Middle Armenian

Middle Armenian
Cilician Armenian
RegionArmenian Highlands, Cilicia
Erac. 1100 - 1700 AD
developed into modern Armenian
Indo-European
  • Middle Armenian
Armenian alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3axm
Glottologmidd1364

Middle Armenian (Armenian: Միջին հայերէն or կիլիկեան հայերէն), also called Cilician Armenian (a term that may also refer to modern dialects), was the second phase of the Armenian language, spoken and written in between the 12th and 18th centuries, after Grabar (classical Armenian) and before Ashkharhabar (modern Armenian).

Classical Armenian was predominantly an inflecting and synthetic language; in Middle Armenian, agglutinative and analytical forms influenced the language. In this respect, Middle Armenian is a transition stage from Old to Modern Armenian.

Additions

The letter օ, based on the Greek letter o, was added during this period. It originally represented the IPA sound /o/ (close-mid back rounded vowel), which developed out of the Classical Armenian diphthong աւ /ɑw/. Today, in the Armenian alphabet, it represents IPA /ↄ/ (open-mid back rounded vowel) and is indistinguishable in most cases from ո. Therefore, in standard orthography, o is only written word-initially (using ո represents the cluster /vↄ/ initially).

The letter ֆ, based on the Greek letter φ, was added during this period. It represents the IPA sound /f/ (voiceless labiodental fricative), which is not a native phoneme in Armenian. However, it was prevalent in borrowed words, making it necessary to use a letter to write it. It is still used in the Armenian alphabet.

References

  1. ↑ Karst, Josef (1901). Historische Grammatik des Kilikisch-Armenischen (in German). E.J. Trübner.
  2. ↑ Melkonian, Zareh (1990). Գործնական Քերականութիւն - Արդի Հայերէն Լեզուի (Միջին եւ Բարձրագոյն Դասընթացք) (in Armenian) (Fourth ed.). Los Angeles. p. 137.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  3. ↑ History of the Armenian Language in the Pre-Written Period, Yerevan, 1987.
  4. ↑ H. Acharian, History of the Armenian Language, parts I-II
  5. ↑ Dum-Tragut, Jasmine (2009). Armenian: Modern Eastern Armenian. John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 18. ISBN 9789027238146. Retrieved 19 May 2021.