Western Armenian (Classical spelling: ??????????????, arevmdahayerên) is one of the two standardized forms of Modern Armenian, the other being Eastern Armenian. Until the early 20th century, various Western Armenian dialects were spoken in the Ottoman Empire, especially in the eastern regions historically populated by Armenians known as Western Armenia. Following the extermination of the Armenian population during the Armenian Genocide of 1915 Standard (literary) Western Armenian is now spoken, almost exclusively, in the Armenian diaspora communities around the world, while the spoken or dialectal varieties of Western Armenian currently in use include Homshetsi, spoken by the Hemshin people; the dialects of Armenians of Kessab (?????? ??????), Latakia and Jisr al-Shughur (Syria), Anjar, Lebanon, and Vak?fl?, Samanda? (Turkey), part of the "Sueidia" dialect (????????? ??????).
Forms of the Karin dialect of Western Armenian are spoken by several hundred thousand people in Northern Armenia, mostly in Gyumri, Artik, Akhuryan, and around 130 villages in the Shirak province, and by Armenians in Samtskhe-Javakheti province of Georgia (Akhalkalaki, Akhaltsikhe).
Nakhichevan-on-Don Armenians speak another Western Armenian variety based on the dialect of Armenians in Crimea, where they came from in order to establish the town and surrounding villages in 1779 (??? ?????????? ??????).
Western Armenian dialects are currently spoken also in Gavar (formerly Nor Bayazet and Kamo, on the west of Lake Sevan), Aparan, and Talin in Armenia (Mush dialect), and by the large Armenian population residing in Abkhazia, where they are considered to be the first or second ethnic minority, or even equal in number to the local Abkhaz population
As mostly a diasporic language, and as a language that is not an official language of any state, Western Armenian faces extinction as its native speakers lose fluency in Western Armenian amid pressures to assimilate into their host countries. Estimates place the number of fluent speakers of Western Armenian outside Armenia and Georgia at less than one million.
Video Western Armenian
Distinguishing forms of Armenian
Eastern Armenian and Western Armenian are, for the most part, mutually intelligible for educated or literate users of the other, while illiterate or semi literate users of lower registers of each one may have difficulty understanding the other variant. An example of differences in phonology, the "b's" in Eastern Armenian are "p's" in Western Armenian, similarly with "g's" in Eastern Armenian that are pronounced "k's" in Western Armenian.
Maps Western Armenian
Speakers
Western Armenian is an Indo-European language spoken by part of the population of Armenia in dialectal forms, Armenians of Abkhazia, most Armenians in Georgia, and the Armenian diaspora, mainly in North America and South America, Europe, Australia, most of the Middle East except for Iran, and Rostov-on-Don in Russia. It is spoken by only a small percentage of Armenians in Turkey as a first language, with 18 percent among the community in general and 8 percent among younger people. Western Armenian was at one point the dominant Armenian variety. After the genocide, Western Armenia was wiped clean of Western Armenians. Those who fled to Eastern Armenia today speak either Eastern Armenian, or have a diglossic situation between Western Armenian dialects in informal usage and an Eastern Armenian standard. The only Western Armenian dialect still spoken in Western Armenia is the Homshetsi dialect, as the people who speak it did not fall victim to the Armenian Genocide due to being Muslim.
On 21 February 2009 International Mother Language Day has been marked with the publication of a new edition of the Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger by UNESCO where the Western Armenian language in Turkey is defined as a definitely endangered language.
Phonology
Vowels
Monophthongs
Western Armenian has eight monophthong vowel sounds.
Monophthongs examples
Diphthongs
The Western Armenian language has nine diphthong sounds.
Consonants
This is the Western Armenian Consonantal System using letters from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), followed by the corresponding Armenian letter in brackets.
Differences in phonology from Classical Armenian
The differences in phonology between Western Armenian and Classical Armenian phonology include the distinction of stops and affricates.
First, while Classical Armenian has a three-way distinction of stops and affricates: one voiced and two voiceless -- a plain version and an aspirated one -- Western Armenian has kept only a two-way distinction -- one voiced and one aspirated. For example, Classical has three bilabial stops: /b/ ???, /p/ ???, and /p?/ ???; Western Armenian, two bilabial stops: /b/ ??? and /p?/ ???/???.
Second, Western Armenian has shifted the Classical Armenian voiced stops and voiced affricates into aspirated stops and aspirated affricates, and replaced the plain stops and plain affricates with voiced ones.
Specifically, the following are the changes from Classical Armenian to Western Armenian:
- Bilabial stops:
- merging of Classical Armenian /b/ ??? and /p?/ ??? as /p?/
- voicing of Classical /p/ ??? to /b/
- Alveolar stops:
- merging of Classical Armenian /d/ ??? and /t?/ ??? as /t?/
- voicing of Classical /t/ ??? to /d/
- Velar stops:
- merging of Classical Armenian /?/ ??? and /k?/ ??? as /k?/
- voicing of Classical /k/ ??? to /?/
- Alveolar affricates:
- merging of Classical Armenian /dz/ ??? and /ts?/ ??? as /ts?/
- voicing of Classical /ts/ ??? to /dz/
- Post-alveolar affricates:
- merging of Classical Armenian /d?/ ??? and /t??/ ??? as /t??/
- voicing of Classical /t?/ ??? to /d?/
As a result, a word like [d?u?] 'water' (spelled ?????? in Classical Armenian) is cognate with Western Armenian [t??u?] (also spelled ??????). However, [t?o?] 'grandson' and [k?a?] 'stone' are pronounced similarly in Classical and Western Armenian.
Orthography
Western Armenian uses Classical Armenian orthography, also known as the traditional or Mashtotsian orthography. The Armenian orthography reform introduced in the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic and still used by most Eastern Armenian speakers from modern Armenia has not been adopted by Eastern Armenian speakers of Iran and their diaspora, and by Western Armenian, with the exception of periodical publications published in Romania and Bulgaria while under Communist regimes.
Morphology
Nouns
Western Armenian nouns have six grammatical cases: nominative (subject), accusative (direct object), genitive (possession), dative (indirect object), ablative (origin) and instrumental (means). Of the six cases, the nominative and accusative are the same, except for personal pronouns, and the genitive and dative are the same, meaning that nouns have four distinct forms for case. Nouns in Armenian also decline for number (singular and plural), but do not decline for gender (i.e. masculine or feminine).
Declension in Armenian is based on how the genitive is formed. There are several declensions, but one is dominant (the genitive in i) while a half-dozen other forms are in gradual decline and are being replaced by the i-form, which has virtually attained the status of a regular form:
Articles
Like English and some other languages, Armenian has definite and indefinite articles. The indefinite article in Western Armenian is /m?/, which follows the noun:
mart m? ('a man', Nom.sg), martu m? ('of a man', Gen.sg)
The definite article is a suffix attached to the noun, and is one of two forms, either -n (when the final sound is a vowel) or -? (when the final sound is a consonant). When the word is followed by al (?? = also, too), the conjunction u (??), or the Present or Imperfect conjugated forms of the verb em (to be), however, it will always take -n:
- mart? ('the man', Nom.sg)
- karin ('the barley' Nom.sg)
but:
- Sa martn e ('This is the man')
- Parin u char? ('The good and the bad')
- Inkn al ('He too')
The indefinite article becomes m?n when it is followed by al (?? = also, too) or the Present or Imperfect conjugated forms of the verb em (to be):
- mart m? ('a man', Nom.sg)
but:
- Sa mart m?n e ('This is a man')
- Mart m?n al ('A man as well')
Adjectives
Adjectives in Armenian do not decline for case or number, and precede the noun:
- agheg mart? ('the good man', Nom.sg)
- agheg martun ('to the good man', Gen.sg)
Verbs
Verbs in Armenian are based on two basic series of forms, a "present" form and an "imperfect" form. From this, all other tenses and moods are formed with various particles and constructions. There is a third form, the preterite, which in Armenian is a tense in its own right, and takes no other particles or constructions.
The "present" tense in Western Armenian is based on three conjugations (a, e, i):
The present tense (as we know it in English) is made by adding the particle g? before the "present" form, except the defective verbs em (I am), gam (I exist, I'm there), unim (I have), kidem (I know) and g?rnam (I can), while the future is made by adding bidi:
- Yes kirk?? g? gartam (I am reading the book or I read the book, Pres)
- Yes kirk?? bidi gartam (I will read the book, Fut).
For the exceptions: bidi ?llam, unenam, kidnam, garenam (I shall be, have, know, be able). In vernacular language, the particle "gor" is added after the verb to indicate present progressive tense. The distinction is not made in literary Armenian.
- Yes kirk?? g? gartam gor (I am reading the book)
The verb without any particles constitutes the subjunctive mood, such as "if I eat, should I eat, that I eat, I wish I eat":
Personal Pronouns
Demonstrative Pronouns
Relative Pronouns
See also
- Armenian verbs
- Homshetsi dialect
- Language family
- IETF language tag
References
Bibliography
- Melkonian, Zareh (1990). ????????? ????????????? - ???? ??????? ?????? (????? ?? ?????????? ?????????) [Practical Grammar - For Modern Armenian (Intermediate and Advanced Course)] (in Armenian) (Fourth ed.). Los Angeles.
- Sakayan, Dora (2000). Modern Western Armenian For the English-speaking World: A Contrastive Approach. Montreal: Arod Books. ISBN 0-9699879-2-7.
- Samuelian, Thomas J. (1989). A Course in Modern Western Armenian: Dictionary and Linguistic Notes. New York City, New York: Armenian National Education Committee. ISBN 0-9617933-2-5.
External links
- Arak29 Eastern Armenian
- Arak29 Western Armenian
- Arak29 A Course in Modern Western Armenia
- Arak29 On-Line Dictionaries
- Arak29 Etymology
- Videos of people speaking Armenian
Western Armenian Online Dictionaries
- Nayiri.com (Library of Armenian dictionaries):
- ??????? ??????? ?????? by Rev. Antranig Granian (about 18,000 terms; published in 1998 in Beirut). Great dictionary for students.
- ????? ?????? ??? ??????? published in two volumes in Beirut in 1992 (about 56,000 headwords). Arguably the best Western Armenian dictionary currently available.
- ??????? ?????????? ??????? by Stepan Malkhasiants (about 130,000 entries). One of the definitive Armenian dictionaries. (Definitions are in Eastern Armenian, but include Western Armenian meanings of headwords.)
- ??????? ????????? ??????? by Hrachia Acharian (5,062 word roots). The definitive study of the history and origins of word roots in Armenian. Also includes explanations of each word root as it is used today. (Explanations are in Eastern Armenian, but root words span the entire Armenian language, including Western Armenian.)
- Armenian-English dictionary (about 70,000 entries).
- English-Armenian dictionary (about 96,000 entries).
- Armenian-French dictionary (about 18,000 entries).
- French-Armenian dictionary (about 20,000 entries).
Source of article : Wikipedia
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