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The Armenian alphabet was created in 405 AD by the monk and scholar Mesrop Mashtots. He worked with the support of King Vramshapuh and Catholicos Sahak Partev, who backed the project but did not devise the letters themselves. Mashtots is also credited with alphabets for the Georgian and Caucasian Albanian languages.
The alphabet created in 405 AD contained 36 letters. Two more, օ and ֆ, were added in the Middle Ages to write sounds that appeared in borrowed words, bringing the total to 38. That is why a modern Armenian dictionary lists 38 letters rather than 36.
Khachatur Abovyan's Wounds of Armenia, published in 1858, is generally regarded as the first Armenian novel. It was written in the modern spoken language rather than in the classical grabar, and it marks the beginning of the new literary Armenian. Abovyan is therefore called the founder of modern Armenian literature.
Sasuntsi Davit is the Armenian national epic, an oral heroic poem arranged in four cycles. Its hero, David of Sassoun, defends the poor and the weak against unjust rulers. The epic was transmitted by village reciters for centuries before being recorded in writing.
Armenian nouns and adjectives carry no grammatical gender: the same word serves for male and female beings. Biological sex is shown only lexically, for example by adding words such as արու or էգ, or by the context. Gender agreement with articles or adjectives therefore never occurs in Armenian.
Definiteness is expressed by a stressed suffix: -ը after a consonant and -ն after a vowel. Thus տուն becomes տունը, 'the house', and գիրքը means 'the book'. Armenian has no separate word corresponding to English 'the'.
Modern Armenian has eight vowel letters: ա, ե, է, ը, ի, ո, օ, ու. The letter ը can occur only inside a word, never at its beginning. All the remaining letters of the thirty-eight-letter alphabet stand for consonants.
Sayat-Nova, who lived from 1712 to 1795, was an ashugh: a professional poet, singer and player of the kamancha. He composed in Armenian, Georgian and Turkic and performed at the court of Erekle II in Tbilisi. His songs remain part of the Armenian and Georgian musical traditions.
The Armenian noun distinguishes seven cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, instrumental and locative. Each case has its own endings, and the plural suffix -ներ or -եր comes before the case ending. Adjectives, by contrast, are not declined.
The plural of գիրք is գրքեր, formed with the suffix -եր together with a change in the stem, because the vowel ի is dropped. This kind of stem alternation is regular in many Armenian monosyllables. Forms that keep the full stem or use a different linking vowel are not standard.
The Book of Lamentations, known as the Narek, was written by Grigor Narekatsi in the tenth century. It is a long cycle of prayers and meditations in prose and verse and is regarded as a masterpiece of medieval Armenian literature. Narekatsi is one of the most important figures of the Armenian Church.
Movses Khorenatsi wrote the History of Armenia, a work of the fifth century that traces Armenian history from legendary origins to his own time. It is a key source for early Armenian tradition and the first attempt at a national history. The other titles belong to different authors and different genres.
Hovhannes Tumanyan wrote the poem Anush in 1892. It tells of the love of Anush and Saro, set in the mountains of Lori, and was later adapted into an opera by Armen Tigranyan. Tumanyan is often called the all-Armenian poet because of his retellings of folklore and his lyric verse.
Yeghishe Charents published the cycle Country of Nairi in 1923, a hymn to Armenia and its culture. Charents was a leading figure of twentieth-century Armenian poetry and was repressed and executed in 1937. His other works include the collection Rainbow and the Book of the Way.
The Armenian full stop is called վերջակետ and is written as a colon-like sign at the level of the line: ։. Armenian developed its own punctuation system, and several marks look quite different from their Latin equivalents. A comma and a question mark also have their own Armenian forms.
In neutral declarative sentences Armenian follows the order subject-verb-object, as in Արամը կարդում է գիրքը. Because the case system marks grammatical roles clearly, other orders are possible when a speaker wants emphasis. Those marked orders, however, are not the neutral pattern.
The present tense of the verb 'to be' in Armenian runs եմ, ես, է, ենք, եք, են. With the subject ես ('I') the correct form is եմ, giving Ես ուսանող եմ. The copula is placed at the end of the sentence, not in the second position.
Paruyr Sevak wrote The Unsilenceable Belfry in 1959. The poem is dedicated to the composer Komitas and reflects on the Armenian Genocide and the survival of Armenian culture. Sevak is one of the central poets of twentieth-century Armenian literature.
The sign ու is not two letters but a single letter of the Armenian alphabet, the thirty-fourth. It represents the vowel sound u and behaves as one unit in spelling and in alphabetical ordering. It is counted in the total of thirty-eight letters.
Hrant Matevosyan wrote We and Our Mountains in 1961. The novella depicts village life in the mountains and the clash between old and new ways. Matevosyan is known for his dense, dialect-influenced prose and for his later novels.
Garegin Srvandztiants recorded and published the epic Sasuntsi Davit in 1873, taking it down from a village reciter. His collection preserved the oral text that later scholars and writers used. The epic itself is far older than that first printed version.
The original alphabet of 405 had thirty-six letters. The letters օ and ֆ were added later, in the Middle Ages, to write sounds that occurred in borrowed words, bringing the total to thirty-eight. All the other pairs listed belong to the original alphabet.
Yeghishe wrote the History of Vardan and the Armenian War, an account of the uprising of 450 to 451 and the Battle of Avarayr. The work is both a historical narrative and a call to keep the faith, and it is a classic of fifth-century Armenian literature. The other writers listed produced different works in different centuries.
The instrumental case, գործիական, answers the question 'with what?' and marks the means or instrument of an action. It is one of the seven Armenian cases, alongside the nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative and locative. The locative marks place, the genitive possession and the ablative origin.
Armenian forms its own independent branch of the Indo-European family; it is neither Slavic, Iranian nor Romance. It has, however, borrowed many words from Iranian languages and later from Turkish, Arabic and European languages. Its closest relative within the family is still debated by scholars.
The Armenian alphabet begins Ա, Բ, Գ, Դ, Ե, Զ. Therefore the letter directly after Ա is Բ.
The Armenian question mark is a diacritic written above the vowel of the interrogative word. It is not a full stop placed at the end of the sentence.
Synonyms are words close in meaning; սիրուն means pretty or beautiful, like գեղեցիկ. The other options describe ugliness, size, or speed.
Գրել means 'to write' and is an infinitive verb. Գիրք is a noun, գրիչ is a noun, and գրական is an adjective.
Տուն has an irregular stem տան- in the genitive and dative singular, so 'of the house' is տան. The form տուն is the nominative.
Ես means 'I' and is a first-person personal pronoun. Այս is demonstrative, while ով and ինչ are interrogative or relative pronouns.
Մարդ has the irregular plural մարդիկ, which is the standard nominative plural. The form մարդներ is not the accepted standard plural.
An antonym expresses the opposite meaning; խավար means darkness, the opposite of լույս. The other words are related to light or warmth but do not mean its opposite.
Գնացի is the first-person singular simple past (անցյալ կատարյալ), describing a completed action. The time word երեկ confirms the past setting.
In the Armenian present negative, the negative auxiliary չեմ precedes the imperfective participle: չեմ գնում. The negative particle is not attached to the participle while the auxiliary follows.
Ծաղկաման (flowerpot) combines ծաղիկ (flower) and աման (vessel), so it is a compound. Ծաղկավոր is derived with a suffix, and ծաղկել is a verb.
The wind is given the human action of whispering, which is personification (անձնավորում). A simile would use an explicit comparison word, and hyperbole would exaggerate.
Սամվել is a historical novel by Raffi, set in fourth-century Armenia. The other authors are known for different works.
Վարդանանք is a historical novel by Derenik Demirchyan about the Battle of Avarayr. Yeghishe wrote a fifth-century history of Vardan's war, not this novel.
Սասնա ծռեր is the Armenian folk epic cycle centered on Sasuntsi Davit. The other works are literary poems or novels.
Վարդան Այգեկցի is associated with the fable collection known as Աղվեսագիրք. The other authors are major medieval writers with different works.
The plural stem is գրքեր-, and the dative plural ending is -ի, giving գրքերի. This form is also used for the genitive plural.
The suffix -ություն forms abstract nouns, so ազատություն means freedom. Ազատական is an adjective, ազատել is a verb, and ազատորեն is an adverb.
Կարդաց is the third-person singular simple past, fitting a completed action: 'He read the book'. The other forms need an auxiliary or a different construction.
Թեև means 'although' and introduces a concessive clause, which states a contrast or unexpected condition. Որովհետև is causal, եթե is conditional, and որ is a complementizer.
Սեր can mean both 'love' and 'cream', so the same form has two unrelated meanings. The other words have their ordinary single meanings here.
Քաոս is a novel by Alexander Shirvanzade, depicting social and moral conflict. The other writers are known for different major works.
Paronyms are words similar in form but different in meaning, often from the same root; հասարակ (simple/common) and հասարակական (public/social) fit this. The other pairs are a derivative relation or antonyms.
Դեմք is the neutral everyday word for 'face'; երես can carry a colloquial or evaluative tone. Այտ means cheek and աչք means eye.
Hovhannes Tumanyan is widely honored with the title 'poet of all Armenians'. The other authors are major poets but are not known by that traditional title.