of Albanian Revisited and Consequences for its position in the Indo-European Languages. The Journal of Indo-European Studies, Volume 39, Number 1&2.
  8. Strabo, Geographica, XI, 14, 5; Հայոց լեզվի համառոտ պատմություն, Ս. Ղ. Ղազարյան։ Երևան, 1981, էջ 33 (Concise History of Armenian Language, S. Gh. Ghazaryan. Yerevan, 1981, p. 33).
  9. "Armenia as Xenophon Saw It", p. 47, A History of Armenia. Vahan Kurkjian, 2008
  10. "A Reader in Nineteenth Century Historical Indo-European Linguistics: On the Position of Armenian in the Sphere of the Indo-European Languages". Utexas.edu. 2007-03-20. Retrieved 2012-12-18.
  11. Austin, William M. (January–March 1942). "Is Armenian an Anatolian Language?". Language. 18 (1). Linguistic Society of America: 22–25. doi:10.2307/409074. JSTOR 409074.
  12. Igor Mikhailovich Diakonov, "Hurro-Urartian Borrowings in Old Armenian", Journal of the American Oriental Society 105.4 (1985) text
  13. James Clackson, Indo-European Linguistics, An Introduction (2007, Cambridge)
    Robert S.P. Beekes, Comparative Indo-European Linguistics, An Introduction (1995, John Benjamins)
    Oswald J.L. Szemerényi, Introduction to Indo-European Linguistics (1996, Oxford)
  14. Dum-Tragut (2009:13)
  15. Dum-Tragut (2009:17–20)
  16. Price (1998)
  17. (Armenian is the only indoeuropean language which is agglutinative)
  18. "Online Etymology Dictionary". etymonline.com. Archived from the original on 13 June 2007. Retrieved 2007-06-07. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  19. However, an Italic sister language called Oscan preserved the form "futrei" (daughter).
  20. ^ The letter ⟨c⟩ represents /ts/. In the Armenian words cunk, gorc, mec, and ancanotʿ, it corresponds to the PIE *ǵ-.
  21. ^ The words "bum" (cow), "pir" (fire) and "utur" (water) in the Latin column are actually from an Italic sister language called Umbrian.
  22. ^ The word "yare" (year) in the Persian and Sanskrit columns is actually from an Indo-Iranian sister language called Avestan.
  23. ^ The prefixes for "not" in Latin are "in-" and "i-", and "an-" and "a-" in Greek and Sanskrit, which correspond to the PIE *n-.

References

Further reading

  • Adjarian, Herchyah H. (1909) Classification des dialectes arméniens, par H. Adjarian. Paris: Honoro Champion.
  • Clackson, James. 1994. The Linguistic Relationship Between Armenian and Greek. London: Publications of the Philological Society, No 30. (and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing)
  • Holst, Jan Henrik (2009) Armenische Studien. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
  • 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.
  • Vaux, Bert. 2002. "The Armenian dialect of Jerusalem." in Armenians in the Holy Land. "Louvain: Peters.

External links

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