The language spoken by nearly 6 million people in Armenia, Turkey, Iran, Europe (especially Romania, Bulgaria, and France), and the United States, constituting a branch of the Indo-European family of languages.

Invaders from the north introduced Armenian into Transcaucasia, probably in the latter part of the 2nd millennium BC. The invaders occupied the eastern region of Anatolia near the shores of Lake Van, which is now in Turkey. By the 7th century BC, the language replaced the native languages there.

The Armenian language began to be written down in the early 5th century AD and an alphabet of 36 characters was invented. The same alphabet is still used by Armenians throughout the world, with the addition of two letters.

Two varieties of the Armenian language now prevail. East Armenian is now the official language of Armenia and is based on the dialect spoken around Mount Ararat and the Armenian city of Yerevan. West Armenian has its foundation in the dialect spoken around Istanbul. The differences between these two written forms of Modern Armenian are slight and do not constitute any barrier to mutual intelligibility.

The Armenian script is used primarily to write the Armenian language. The script is written left-to-right and generally does not use diacritics. It does have uppercase/lowercase pairs.

In modern Armenian typography, the small marks in the group called Armenian modifier letters are places above and to the right of other letters so that they occupy a letter position of their own. There appears to be no recorded usage of U+0559  ՙ  Armenian modifier letter left half ring in Armenian text; its presence in this block is thus probably spurious.


Unicode's Armenian code block reserves the 96 code points from U+0530 to U+058F, of which 86 are currently assigned.

Cyrillic Supplement <-- Armenian --> Hebrew

Number of characters added in each version of the Unicode standard :
Unicode 1.1 : 85
Unicode 3.0 : 1

Number of characters in each General Category :

Letter, Uppercase   Lu : 38
Letter, Lowercase   Ll : 39
Letter, Modifier    Lm :  1
Punctuation, Dash   Pd :  1
Punctuation, Other  Po :  7

Number of characters in each Bidirectional Category :

Left To Right    L : 85
Other Neutral   ON :  1

The columns below should be interpreted as :

  1. The Unicode code for the character
  2. The character in question
  3. The Unicode name for the character
  4. The Unicode General Category for the character
  5. The Unicode Bidirectional Category for the character
  6. The Unicode version when this character was added

If the characters below show up poorly, or not at all, see Unicode Support for possible solutions.

 

Armenian

     Uppercase letters

U+0531   Ա   Armenian capital letter ayb Lu L 1.1
U+0532   Բ   Armenian capital letter ben Lu L 1.1
U+0533   Գ   Armenian capital letter gim Lu L 1.1
U+0534   Դ   Armenian capital letter da Lu L 1.1
U+0535   Ե   Armenian capital letter ech Lu L 1.1
U+0536   Զ   Armenian capital letter za Lu L 1.1
U+0537   Է   Armenian capital letter eh Lu L 1.1
U+0538   Ը   Armenian capital letter et Lu L 1.1
U+0539   Թ   Armenian capital letter to Lu L 1.1
U+053A   Ժ   Armenian capital letter zhe Lu L 1.1
U+053B   Ի   Armenian capital letter ini Lu L 1.1
U+053C   Լ   Armenian capital letter liwn Lu L 1.1
U+053D   Խ   Armenian capital letter xeh Lu L 1.1
U+053E   Ծ   Armenian capital letter ca Lu L 1.1
U+053F   Կ   Armenian capital letter ken Lu L 1.1
U+0540   Հ   Armenian capital letter ho Lu L 1.1
U+0541   Ձ   Armenian capital letter ja Lu L 1.1
U+0542   Ղ   Armenian capital letter ghad Lu L 1.1
U+0543   Ճ   Armenian capital letter cheh Lu L 1.1
U+0544   Մ   Armenian capital letter men Lu L 1.1
U+0545   Յ   Armenian capital letter Yi Lu L 1.1
U+0546   Ն   Armenian capital letter now Lu L 1.1
U+0547   Շ   Armenian capital letter sha Lu L 1.1
U+0548   Ո   Armenian capital letter vo Lu L 1.1
U+0549   Չ   Armenian capital letter cha Lu L 1.1
U+054A   Պ   Armenian capital letter peh Lu L 1.1
U+054B   Ջ   Armenian capital letter jheh Lu L 1.1
U+054C   Ռ   Armenian capital letter ra Lu L 1.1
U+054D   Ս   Armenian capital letter seh Lu L 1.1
U+054E   Վ   Armenian capital letter vew Lu L 1.1
U+054F   Տ   Armenian capital letter tiwn Lu L 1.1
U+0550   Ր   Armenian capital letter reh Lu L 1.1
U+0551   Ց   Armenian capital letter co Lu L 1.1
U+0552   Ւ   Armenian capital letter yiwn Lu L 1.1
U+0553   Փ   Armenian capital letter piwr Lu L 1.1
U+0554   Ք   Armenian capital letter keh Lu L 1.1
U+0555   Օ   Armenian capital letter oh Lu L 1.1
U+0556   Ֆ   Armenian capital letter feh Lu L 1.1

     Modifier letters

U+0559   ՙ   Armenian modifier letter left half ring Lm L 1.1
ref U+02BD   ʽ   modifier letter reversed comma (Spacing Modifier Letters)
ref U+02BF   ʿ   modifier letter left half ring (Spacing Modifier Letters)
ref U+0314   ̔   combining reversed comma above (Combining Diacritical Marks)
U+055A   ՚   Armenian apostrophe Po L 1.1
aka Armenian modifier letter right half ring (1.0)
ref U+02BC   ʼ   modifier letter apostrophe (Spacing Modifier Letters)
ref U+02BE   ʾ   modifier letter right half ring (Spacing Modifier Letters)
ref U+0313   ̓   combining comma above (Combining Diacritical Marks)
U+055B   ՛   Armenian emphasis mark Po L 1.1
aka shesht
ref U+02CA   ˊ   modifier letter acute accent (Spacing Modifier Letters)
U+055C   ՜   Armenian exclamation mark Po L 1.1
aka batsaganchakan nshan
U+055D   ՝   Armenian comma Po L 1.1
aka bowt
ref U+02CB   ˋ   modifier letter grave accent (Spacing Modifier Letters)
U+055E   ՞   Armenian question mark Po L 1.1
aka hartsakan nshan
U+055F   ՟   Armenian abbreviation mark Po L 1.1
aka patiw

     Lowercase letters

U+0561   ա   Armenian small letter ayb Ll L 1.1
U+0562   բ   Armenian small letter ben Ll L 1.1
U+0563   գ   Armenian small letter gim Ll L 1.1
U+0564   դ   Armenian small letter da Ll L 1.1
U+0565   ե   Armenian small letter ech Ll L 1.1
U+0566   զ   Armenian small letter za Ll L 1.1
U+0567   է   Armenian small letter eh Ll L 1.1
U+0568   ը   Armenian small letter et Ll L 1.1
U+0569   թ   Armenian small letter to Ll L 1.1
U+056A   ժ   Armenian small letter zhe Ll L 1.1
U+056B   ի   Armenian small letter ini Ll L 1.1
U+056C   լ   Armenian small letter liwn Ll L 1.1
U+056D   խ   Armenian small letter xeh Ll L 1.1
U+056E   ծ   Armenian small letter ca Ll L 1.1
U+056F   կ   Armenian small letter ken Ll L 1.1
U+0570   հ   Armenian small letter ho Ll L 1.1
U+0571   ձ   Armenian small letter ja Ll L 1.1
U+0572   ղ   Armenian small letter ghad Ll L 1.1
U+0573   ճ   Armenian small letter cheh Ll L 1.1
U+0574   մ   Armenian small letter men Ll L 1.1
U+0575   յ   Armenian small letter Yi Ll L 1.1
U+0576   ն   Armenian small letter now Ll L 1.1
U+0577   շ   Armenian small letter sha Ll L 1.1
U+0578   ո   Armenian small letter vo Ll L 1.1
U+0579   չ   Armenian small letter cha Ll L 1.1
U+057A   պ   Armenian small letter peh Ll L 1.1
U+057B   ջ   Armenian small letter jheh Ll L 1.1
U+057C   ռ   Armenian small letter ra Ll L 1.1
U+057D   ս   Armenian small letter seh Ll L 1.1
U+057E   վ   Armenian small letter vew Ll L 1.1
U+057F   տ   Armenian small letter tiwn Ll L 1.1
U+0580   ր   Armenian small letter reh Ll L 1.1
U+0581   ց   Armenian small letter co Ll L 1.1
U+0582   ւ   Armenian small letter yiwn Ll L 1.1
U+0583   փ   Armenian small letter piwr Ll L 1.1
U+0584   ք   Armenian small letter keh Ll L 1.1
U+0585   օ   Armenian small letter oh Ll L 1.1
U+0586   ֆ   Armenian small letter feh Ll L 1.1
U+0587   և   Armenian small ligature ech yiwn Ll L 1.1

     Punctuation

U+0589   ։   Armenian full stop Po L 1.1
aka vertsaket
* may also be used for Georgian
ref U+003A   :   colon (Basic Latin)
U+058A   ֊   Armenian hyphen Pd ON 3.0
aka yentamna

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Ar*me"ni*an (#), a. [Cf. F. Arm'enien, L. Armenias, fr. Armenia.]

Of or pertaining to Armenia.

Armenian bole, a soft clayey earth of a bright red color found in Armenia, Tuscany, etc. -- Armenian stone. (a) The commercial name of lapis lazuli. (b) Emery.

 

© Webster 1913.


Ar*me"ni*an, n.

1.

A native or one of the people of Armenia; also, the language of the Armenians.

2. Eccl. Hist.

An adherent of the Armenian Church, an organization similar in some doctrines and practices to the Greek Church, in others to the Roman Catholic.

 

© Webster 1913.

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