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A LOOK AT THE ARMENIAN LANGUAGE
Robert Lindsay
August 29, 2013 Thursday 8:10 PM EST
Aug 29, 2013 (Robert Lindsay:http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/)
A look at the Armenian language focusing on how hard it is to learn
for an English speaker.
An obscure branch of Indo-European, Armenian, is very hard to learn.
Armenian is a difficult language in terms of grammar and phonetics,
not to mention the very odd alphabet. The orthography is very regular,
however there are some irregularities. For instance:
Õ£O~@Õ¥Õ¬ , written grel but spoken gE~Yrel (schwa removed in
orthography)
ÕÕ¸Õ½Õ¥Õ¬, written xosel but spoken xosal (a changed to e in
orthography)
However, the alphabet itself presents many problems. Print and cursive
can be very different, and upper case and lower case can also be quite
different. Here are some pairs of letters in upper and lower case:
Ô± Õ¡ Õ... Õµ Õ" O~C All in all, this means you have to memorize as
many as four different shapes for each letter. However, the grammar
is very regular.
In addition, many letters very closely resemble other letters, which
makes it very easy to get them mixed up:
Õ£ and Õ¦ Õ¥ and Õ§ Õ¤ and Õ² Õ¸ and Õ¼
There are voiced consonants and an alternation between aspirated
and unaspirated unvoiced consonants, so some mix up the forms for b,
p and pÊ°, for instance. Nevertheless, there are many things about
the grammar that seem odd compared to other IE languages.
Part of the problem is that due to its location in the Caucasus,
Armenian has absorbed influences from some of the wild nearly Caucasian
languages. For instance, an extinct NE Caucasian Nakh language
called Tsov is thought to have contributed[2] to the Hurro-Ururtian
substratum in Armenian. So in a sense when you learn Armenian, you
are also learning a bit of Chechen at the same time.
Some think that Armenian is even harder to learn than Polish and is
on a par with Georgian.
Armenian is rated 5, hardest of all.
http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2013/08/29/a-look-at-the-armenian-language/#comments
Robert Lindsay
August 29, 2013 Thursday 8:10 PM EST
Aug 29, 2013 (Robert Lindsay:http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/)
A look at the Armenian language focusing on how hard it is to learn
for an English speaker.
An obscure branch of Indo-European, Armenian, is very hard to learn.
Armenian is a difficult language in terms of grammar and phonetics,
not to mention the very odd alphabet. The orthography is very regular,
however there are some irregularities. For instance:
Õ£O~@Õ¥Õ¬ , written grel but spoken gE~Yrel (schwa removed in
orthography)
ÕÕ¸Õ½Õ¥Õ¬, written xosel but spoken xosal (a changed to e in
orthography)
However, the alphabet itself presents many problems. Print and cursive
can be very different, and upper case and lower case can also be quite
different. Here are some pairs of letters in upper and lower case:
Ô± Õ¡ Õ... Õµ Õ" O~C All in all, this means you have to memorize as
many as four different shapes for each letter. However, the grammar
is very regular.
In addition, many letters very closely resemble other letters, which
makes it very easy to get them mixed up:
Õ£ and Õ¦ Õ¥ and Õ§ Õ¤ and Õ² Õ¸ and Õ¼
There are voiced consonants and an alternation between aspirated
and unaspirated unvoiced consonants, so some mix up the forms for b,
p and pÊ°, for instance. Nevertheless, there are many things about
the grammar that seem odd compared to other IE languages.
Part of the problem is that due to its location in the Caucasus,
Armenian has absorbed influences from some of the wild nearly Caucasian
languages. For instance, an extinct NE Caucasian Nakh language
called Tsov is thought to have contributed[2] to the Hurro-Ururtian
substratum in Armenian. So in a sense when you learn Armenian, you
are also learning a bit of Chechen at the same time.
Some think that Armenian is even harder to learn than Polish and is
on a par with Georgian.
Armenian is rated 5, hardest of all.
http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2013/08/29/a-look-at-the-armenian-language/#comments