Armenian language
Channel: 宇宙のすべての知識 プリンシピア
Date: 17/01/2019

Armenian language, by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2217 / CC BY SA 3.0

#Armenian language
#Armenian languages
#Subject–object–verb languages
#Languages of Armenia
#Languages of Russia
#Languages of Turkey
#Languages of Kazakhstan
#Languages of Iran
#Languages of Lebanon
#Languages of Azerbaijan
Armenian language

The Armenian language ( "") is an Indo-European language spoken primarily by Armenians. It is the official language of Armenia. Historically being spoken throughout the Armenian Highlands, today, Armenian is widely spoken throughout the Armenian diaspora. Armenian is written in its own writing system, the Armenian alphabet, introduced in 405 AD by Mesrop Mashtots.

Armenian is an independent branch of the Indo-European languages. It is of interest to linguists for its distinctive phonological developments within that family. Armenian exhibits more satemization than centumization, although it is not classified as belonging to either of these subgroups. Some linguists tentatively conclude that Armenian, Greek (Phrygian) and Indo-Iranian were dialectally close to each other; within this hypothetical dialect group, Proto-Armenian was situated between Proto-Greek (centum subgroup) and Proto-Indo-Iranian (satem subgroup).

Armenia was a monolingual country by the 2nd century BC at the latest. Its language has a long literary history, with a 5th-century Bible translation as its oldest surviving text. Its vocabulary has historically been influenced by Western Middle Iranian languages, particularly Parthian, and to a lesser extent by Greek, Persian, and Syriac. There are two standardized modern literary forms, Eastern Armenian and Western Armenian, with which most contemporary dialects are mutually intelligible.

Although the Armenians were known to history much earlier (for example, they were mentioned in the 6th century BC Behistun Inscription and in Xenophon's 4th century BC history, "The Anabasis"), the oldest surviving Armenian-language text i...