Armenian alphabet - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Armenian alphabet is an alphabet

Alphabet

An alphabet is a standard set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic...

that has been used to write the Armenian language

Armenian language

The Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The language is also widely spoken by Armenian communities in the Armenian diaspora...

since the year 405 or 406. It was devised by Saint Mesrop Mashtots, an Armenian linguist and ecclesiastical leader, and contained originally 36 letters. Two more letters, օ and ֆ, were added in the Middle Ages. Until the 19th century, Classical Armenian was the literary language; since then, the Armenian alphabet has been used to write the two official literary dialects of Eastern Armenian and Western Armenian. The Armenian word for "alphabet" is (ɑjbubɛn), named after the first two letters of the Armenian alphabet and . Its directionality is horizontal left-to-right, like the Latin

Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...

, Greek

Greek alphabet

The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...

and Cyrillic alphabet

Cyrillic alphabet

The Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...

The alphabet

Letter	Name					Pronunciation			Transliteration Romanization of Armenian - Hübschmann-Meillet :In linguistic literature on Classical Armenian, the commonly used transliteration is that of Hübschmann-Meillet .It uses a dot above mark to express the aspirates, t῾, ch῾, č῾, p῾, k῾...		Numerical value Armenian numerals The system of Armenian numerals is a historic numeral system created using the majuscules of the Armenian alphabet.There was no notation for zero in the old system, and the numeric values for individual letters were added together. The principles behind this system are the same as for the Ancient...
	Traditional Traditional Armenian orthography Traditional Armenian orthography is the orthography developed during the early 19th century for the two modern dialects of the Armenian language - Eastern Armenian and Western Armenian...	Reformed Spelling reform of the Armenian language 1922-1924 The spelling reform of the Armenian language 1922–1924 was a spelling reform of the Armenian alphabet conducted in the Armenian SSR. Although it is barely practiced outside of Armenia and the Post-Soviet states because it was not adopted by Armenians in the diaspora, about half of the Armenian...	Pronunciation			Classical	Eastern	Western	Classical	ISO 9985
			Classical	Eastern	Western	Classical	Eastern	Western	Classical	ISO 9985
Ա ա	այբ		[aɪb]		[aɪpʰ]	[ɑ]					1
Բ բ	բեն		[bɛn]		[pʰɛn]	[b]		[pʰ]			2
Գ գ	գիմ		[ɡim]		[kʰim]	[ɡ]		[kʰ]			3
Դ դ	դա		[dɑ]		[tʰɑ]	[d]		[tʰ]			4
Ե ե	եչ		[jɛtʃʰ]			[ɛ], word initially [jɛ]¹					5
Զ զ	զա		[zɑ]			[z]					6
Է է	է		[ɛː]	[ɛ]		[ɛː]	[ɛ]				7
Ը ը	ըթ		[ətʰ]			[ə]					8
Թ թ	թօ	թո	[tʰo]			[tʰ]					9
Ժ ժ	ժէ	ժե	[ʒɛː]	[ʒɛ]		[ʒ]					10
Ի ի	ինի		[ini]			[i]					20
Լ լ	լիւն	լյուն	[lʏn]	[ljun]	[lʏn]	[l]					30
Խ խ	խէ	խե	[χɛː]	[χɛ]		[χ]					40
Ծ ծ	ծա		[tsɑ]		[dzɑ]	[ts]		[dz]	c	ç	50
Կ կ	կեն		[kɛn]		[ɡɛn]	[k]		[ɡ]			60
Հ հ	հօ	հո	[ho]			[h]					70
Ձ ձ	ձա		[dzɑ]		[tsʰɑ]	[dz]		[tsʰ]			80
Ղ ղ	ղատ		[ɫɑt]	[ʁɑt]	[ʁɑd]	[ɫ]	[ʁ]				90
Ճ ճ	ճէ	ճե	[tʃɛː]	[tʃɛ]	[dʒɛ]	[tʃ]		[dʒ]	č		100
Մ մ	մեն		[mɛn]			[m]					200
Յ յ	յի	հի	[ji]	[hi]		[j]	[h]², [j]				300
Ն ն	նու		[nu]			[n]					400
Շ շ	շա		[ʃɑ]			[ʃ]					500
Ո ո	ո		[o]	[vo]		[o], word initially [vo]³					600
Չ չ	չա		[tʃʰɑ]			[tʃʰ]					700
Պ պ	պէ	պե	[pɛː]	[pɛ]	[bɛ]	[p]		[b]			800
Ջ ջ	ջէ	ջե	[dʒɛː]	[dʒɛ]	[tʃʰɛ]	[dʒ]		[tʃʰ]			900
Ռ ռ	ռա		[rɑ]		[ɾɑ]	[r]		[ɾ]			1000
Ս ս	սէ	սե	[sɛː]	[sɛ]		[s]					2000
Վ վ	վեւ	վեվ	[vɛv]			[v]					3000
Տ տ	տիւն	տյուն	[tʏn]	[tjun]	[dʏn]	[t]		[d]			4000
Ր ր	րէ	րե	[ɹɛː]	[ɾɛ]⁴		[ɹ]	[ɾ]⁴		r		5000
Ց ց	ցօ	ցո	[tsʰo]			[tsʰ]					6000
Ւ ւ	հիւն	N/A⁵	[hʏn]			[w]	[v]⁶				7000
Փ փ	փիւր	փյուր	[pʰʏɹ]	[pʰjuɾ]	[pʰʏɾ]	[pʰ]					8000
Ք ք	քէ	քե	[kʰɛː]	[kʰɛ]		[kʰ]					9000
Added during the thirteenth century
Օ օ	օ		[o]			[o]					N/A
Ֆ ֆ	ֆէ	ֆե	[fɛː]	[fɛ]		[f]					N/A
Letter	Traditional	Reformed	Classical	Eastern	Western	Classical	Eastern	Western	Classical	ISO 9985	Numerical value Armenian numerals The system of Armenian numerals is a historic numeral system created using the majuscules of the Armenian alphabet.There was no notation for zero in the old system, and the numeric values for individual letters were added together. The principles behind this system are the same as for the Ancient...
	Traditional	Reformed	Pronunciation			Classical	Eastern	Western	Classical	ISO 9985
	Name					Pronunciation			Transliteration

Listen to the pronunciation of the letters in or in .

Ligatures

Ancient Armenian manuscripts used many ligatures to save space. Some of the commonly used ligatures are: ﬓ (մ+ն), ﬔ (մ+ե), ﬕ (մ+ի), ﬖ (վ+ն), ﬗ (մ+խ), և (ե+ւ), etc. After the invention of printing Armenian typefaces made a wide use of ligatures as well. In the new orthography the character և is no longer a typographical ligature, and must never be treated as such. It is a distinct letter and has its place in the new alphabetic sequence, before "o".

Punctuation marks

In Armenian ( , ) is storaket or a comma

Comma

A comma is a type of punctuation mark . The word comes from the Greek komma , which means something cut off or a short clause.Comma may also refer to:* Comma , a type of interval in music theory...

and ( ։ ) is verjaket or the ordinary full stop

Full stop

A full stop is the punctuation mark commonly placed at the end of sentences. In American English, the term used for this punctuation is period. In the 21st century, it is often also called a dot by young people...

(or period). The question mark

Question mark

The question mark , is a punctuation mark that replaces the full stop at the end of an interrogative sentence in English and many other languages. The question mark is not used for indirect questions...

(hartzakan nshan) ( ՞ ) is placed after the last vowel of the question word (usually the stressed vowel). The boot or short stop ( ՝ ) is placed in the same manner as the colon

Colon (punctuation)

The colon is a punctuation mark consisting of two equally sized dots centered on the same vertical line.-Usage:A colon informs the reader that what follows the mark proves, explains, or lists elements of what preceded the mark....

, but indicating a pause that is longer than that of a comma, but shorter than that of a colon. There is also ( ․ ), which is called mijaket and used like the ordinary semicolon

Semicolon

The semicolon is a punctuation mark with several uses. The Italian printer Aldus Manutius the Elder established the practice of using the semicolon to separate words of opposed meaning and to indicate interdependent statements. "The first printed semicolon was the work of ... Aldus Manutius"...

, mainly to separate two closely related, but still independent clauses, or when a long list of items follows. The shesht or interjection

Interjection

In grammar, an interjection or exclamation is a word used to express an emotion or sentiment on the part of the speaker . Filled pauses such as uh, er, um are also considered interjections...

sign ( ՛ ) is usually placed over the last vowel of the interjection word. ( « » ) are used for chakertner or quotation mark

Quotation mark

Quotation marks or inverted commas are punctuation marks at the beginning and end of a quotation, direct speech, literal title or name. Quotation marks can also be used to indicate a different meaning of a word or phrase than the one typically associated with it and are often used to express irony...

s. ( ՜ ) is used as the yerkaratzman nshan or exclamation mark

Exclamation mark

The exclamation mark, exclamation point, or bang, or "dembanger" is a punctuation mark usually used after an interjection or exclamation to indicate strong feelings or high volume , and often marks the end of a sentence. Example: “Watch out!” The character is encoded in Unicode at...

. The Armenian abbreviation mark ( ՟ ) was placed on top of the abbreviated word to indicate that it was abbreviated; called pativ in Armenian, it is not used now.

Transliteration

ISO 9985 (1996) transliterates the Armenian alphabet for modern Armenian as follows:

ու

եւ

t’

č̣

c’

p’

k’

In linguistic literature on Classical Armenian, slightly different systems are in use (in particular note that č has a different meaning). Hübschmann-Meillet (1913) have

ու

եւ-

c῾

p῾

k῾

NAR (New Armenian Romanization):

Aa Bb Gg Dd Ee Zz E'e' E·e· T·t· Z'z' Ii Ll K'k' Cc Kk Hh C·c· L·l· C´c´ Mm Jj Nn S's' Oo C'c' Pp C´c´ R·r· Ss Vv Tt Rr C`c` Ww P`p` K`k` O'o' Ff Uu O´o´ E´e´

History and development

The Armenian alphabet was created by Saint Mesrop Mashtots and Isaac of Armenia

Isaac of Armenia

Isaac or Sahak of Armenia was Catholicos of Armenia. He is sometimes known as "Isaac the Great," and as "Սահակ Պարթև / Sahak Parthev" in Armenian, owing to his Parthian origin....

(Sahak Partev) in AD 405 primarily for a Bible translation into the Armenian language

Armenian language

. Medieval Armenian sources also claim that Mashtots invented the Georgian

Georgian alphabet

The Georgian alphabet is the writing system used to write the Georgian language and other Kartvelian languages , and occasionally other languages of the Caucasus such as Ossetic and Abkhaz during the 1940s...

and Caucasian Albanian alphabets around the same time. Traditionally, the following phrase translated from Solomon's Book of Proverbs

Book of Proverbs

The Book of Proverbs , commonly referred to simply as Proverbs, is a book of the Hebrew Bible.The original Hebrew title of the book of Proverbs is "Míshlê Shlomoh" . When translated into Greek and Latin, the title took on different forms. In the Greek Septuagint the title became "paroimai paroimiae"...

is said to be the first sentence to be written down in Armenian by Mashtots:
Various scripts have been credited with being the prototype for the Armenian alphabet. Pahlavi

Pahlavi scripts

Pahlavi or Pahlevi denotes a particular and exclusively written form of various Middle Iranian languages. The essential characteristics of Pahlavi are*the use of a specific Aramaic-derived script, the Pahlavi script;...

was the priestly script in Armenia before the introduction of Christianity, and Syriac

Syriac alphabet

The Syriac alphabet is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language from around the 2nd century BC . It is one of the Semitic abjads directly descending from the Aramaic alphabet and shares similarities with the Phoenician, Hebrew, Arabic, and the traditional Mongolian alphabets.-...

, along with Greek, was one of the alphabets of Christian scripture. It has also been suggested that the Ge'ez script had an influence on certain letters of the alphabet. Although the Armenian alphabet has similarities to all of these, the general consensus is it was modeled after the Avestan

Avestan alphabet

The Avestan alphabet is a writing system developed during Iran's Sassanid era to render the Avestan language.As a side effect of its development, the script was also used for Pazend, a method of writing Middle Persian that was used primarily for the Zend commentaries on the texts of the Avesta...

and Greek

Greek alphabet

alphabets, supplemented with letters from a different source or sources for Armenian sounds not found in Greek. The evidence for this is the Greek order of the Armenian alphabet; the ow ligature for the vowel /u/, as in Greek; and the shapes of some letters which "seem derived from a variety of cursive Greek."

There are four forms of the script. Erkatagir, or "ironclad letters", seen as Mesrop's original, were used in manuscripts from the 5th to 13th century and are still preferred for epigraphic inscriptions. Bolorgir, or "cursive", was invented in the 10th century and became popular in the 13th. It has been the standard printed form since the 16th century. Notrgir, or "minuscule", was invented for speed, was extensively used in the Armenian diaspora in the 16th to 18th centuries, and later became popular in printing. Sheghagir, or "slanted writing", is now the most common form.

Although the two dialects of modern Armenian—Eastern Armenian and Western Armenian—use the same alphabet, due to the Western Armenian sound shift some letters are pronounced in a different way. This matters for the following letters (further information in the chart below):

Stop consonant
Stop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...

s
- բ ([b] vs. [pʰ]) and պ ([p] vs. [b])
- դ ([d] vs. [tʰ]) and տ ([t] vs. [d])
- գ ([ɡ] vs. [kʰ]) and կ ([k] vs. [ɡ])
Affricate consonant
Affricate consonant
Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...

s
- ջ ([d͡ʒ] vs. [t͡ʃʰ]) and ճ ([t͡ʃ] vs. [d͡ʒ])
- ձ ([d͡z] vs. [t͡sʰ]) and ծ ([t͡s] vs. [d͡z])

The number and order of the letters have changed over time. In the Middle Ages two new letters (օ [o], ֆ [f]) were introduced in order to better represent foreign sounds; this increased the number of letters from 36 to 38. Furthermore, the digraph աւ (au) followed by a consonant used to be pronounced [au] (as in luau) in Classical Armenian, but due to a sound shift it came to be pronounced [o], and has since the 13th century been written օ (ō). For example, classical աւր (awr, [auɹ], "day") became pronounced [oɹ], and is now written օր (ōr). (One word has kept aw, now pronounced av: աղաւնի pigeon, and there are a few proper names still having aw before a consonant: Տաւրոս Taurus, Փաւստոս Faustus, etc.) For this reason, today there are native Armenian words beginning with the letter օ (ō) although this letter was taken from the Greek alphabet to write foreign words beginning with o [o].

From 1922 to 1924, Soviet Armenia adopted a Reformed spelling of the Armenian language. This generally did not change the pronunciation of individual letters, with some exceptions. The Armenian Diaspora (including Armenians in Lebanon

Lebanon

Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...

and Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

) have rejected the Reformed spelling and continue to use the classical Mashtotsian spelling. They criticize some aspects (see the footnotes of the chart) and allege political motives behind the reform.

Use of the Armenian alphabet for other languages

As Bedross Der Matossian from Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

informs, for about 250 years, from the early 18th century until around 1950, more than 2000 books in the Turkish language

Turkish language

Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...

were printed using the Armenian alphabet. Not only did Armenians read Armeno-Turkish, but so did the non-Armenian (including the Ottoman Turkish) elite. The Armenian alphabet was also used alongside the Arabic alphabet on official documents of the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

written in Ottoman Turkish

Ottoman Turkish language

The Ottoman Turkish language or Ottoman language is the variety of the Turkish language that was used for administrative and literary purposes in the Ottoman Empire. It borrows extensively from Arabic and Persian, and was written in a variant of the Perso-Arabic script...

. For instance, the first novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

to be written in the Ottoman Empire was Vartan Pasha

Vartan Pasha

Vartan Pasha was an Ottoman Armenian statesman, author and journalist of the 19th century, promoted to the rank of "Pasha" after three decades in the service of the state...

's 1851 Akabi Hikayesi, written in the Armenian script. Also, when the Armenian Duzoglu family managed the Ottoman mint during the reign of Abdülmecid I

Abdülmecid I

Sultan Abdülmecid I, Abdul Mejid I, Abd-ul-Mejid I or Abd Al-Majid I Ghazi was the 31st Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and succeeded his father Mahmud II on July 2, 1839. His reign was notable for the rise of nationalist movements within the empire's territories...

, they kept records in the Armenian script, but in the Turkish language.

The Kipchak

Kipchak language

The Kipchak language is an extinct Turkic language of the Kipchak group.The descendants of the Kipchak language include the majority of Turkic languages spoken in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus today, as Kipchak was used as a lingua franca in Golden Horde–ruled lands.Kazakhs are remnants of...

-speaking Armenian Orthodox Christians of Podolia

Podolia

The region of Podolia is an historical region in the west-central and south-west portions of present-day Ukraine, corresponding to Khmelnytskyi Oblast and Vinnytsia Oblast. Northern Transnistria, in Moldova, is also a part of Podolia...

and Galicia used the Armenian alphabet to produce extensive amount of literature between 1524 and 1669.

The Armenian alphabet, along with the Georgian alphabet

Georgian alphabet

, was used by poet Sayat-Nova

Sayat-Nova

Sayat-Nova Sayat-Nova Sayat-Nova (born as Harutyun Sayatyan , was an Armenian poet, musician and ashik who had compositions in a number of languages. His adopted name Sayat Nova meant "Master of Songs" in Persian.- Biography :...

in his Azeri

Azerbaijani language

Azerbaijani or Azeri or Torki is a language belonging to the Turkic language family, spoken in southwestern Asia by the Azerbaijani people, primarily in Azerbaijan and northwestern Iran...

poems.

The Armenian alphabet was an official script for the Kurdish language

Kurdish language

Kurdish is a dialect continuum spoken by the Kurds in western Asia. It is part of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian group of Indo-European languages....

in 1921–1928 in Soviet Armenia.

Unicode

The Armenian alphabet is one of the five modern European alphabetic scripts identified in the Unicode

Unicode

Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...

standard version 4.0. (The other modern European alphabets are Latin

Latin alphabet

, Greek

Greek alphabet

, Cyrillic

Cyrillic alphabet

The Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...

, and Georgian

Georgian alphabet

.)
It is assigned the range U+0530–058F. Five Armenian ligatures are encoded in the "Alphabetic presentation forms" block (code point range U+FB13–FB17).

ArmSCII-8

ArmSCII

ARMSCII

ARMSCII or ArmSCII is a set of obsolete single-byte character encodings for the Armenian alphabet defined by Armenian national standard 166-9. ArmSCII is an acronym for Armenian Standard Code for Information Interchange, similar to ASCII for the American standard...

-8 is the 8-bit encoding of the Armenian Standard Code for Information Interchange, developed between 1991 and 1999. It uses part of the upper 128 codes in an 8-bit encoding to represent the Armenian alphabet, leaving the lower 128 codes for another alphabetic script (often Latin or Cyrillic). This allows a single font to represent two alphabetic scripts. For example, the Latin characters could occupy part of the first 128 codes (e.g. ASCII

ASCII

The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text...

) while the Armenian characters would occupy part of the upper 128 codes.

ArmSCII-8 was popular on the Windows 95 and Windows 98 operating systems. To be able to read in Armenian, users had to download a font that implements the ArmSCII-8 encoding. To be able to write in Armenian, users first had to download and install a freeware program that ran in the taskbar. There were two popular programs, one named KD Win, and the other called "Armenian National Language Support". With these programs, a user would be able to type in both Armenian and another alphabetic script without having to change fonts, switching between writing scripts and keyboard layouts by invoking a keyboard shortcut (often Alt + Shift).

With the development of the more advanced Unicode

Unicode

Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...

standard and its availability on the Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista, Linux and Mac OS X operating systems, the ArmSCII-8 encoding has been rendered obsolete. Nevertheless, ArmSCII-8 can still be found in use on some websites, which have not yet made the transition to Unicode.

Arasan-compatible

Arasan-compatible fonts are based on the encoding of the original Arasan font by Hrant Papazian (an encoding in use since 1986), which simply replaces the Latin characters (amongst others) of the ASCII

ASCII

encoding with Armenian ones. For example, the ASCII code for the Latin character (65) represents the Armenian character <Ա>.

An advantage of Arasan-compatible fonts over ArmSCII-8 fonts is that writing does not require the installation of a separate program; once the font is installed and selected for use, one can use their QWERTY

QWERTY

QWERTY is the most common modern-day keyboard layout. The name comes from the first six letters appearing in the topleft letter row of the keyboard, read left to right: Q-W-E-R-T-Y. The QWERTY design is based on a layout created for the Sholes and Glidden typewriter and sold to Remington in the...

keyboard to type in Armenian. A disadvantage over ArmSCII-8 is that an Arasan-compatible font can only be used for one alphabetic script; therefore, the user must change the Font family when creating a multi-script document (e.g. both Armenian and English). Another disadvantage is that Arasan-compatible fonts only come in one native keyboard layout: Western Armenian phonetic. However it is possible to have alternative keyboard layouts via the use of keyboard driver utilities.

While Arasan-compatible fonts were popular among many users on Windows 95 and 98, it has been rendered obsolete by the Unicode standard. However, a few websites continue to use it.

The Arasan font's legacy is the phonetic Armenian keyboard layouts that ship with Windows 2000/XP/2003, which are almost identical to the Arasan keyboard layout.

Computer fonts

The Armenian alphabet is available for use on personal computers in a variety of operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

s as installable fonts. The following fonts implement the Unicode Armenian character set and come installed by default on the noted operating system:

Sylfaen (Windows XP/Vista/7)
Tahoma
Tahoma (typeface)
Tahoma is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter for the Microsoft Corporation in 1994 with initial distribution along with Verdana for Windows 95....

(Windows 7)
DejaVu Sans
DejaVu fonts
The DejaVu fonts are modifications of the Bitstream Vera fonts designed for greater coverage of Unicode, as well as providing more styles. The Bitstream Vera family was limited mainly to the characters in the Basic Latin and Latin-1 Supplement portions of Unicode but was released with a license...

(open source, popular on Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

)
Mshtakan (Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

, since version 10.3; iPhone OS
IPhone OS
iOS is Apple's mobile operating system. Originally developed for the iPhone, it has since been extended to support other Apple, Inc. devices such as the iPod Touch, iPad, and Apple TV. Apple, Inc. does not license iOS for installation on third-party hardware...

)

Note: even though fonts are portable, fonts from one operating system (e.g. Windows) may not be installed on another (e.g. Linux) without a proper license.

Keyboard layouts

An operating system can be configured to use a variety of keyboard layout

Keyboard layout

A keyboard layout is any specific mechanical, visual, or functional arrangement of the keys, legends, or key–meaning associations of a computer, typewriter, or other typographic keyboard....

s to suit the user's needs. For example, both English and Western Armenian keyboard layouts may be configured, with the user being able to switch between the two using a keyboard shortcut (often alt + shift).

Windows 2000/XP/2003

Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows 2003 ship with two Armenian language keyboard layouts: Eastern Armenian and Western Armenian. They are both based on the keyboard layout of a popular Armenian font for Windows 95 named Arasan. These keyboard layouts are generally phonetic. However, since some letters in the Armenian alphabet do not have an obvious corresponding character in the Latin alphabet, they are often approximated (for example, Խ maps to Q). Also, since there are more letters in the Armenian alphabet (38) than in Latin (26), some Armenian characters appear on non-alphabetic keys on a conventional

QWERTY

English language keyboard (for example, շ maps to ,).
Armenian keyboard layouts for Windows 2000/XP/2003 created by third parties include the Armenian Phonetic Eastern and the Armenian Typewriter Eastern.

Use of Armenian keyboard layouts on Windows 2000/XP/2003 systems require explicit configuration by the user.

Linux

Each Linux distribution

Linux distribution

A Linux distribution is a member of the family of Unix-like operating systems built on top of the Linux kernel. Such distributions are operating systems including a large collection of software applications such as word processors, spreadsheets, media players, and database applications...

may come pre-configured with a unique set of keyboard layouts. To provide some consistency amongst themselves, Linux distributions often pull their layouts from the XKeyboard Configuration component of Freedesktop.org

Freedesktop.org

freedesktop.org is a project to work on interoperability and shared base technology for free software desktop environments for the X Window System on Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. It was founded by Havoc Pennington from Red Hat in March 2000.The organisation focuses on the user....

. As of November, 2006, Freedesktop.org contains 5 Armenian keyboard layouts, including 2 layouts identical to the ones from Windows XP.

Use of Armenian keyboard layouts on Linux usually requires explicit configuration by the user. Users of the GNOME desktop may do so by using the GNOME Keyboard Indicator applet.

External links

36 Immortals – film about Armenian alphabet.
Armenotype - site about Armenian typeface design and typography.
Armenian Apostolic (Orthodox) Church Library Online (in English, Armenian, and Russian)

Information on Armenian character set encoding.
Armenian Phonetic Keyboard Layout

Phonetic Keyboard Layout for Eastern Armenian

Armenian Transliteration

Latin-Armenian Transliteration Converts Latin letters into Armenian and vice versa. Supports multiple transliteration tables and spell checking.
Transliteration schemes for the Armenian alphabet (transliteration.eki.ee)

Unicode Support for Armenian

Armenian Smart Converter Converts MS Word documents between ArmSCII and Unicode while conserving the formatting.
ArmUni.exe Freeware ArmSCII to Unicode converter (Windows only).
Unicode Character Code Chart for Armenian

Armenian Online Dictionaries

en.wiktionary.org Armenian<->English dictionary with pronunciations, etymologies and inflection tables.
www.translator.am/en/dictionary.html Armenian<->English Dictionary.
www.masis.am/test/dic/ Armenian<->English Dictionary, more than 17000 terms.
dictionary.hayastan.com Armenian<->English Dictionary, more than 9000 terms.
www.nayiri.com West Armenian Dictionary, more than 17600 terms.
Google Translate for Armenian language

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

The alphabet

Ligatures

Punctuation marks

Transliteration

History and development

Use of the Armenian alphabet for other languages

Unicode

ArmSCII-8

Arasan-compatible

Computer fonts

Keyboard layouts

Windows 2000/XP/2003

Linux

See also

External links