Middle Armenian

Middle Armenian (Armenian: Միջին հայերէն or կիլիկեան հայերէն), also called Cilician Armenian (although this may be confused to refer to modern dialects),[1] corresponds to the second period of Armenian which was spoken and written in between the 12th and 18th centuries. It comes after Grabar (Classical Armenian) and before Ashxarhabar (Modern Armenian).[2]

Middle Armenian (Cicilian Armenian)
RegionArmenian Highlands, Cilicia
Erac. 1100 - 1700 AD
Indo-European
  • Middle Armenian (Cicilian Armenian)
Armenian alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3axm
axm
GlottologNone
History of the Armenian language
Armenian alphabet
Romanization of Armenian

Classical Armenian was predominantly an inflecting and synthetic language, but in Middle Armenian, during the period of Modern Armenian influence, agglutinative and analytical forms influenced the language.[3] In this respect, Middle Armenian is a transition stage from Old Armenian to Modern Armenian (Ashxarhabar). [4] Middle Armenian is notable for being the first written form of Armenian to display Western-type voicing qualities and to have introduced the letters օ and ֆ, which was based on the Greek letters "o" and "φ".

Additions

The letter օ, based on the Greek letter o, was added during this period. It represents the IPA sound /ↄ/ (open-mid back rounded vowel). Although this is a native phoneme in Armenian, the sound that would usually represent it, ո, only says it in medial and final positions. Initially, ո represents /vↄ/. Therefore, this letter was invented to only be used in initial positions to represent the sound /ↄ/ itself. It is still used today in the Armenian alphabet.

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 today in the Armenian alphabet.[5]

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.
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