Talk:Western Armenian

Re: linking IPA characters

This is in regards to the following revert: 23:17, 23 November 2006 Aeusoes1 (Talk | contribs) (→Consonants - please do not link IPA characters)

I think this really helps in distinguishing between the two dialects of Armenian, Western and Eastern, one of the chief differences being letter pronunciation. The nice thing about the IPA character articles are that they include a sound bite for each character, allowing someone to hear how each dialect sounds. The underlines aren't a big deal, as they are underlined only upon a mouse-over (i.e. they're normally not underlined). I think the help that the link brings overrides the minor inconvenience (if any) of an underline appearing.Serouj 01:27, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Just read the part on forcing a non-underline but maintaining the link. Added class="nounderlines" to keep the links.Serouj 01:46, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

You bring up a good point about the sound files, however all but two or three of the sounds in the chart exist in English. I'm reverting the linking edit because your version removes the IPA template, making certain characters appear as boxes on many browsers. If you want to add the IPA template to linked characters, I won't stop you. I just don't want to do the work myself for something I'm not a big fan of. I'm also reverting your vowel chart because it implies that the front rounded vowels are phonemes when they are not. The rounding is the result of Adjarian's law (the fronting of back vowels after voiced obstruents).

If you could check your source on the ten vowels and be more clear on what each letter represents that would be appreciated. I think that a chart with IPA and letters (as you've done in the consonants chart) would work pretty well. I'm pretty sure there are five mid vowels: long e, short e, long o, short o and schwa. I haven't really taken the time to find myself a source for this.

I can get kind of nitpicky when it comes to IPA. I really am glad someone is finally taking some attention to the Armenian language articles. They're sort of stub-like in comparison to other IE languages. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 13:55, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

"If you want to add the IPA template to linked characters, I won't stop you."

Will do, thanks.Serouj 20:08, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

"I'm also reverting your vowel chart because it implies that the front rounded vowels are phonemes when they are not. The rounding is the result of Adjarian's law (the fronting of back vowels after voiced obstruents)."

Can you elaborate on Adjarian's law? I think the vowel chart is nice to have, and I took the idea from the French phonology article. Serouj 20:08, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

"If you could check your source on the ten vowels and be more clear on what each letter represents that would be appreciated."

Absolutely. My next step was to provide examples, as in the "Oral vowels" section of that article. Let me quickly provide this here, before I do: i (ի); u (ու); Y (իւ); o (o, ո); ɑ (ա); ɛ (է, ե); œ (էօ); ə (ը).Serouj 20:08, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the changes in diction. Much appreciated.Serouj 20:08, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

The thing I don't like about that kind of vowel chart is that it implies that the vowels it shows are exactly at the cardinal vowel points when that's really not very likely. I might do something about changing the other pages that have them.

According to the notes that I've taken on The Phonology of Armenian (1998) by Bert Vaux (a book that I didn't finish reading), Adjarian's Law is the fronting of back vowels after voiced obstruents. Upon second look (and looking at your vowels) it looks like it means voiced obstruents from Classical Armenian. In many of the dialects that undergo Adjarian's Law, the original plain voiced series has become voiceless, merging with the original voiceless series. There's a comparison chart in my notes between Classical Armenian and the dialect of Van (WA):

Classical	Van	Gloss
bah	pœχ	spade
boɫk	pøχk	radish
bukʰ	pykʲʰ	snowstorm
garin	kʲøʁ	sheep
gund	kʲynd	heap
danak	tœnœk	knife
doɫal	tøʁal	tremble
durs	tys	outside
paɹaw	paɾav	old woman
port	puoɾt	navel

I'm not sure about the transcription of the rhotics in this table. I believe Vaux used <rr> and <r> as a convention and I'm not sure what his intention on the actual phonetic character of any rhotic was anymore.

The dialects that undergo Adjarian's law are Agulis(E), Karabagh(E), Maragha(E), Meghri(E), Salmast(Middle), Shamaxi(E), Shatax(Middle), Syria(W), Van(W), and Xoy(E). Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 22:47, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for those details. The "Western Armenian" dialect is based on the dialect of Istanbul, and developed during the mid 19th century. I don't think Adjarian's law applies to the Istanbul (Constantinople) dialect based on the list you gave above. I need to write a section on the history of the Western Armenian language (and the Armenian language in general, including Eastern Armenian) to make the points clear on dialects: particularly that what's known as Western Armenian today is based on the Istanbul dialect; and what is known as Eastern Armenian is based on the dialect of the Ararat district. (A great resource to this end that I have found is Vahe Oshagan's "Modern Armenian Literature and Intellectual History"

I'd like to re-instate the top vowel chart, now that we've got an Examples table for the vowels. I like what the French phonology article has done with it, and it's a concise way to present all the vowel sounds. Thanks.Serouj 23:23, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm curious as to how Western Armenian obtained front rounded vowels if not by Adjarian's law. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:47, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know as yet, but I'll definitely let you know after I read that article I was telling you about above (if it helps in this case).Serouj 07:08, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Some points

There's some great work here, but I think that the tables are starting to get too complicated simply to illustrate orthographic points that should probably be made in prose rather than on tables or on the Armenian alphabet page instead.

For example, in the table on monophthongs, /o/ has three examples. Rather than have a table to illustrate this, you could have prose that says something like: [o] is denoted by <օ>, <ո>, or <յ>. When between two consonants, <ո> represents [o], as in չոր [tʃoɾ] ("dry"); otherwise it represents [vo]. Only when <ոյ> occurs at the end of the word does it represent [o]. Otherwise it denotes the diphthong [uj].

I think we can take out the "similar to the English vowel in..." notes. If people aren't sure about the vowels, they can click on the links and said notes in the diphthongs seem to analyze english as having rising diphthongs.

On the consonants table, there are four notes connected to /v/ and three connected to /j/. Since this is about the consonants and not their letters, There should be just one note each.

Also, I just noticed that aspirated /pʰ/ has been changed to /p/ in the table. Is there a reason for that? Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:56, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I agree. There is too much data out there and it needs to be presented better.

For /pʰ/: is this the symbol used for the English "P" as in pear? (The Western Armenian is the same pronunciation,) (I don't agree that the p's are aspirated in Western Armenian, if they're not considered so for English...) Serouj 22:24, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, English P is /pʰ/. My source also says that it's aspirated in Western Armenian. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 22:50, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Got it. Will make the change: բ and փ to /pʰ/.

Is the English T as in take also aspirated? (Western Armenian would be the same.)

What of the k in cat? (Western Armenian would be the same.)

If yes, then I think /ts/ (ց and ձ) would follow, too.

Thank you for making the review.Serouj 23:11, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I found the following quote from the Voiceless bilabial plosive article interesting and applies to Armenian as well -

/p/ occurs at the beginning of a word or a stressed syllable, like in print, support, or potato, then it is always aspirated. When it occurs at the beginning of an unstressed syllable that isn't at the beginning of a word, like in occupant, vapid, or keeper, then it is always unaspirated.

Given this, I think it might be inaccurate to say that բ and փ /pʰ/ are always aspirated. I think leaving the IPA symbol as /p/ along with a footnote explaining when aspiration should occur might be a better way of doing it. Any thoughts? Serouj 23:19, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Ƶ§œš¹> "On the consonants table, there are four notes connected to /v/ and three connected to /j/. Since this is about the consonants and not their letters, There should be just one note each.

The notes are for the individual letters, since each letter's use for that particular consonant may depend on context. Where the note applies to all letters (e.g. for ռ and ր), we have one note.Serouj 23:24, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I understand that the notes are connected to the letters, but I think we can get the point across by combining the four notes into one and the three notes into one. Otherwise the columns get unnecessarily wide.

English P is subject to a bit of allophony but this isn't necessarily the case with Western Armenian. I distinctly recall reading an article on Western Armenian's unusual quality of having full contrastiveness in word-final laryngeal (voicing, aspiration, etc) settings. I've read in a couple places that WA contrasts its between aspirated and voiced stops and affricates and until we find something that says otherwise, we ought to keep that.

However, the resident phonologist at my university has made the claim that no language has binary aspiration/voicing pairing as described in WA and either the aspirated consonants aren't really aspirated or the voiced consonants aren't really voiced (the latter is true for English). I don't know anyone who speaks WA so I can't even conduct original research on the matter.

If you have a source that goes into detail on the allophony of WA /p(ʰ)/ then including that is fine, but don't extend a source's "like English X" to an assumption that the allophony or phonetic details are the same for the two languages. I'm fairly certain that they are not. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 23:41, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay. I put the aspiration in. I don't have a source other than original research (I speak WA); but I'll keep this research out until I can find a professor of linguistics to confirm. Thanks.Serouj 00:28, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Phonology of Eastern Armenian vs. Classical Armenian

It seems Classical Armenian phonology may not have had ejective stops and affricates at all. Hence, Classical and Eastern Armenian phonology are not exactly the same, even though they have 3 forms for stops and affricates. Specifically, the ejective sounds (i.e. պ, կ, տ, ծ, ճ) in Eastern Armenian were simple unaspirated voiceless sounds in Classical. (see Classical Armenian Online (The University of Texas at Austin)). I think this makes sense, since ejectives are popular in languages in the trans-Caucasus, and may have been picked up by Eastern Armenian speakers over the centuries. (This would also require changes to the traditional Armenian orthography article.) Serouj 02:52, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

In the coming weeks, I'll check my source out for that. That sounds right to me, though. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 03:11, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

իւ

I am not very familiar with IPA, but իւ and the vowel u in the word pure sound the same to me. Serouj, if it doesn't exist in English, then use a French word. Let's not leave it blank. Hakob (talk) 20:23, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I added a French word that has a similar pronounciation. The u in "pure" is a little different than the way իւ is pronounced I find. - Fedayee (talk) 20:40, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Hakob, there is a distinction between իւ (ʏ) and յու (ju) in standard Eastern and Western Armenian. In ROA Eastern Armenian there exists no (ʏ). (Thank the Russians and some misguided Armenian linguists for that.) In ROA Armenian, իւ was destroyed and replaced with յու. "Pure" is a good example for (ju) so I am adding that as an example. The (ʏ) sound doesn't exist in English. You can look at the Wikipedia article for that sound for some hints (there's a recording of the sound). Fedayee, the sound bite might help you find the right letter. Serouj (talk) 22:30, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. It's just that when I pronounce the letter փիւր it sounds almost the same as pure. But now that you mention it, there does seem to be a small difference. I'm surprised this was the first discussion initiated on this talk page since 2006. If we complete Serouj's to-do list, perhaps this can become a featured article. Serouj, for point 5 on the to-do list, what Oshagan article are you talking about? By the way, the article is in need of some images. Should I scan the covers of some Yervant Odian and Hagop Baronian books and up them? They're the names that come quickly to mind when I think of Western Armenian. Hakob (talk) 23:13, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Alright, I put in as example for (ʏ) the French word for municipality since it's given as an example in the Near-close_near-front_rounded_vowel article. As for pure corresponding to քոյր, that's totally not it. Pure would be a good example for յու and not իւ. Here's a pronounciation of the word rouille [1], what do you think? - Fedayee (talk) 23:16, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh! My bad on "pure"... You're right! "pure" is good for (ju) not (ʏ).Serouj (talk) 01:10, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

The "rouille" word isn't completely clear to me. I think we might be able to find a good English word (for [uj] -- ոյ) if we think hard enough... Serouj (talk) 01:11, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Hakob, see above for the Oshagan article I'm referring to. I think that a few well-placed images are a good idea, but I think we should prioritize on content first. I think the History section is the first priority, followed by a complete re-write of the Morphology section. (The book referenced on the article is great for Morphology.) Serouj (talk) 01:17, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Should Western Armenian verb table be merged into this article? Hakob (talk) 05:31, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, though it should probably be written in the Armenian orthography possibly with IPA. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 05:33, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

For a lack of an English example for uj, I have added the French example given here (grenouille - frog). - Fedayee (talk) 00:53, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Armenian transliteration

Shouldn't we have the actual Armenian in the article and then have the transliterated text after it rather than just the transliterated text? It detracts from the actual meaning of the language (in my opinion at least).

Example:

	սիրել (sirel) 'to love'	խօսիլ (khôsil) 'to speak'	կարդալ (gartal) 'to read'
ես (yes) (I)	սիրեմ (sirem)	խօսիմ (khôsim)	կարդամ (gartam)
դուն (tun) (you.sg)	սիրես (sires)	խօսիս (khôsis)	կարդաս (gartas)
ան (an) (he/she/it)	սիրէ (sirê)	խօսի (khôsi)	կարդայ (garta)
մենք (menk)' (we)	սիրենք (sirenk')	խօսինք (khôsink')	կարդանք (gartank')
դուք (tuk)' (you.pl)	սիրէք (sirêk')	խօսիք (khôsik')	կարդաք (gartak')
անոնք (anonk)' (they)	սիրեն (siren)	խօսին (khôsin)	կարդան (gartan)

104.35.122.56 (talk) 06:40, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Number of speakers

Hello all,

I would like to discuss the number of speakers listed on this page. With roughly 11 millions Armenians around the world, and roughly 4.5 million speaking Eastern Armenian, I don't believe it to be a stretch to believe 5 to 6 million speak Western Armenian. Compared to other diasporan communities, Armenians have retained their language quite well. There are no official numbers on this fact, but simple mathematics would allow us to discern 800,000 is ridiculously low. Even if one takes the Armenian populations of Syria (100,000) and France (750,000), that already give us 850,000 Western Armenian speakers. Canada holds another 100,000 with the overwhelming majority being Western Armenian speakers - the same can be said of New York's 150,000, Buenos Aires' 80,000, Beirut's 80,000, Detroit's 60,000, Chicago's 35,000, Sydney's 40,000, and Sao Paulo's 20,000. These are only the most populated Armenian areas I am listing. Even in these area alone there are ~1,415,000 Western Armenian speakers. This number itself is much lower than the total number of speakers, but even this number shows 800,000 is strikingly low. Please let me know your thoughts. HyeSK (talk) 09:55, 8 August 2016 (UTC)HyeSK

"Armenians have retained their language quite well" Your anecdotal observations don't count as fact. You have to prove that all of, say, Detroit's 60,000 speak Armenian, let alone Western Armenian. Your entire paragraph is based solely on assumptions. --Երևանցի ^talk 23:14, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Yerevantsi, I am getting tired of your asinine comments. My point is the populations around the world are large and 800,000 is not a fair figure. Where did I write all of those number spoke the language? Maybe when you stop acting with an agenda, I will give you the time of day. Until then, I won't. I don't understand your problem with a dialect of Armenian. The difference between you and I is that I observe factual information and don't ignore it to mislead people. HyeSK (talk) 10:30, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Cite reliable sources or leave. This is not a forum nor is it a place for baseless speculations. --Երևանցի ^talk 07:59, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Who died and gave you the crown of Wikipedia? You're a nobody. HyeSK (talk) 16:08, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Wow. You've really got a solid argument. --Երևանցի ^talk 17:05, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Western Armenian is distinct from Eastern Armenian

And ISO 639 code has been issued for Western Armenian

http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/cr_files/639-3_ChangeRequests_2017_Summary.pdf

http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/cr_files/PastComments/CR_Comments_2017-023.pdf

-- Evertype·✆ 22:34, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Eastern vs Western difference

I thought the article had this already... but we need a table of comparison between Eastern and Western variety for people like me who dont know much about the language, that is, for anyone... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.114.173.209 (talk) 21:01, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Standardised form?

In the lede it says that Western Armenian is "one of the two standardized forms of Modern Armenian". Is it really the case that Western Armenian is standardised in any sense? Like, is there some kind of institution (like the Académie Française for French) that regulates the Western variety of Armenian? If not, in what sense is it standardised? (The article on Eastern Armenian says the same thing, by the way) Bambi'nin annesi (talk) 19:30, 2 August 2021 (UTC)