Armenian (Հայերեն)

[peterlin]

Whats Formiko's aproach?

Well,... it seems to be based on joyful overestimation of one's abilities plus total carelessness if what one writes makes any sense or not.

Btw, do you learn Eastern or Western Armenian?

Eastern. The article I'm doing here uses (what seems to me as) a non-standard orthography (no yev), I just copy it. BTW, in Iran (and maybe in India as well?), they write (and speak) Eastern Armenian, but using Western orthography.

Ill give it a try...
Հաջորդ անձը գիրքը (է) կարդում։
hajord andzë girkhë (ē) kardum
/hadʒoɾd andzə girkʰə ɛ kaɾdum/

I'll get back to that later.

[peterlin]

I have a friend who speaks Armenian (born in Yerevan but came to the United States),. He speaks it sometimes, and it's beautiful. Perhaps the most beautiful language I've ever heard

Do you seriously believe that a language can be more or less beautiful than any other? For me, the esthetic qualities differ from speaker to speaker and from occassion to occassion much more than between the languages. Any language can sound ugly, if I'm speaking it, trust me

[Stawrberry]

Well,... it seems to be based on joyful overestimation of one's abilities plus total carelessness if what one writes makes any sense or not.

So true.

[Mancko]

Hi,
I try to understand how to write down numbers in Eastern Armenian, and I come with a few questions

What does the ն word means?
տասնհինգ (15) is տաս ն հինգ (10 ն 5)
Is it 'plus', 'and', or something else?

I don't understand the tens either, say how to build them from the digits?
մեկ -> տաս (1 -> 10)
երկու -> քսան (2 -> 20)
երեք -> երեսուն (3 -> 30)
չորս -> քառասուն (4 -> 40)
հինգ -> հիսուն (5 -> 50)
...
It seems we add -սուն at the end of the digit root, but it's only a guess as I can't tell what the root is.

Also, can someone write down some random numbers, like
256
2,567
7,543,896

Thanks a lot!

[Michael]

I fell in love with Armenia in general .. especially its modern music (don't know much about its folk music except for the duduk), not to mention its culture and language. So far I know a few greetings, yes/no, the seven days of the week, and a few animals. I am just about fluent in the Armenian alphabet .. I'm still working on distinguishing between visually similar letters, such as Զ Ջ Ձ .. Վ Կ .. Ւ Ի .. վ կ ի .. ճ ձ .. ջ շ .. et cetera!

PS I want to learn the Armenian shalako dance!

[Psi-Lord]

So the question, for anyone who knows, is which one is the "official" keyboard used in Armenia, or the most commonly used?

Have you ever got any input from native speakers on this after all?

[Psi-Lord]

You can see animations of the handwritten letters at http://hayeren.hayastan.com/english/ab.html, too – wait for it to load, then click on a letter and then on the hand-with-pen icon.

[Senyani]

Cool!

Thanks. I have a question. Does anyone know if the letters in cursive Armenian writing connect like ours do?

If so ( or not ) I would like to see examples of this.

[Psi-Lord]

I’ve wondered the same thing for a while, but, from the (very) few materials I found that pictured (school-standard-like) handwritten Armenian (full words instead of just letters), it seems that not necessarily. I suppose it varies a bit in real life, much like Greek handwriting, and that some letters actually offer linking possibilities (which I myself would use), but I suppose we need a native speaker in order to set the whole picture more clearly.

[Senyani]

Well we need a native speaker then.

Where do we get one?

[Psi-Lord]

Well we need a native speaker then.

Where do we get one?

I think I’ve seen one around, but can’t remember in which thread.

And here are other links to samples of (pretty school-standard) Armenian handwriting:

ABC Book I & ABC Book II

Wait for them to load, then turn the pages and check the letters and words.

[Senyani]

Oh wow!

Thank you. It looks like some of my conscripts.

[hashi]

You can see animations of the handwritten letters at http://hayeren.hayastan.com/english/ab.html, too – wait for it to load, then click on a letter and then on the hand-with-pen icon.

Half of the cursive forms look nothing like the printed forms o_O

[Psi-Lord]

Half of the cursive forms look nothing like the printed forms o_O

Sou (an old UniLanger whose native language is Thai) once told us (prompted by our complaining too many Thai letters looked the same) that, if we actually see the Latin alphabet with the eyes of someone whose native language is written with a different script, we’ll actually realise we do take it for granted. Telling b, p, q, and d apart was his example, but, in this particular case, I can probably say that half of the cursive forms I myself use look nothing like the printed ones.

[Senyani]

Hahaha True.

But I like Armenian writing. It's beautiful.

[Psi-Lord]

What does the ն word means?
տասնհինգ (15) is տաս ն հինգ (10 ն 5)
Is it 'plus', 'and', or something else?

According to the etymological info in the Wiktionary, տասնհինգ is formed from just տասն (Old Armenian for ‘ten’) + հինգ (‘five’), so that ն by itself means nothing.

I don't understand the tens either, say how to build them from the digits?
մեկ -> տաս (1 -> 10)
երկու -> քսան (2 -> 20)
երեք -> երեսուն (3 -> 30)
չորս -> քառասուն (4 -> 40)
հինգ -> հիսուն (5 -> 50)
...
It seems we add -սուն at the end of the digit root, but it's only a guess as I can't tell what the root is.

They apparently need to be learnt as vocabulary, because they seem to descend directly from Proto-Indo-European words and aren’t ‘derivable’, so to speak, from smaller units in the modern language. The -սուն bit, for instance, seems (according to the Wiktionary once again) to come from the PIE word for ‘ten’, which is also the ultimate source of Old Armenian տասն above (besides English ‘ten’, Portuguese ‘dez’ etc.).

Also, can someone write down some random numbers, like
256
2,567
7,543,896

How curious that none of my materials seem to explain number formation… Apparently you just give the numbers one after another, spelling them as a single word up to 100, and as separate words from 101 on. Based on that, I think those’d be:

256 = երկու հարյուր հիսունվեց
2,567 = երկու հազար հինգ հարյուր վաթսունյոթ
7,543,896 = յոթ միլիոն հինգ հարյուր քառասուներեք հազար ութ հարյուր իննսունվեց

Worth pointing out that Armenia seems to use a decimal comma, which means they use either a dot or a (thin) space when grouping digits (that is, 2.567, 7.543.896 etc.).

[Vahagn Petrosyan]

Psi-Lord is absolutely right.

[Psi-Lord]

A short handwritten note:



I can’t transcribe the text itself, though. I can only tell the message paragraph ends with «Դո՛ւ ես…» and that it’s signed by Nikol Pashinian (Նիկոլ Փաշինյան).

[Senyani]

Thanks alot!

That is pretty indeed.

[axaxaxasz mlö]

Hello.

I don't understand the next phrase from Dora Sakayan's Eastern Armenian book:
դու հեռաձայն ունես:
What does the word in bold mean?