Classical Armenian

Classical Armenian
Spoken in	Armenian Highlands
Extinct	developed into Middle Armenian
Language family	Indo-European Classical Armenian
Writing system	Armenian alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	xcl
Linguasphere	57-AAA-aa
This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

"Grabar" redirects here. For other uses, see Grabar (disambiguation).

Classical Armenian (Armenian: գրաբար grabar, meaning "literary"; also Old Armenian or Liturgical Armenian) is the oldest attested form of the Armenian language. It was first written down at the beginning of the 5th century, and all Armenian literature from then through the 18th century is in the Grabar Armenian language. Many ancient Greek, Persian, Hebrew, Syriac, and Latin manuscripts survive only in their Armenian translation. Classical Armenian continues to be the liturgical language of the Armenian Apostolic Church and is often learned by Biblical, Intertestamental, and Patristic scholars dedicated to textual studies. Classical Armenian is also important for the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European language, since it preserves many archaic features.

Phonology

Vowels

Classical Armenian has seven monophthong vowels:

• /a/ (ա), /i/ (ի), /ə/ or schwa (ը), /ɛ/ or open e (ե), /e/ or closed e (է), /o/ (ո), and /u/ (ու)(transcribed as a, i, ə, e, ē, o, and u respectively). The vowel transcribed u is spelled using the Armenian letters for ow (ու), but is not actually a diphthong.

There are also traditionally six diphthongs:

• ay (այ), aw (աւ, later օ), ea (եա), ew (եւ), iw (իւ), oy (ոյ).

Consonants

In the following table there is listed the Classical Armenian consonantal system. The occlusives and affricates have in addition to the more common voiced and unvoiced series also a separate aspirated series (transcribed with a spiritus asper after the letter): p῾, t῾, c῾, č῾, k῾. For each phoneme there are three symbols in the table. The leftmost indicates the pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA); in the middle there is the corresponding symbol in the Armenian alphabet; and the rightmost is its transliteration in Latin alphabet (following ISO 9985).

		Labial	Alveolar	Post- alveolar / Palatal	Velar / Uvular	Glottal
Nasals		m   մ   m	n   ն   n
Plosives	voiced	b   բ   b	d   դ   d		ɡ   գ   g
	unvoiced	p   պ   p	t   տ   t		k   կ   k
	aspirated	pʰ   փ   p’	tʰ   թ   t’		kʰ   ք   k’
Affricates	voiced		dz   ձ   j	dʒ   ջ   ǰ
	unvoiced		ts   ծ   ç	tʃ   ճ   č̣
	aspirated		tsʰ   ց   c’	tʃʰ   չ   č
Fricatives	voiced	v   վ   v	z   զ   z	ʒ   ժ   ž	ʁ   ղ   ġ
	unvoiced	f   ֆ   f	s   ս   s	ʃ   շ   š	χ   խ   x	h   հ   h
Approximants	lateral		l   լ   l
	central		ɹ   ր   r	j   յ   y
Trill			r   ռ   ṙ

The letter f (or ֆ) was introduced in the Medieval Period to represent the foreign sound /f/, or the voiceless labiodental fricative, and was not originally a letter in the Armenian Alphabet.

Orthography

Classical Armenian uses traditional Armenian orthography.

See also

• List of Classical Armenian writers
• Proto-Armenian
• Armenian Alphabet

Reference books

• Acharian, Hrachia. (1971-9) Etymological Root Dictionary of the Armenian Language. Vol. I – IV. Yerevan: Yerevan Sate University.
• Meillet, Antoine. (1903) Esquisse d’une grammaire comparée de l’arménien classique.
• Thomson, Robert W. (1989) An Introduction to Classical Armenian. Caravan Books. (ISBN 0-88206-072-4)

External links

• Classical Armenian Online (The University of Texas at Austin)