Armenian (Eastern) phrasebook
Armenian (hayeren) is an Indo-European language not related closely to any other language. It is spoken by the Armenian people in the Republic of Armenia, Georgia, Nagorno-Karabakh and also by the Armenian diaspora all over the world. The estimate of speakers is 7 million.
It is divided into two main dialects: Western and Eastern. Eastern Armenian and its minor dialects are used by the Armenians living in Armenia. Western dialect is spoken by the members of Armenian diaspora whose ancestors fled Western Armenia (now in Turkey) as a result of Armenian Genocide.
This phrasebook deals with the Eastern dialect, which is the official language of Armenia.
One important thing: in Armenian there are two ways of addressing people - informal and polite, like in German, French or Russian. For formal address the plural form of second person (pronoun դուք (douq)) should be used, while for informal - pronoun դու (doo).
Please note that most of common people in Armenia don't speak English, however almost everyone perfectly knows Russian. People have no problems speaking that language (with a slightly guttural accent), but still learning a couple of expressions in Armenian will not only turn useful in practice but also will win the hearts of already extraordinarily hospitable Armenians.
Pronunciation guide
Armenian language has its own unique alphabet (whose characters are not that dissimiliar to Hebrew characters) invented by Mesrop Mashtots in 405 AD, which consists of 39 letters. The appearance of it seems quite complex compared to Latin, however unlike many languages, the spelling of Armenian is pretty much phonetic, so once knowing the pronunciation of each letter the reading should not be a problem. On the other hand the reproduction of some sounds may be a bit difficult for foreigners, since Armenian has several unique consonants which have no analogs in prevailing languages.
In Armenian words are always stressed on the last syllable.
Following are the uppercase and lowercase versions of each letter, followed by its name in English and a pronunciation hint.
Vowels
- Ա/ա ayb
This page was last edited at 20:09, on 5 December 2008 by Anonymous user(s) of Wikitravel. Based on work by Vahagn Petrosyan, Bagrat Mailyan, Todd VerBeek, Ravikiran Rao and Ian Kirk, Wikitravel user(s) Kire1975 and Morph and Anonymous user(s) of Wikitravel.
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