| Cilician Armenian/Middle Armenian | |
|---|---|
| Region | Armenian Highlands, Cilicia |
| Era | developed into Armenian |
Indo-European
| |
Early form | Old Armenian |
| Armenian alphabet | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | axm |
axm | |
| Glottolog | None |
Cilician Armenian (Armenian: Կիլիկեան հայերէն or միջին հայերէն), also called Middle Armenian,[1] but the former term may be confused for modern dialects, corresponds to the second period in written Armenian with which numerous books were published between the 12th and 18th centuries. It comes after Grabar (Classical Armenian) and before Ashkharhabar (Modern Armenian).[2]
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 or ashkharabar. [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 were based on the Greek letters "ο" and "φ".
References
- ^ Karst, Josef (1901). Historische Grammatik des Kilikisch-Armenischen (in German). E.J. Trübner.
- ^ Melkonian, Zareh (1990). Գործնական Քերականութիւն - Արդի Հայերէն Լեզուի (Միջին եւ Բարձրագոյն Դասընթացք) (in Armenian) (Fourth ed.). Los Angeles. p. 137.
- ^ History of the Armenian Language in the Pre-Written Period, Yerevan, 1987.
- ^ H. Acharian, History of the Armenian Language, parts I-II,
External links
- Dictionary of Middle Armenian (Միջին Հայերենի Բառարան), Ruben Ghazarian, Yerevan, 2009.