Updated 6 June, 2023
This page brings together basic information about the Armenian script and its use for the Armenian language. It aims to provide a brief, descriptive summary of the modern, printed orthography and typographic features, and to advise how to write Armenian using Unicode. The transcriptions reflect Eastern Armenian usage, unless otherwise noted
Հոդված 1 Բոլոր մարդիկ ծնվում են ազատ ու հավասար իրենց արժանապատվությամբ ու իրավունքներով։ Նրանք ունեն բանականություն ու խիղճ և միմյանց պետք է եղբայրաբար վերաբերվեն։
Հոդված 2 Ամեն ոք ունի այս Հռչակագրում բերված բոլոր իրավունքներն ու ազատությունները առանց որևէ խտրության՝ հիմնված ցեղային, մաշկի գույնի, սեռի, լեզվի, կրոնի, քաղաքական կամ այլ համոզմունքների, ազգային կամ սոցիալական ծագման, ունեցվածքի, դասային պատկանելության կամ որևէ այլ կարգավիճակի վրա։ Ավելին, ոչ մի խտրականություն չպետք է լինի հիմնված երկրի կամ տարածքի, քաղաքական, իրավական, կամ միջազգային կարգավիճակի վրա, լինի դա անկախ, խնամարկյալ, ոչինքնակառավարվող կամ ինքնիշխանության որևէ այլ սահմանափակումով պետական կազմավորում, որին պատկանում է մարդը։
The Armenian script is used widely by Armenians to write the Armenian language. Over time, some differences of pronunciation have developed for some letters in the Eastern and Western Armenian communities.
Հայոց գրեր ḥayɔʦʰ grer (Hayoc' grer) Armenian letters Հայոց այբուբեն ḥayɔʦʰ aybɔwben haˈjotsʰ ajbuˈbɛn Armenian alphabet
The Armenian alphabet was created around 405AD by Mesrop Mashtots. Transcription of the Bible and missionary activity was a key driver to the invention. A large body of early Armenian literature exists.
Soviet reforms in the early 20th century led to two distinct orthographic conventions. Broadly speaking, Mesropian (Western) orthography is used throughout the Armenian diaspora (which makes up the majority of Armenian speakers), and the Reformed (Eastern) orthography is used within Armenia.
Sources: Scriptsource, Wikipedia.
Armenian is an alphabet. This means that it is phonetic in nature, where each letter represents a basic sound. See the table to the right for a brief overview of features for the modern Armenian language.
Here we focus on the pronunciation and orthography of the Eastern variant of Armenian, which is used in Armenia, even though the majority of Armenian speakers use the Western orthography of the diaspora.
Armenian text runs left-to-right in horizontal lines.
Words are separated by spaces.
The script is bicameral. The shapes of the upper and lowercase forms can differ significantly. ❯ transforms
Modern Armenian has 31 consonant letters. Pronunciations of many of the consonants vary between eastern and western variants of Armenian. ❯ consonants
Some consonants create ligatures when they appear together. ❯ ligatures
Armenian is an alphabet where vowels are generally written using simple letters. No combining marks are used. However, it is not fully alphabetic because the sound ə is unwritten between consonants. A few letters also have special pronunciation when word-initial. ❯ vowels
The sound u is written as a digraph. ❯ digraph_u
Armenian has 7 bicameral vowel letters (so 14 in total) and one more that is only lower case.
Letters were traditionally used to represent numbers, but modern texts usually use ASCII digits.
Armenian uses 3 tonal punctuation marks to indicate questions, exclamations and emphasis. These are spacing modifier characters, but they are positioned over base letters much like combining marks. ❯ tonalpunctuation
These are sound of the Eastern variant of Armenian.
Click on the sounds to reveal locations in this document where they are mentioned.
Phones in a lighter colour are non-native or allophones. Source Wikipedia.
A notable feature of the Eastern phonology is the 3-way split of the plosive sounds: unvoiced, voiced, and aspirated.j The Western phonology generally maps letters to just voiced and aspirated sounds. For example, the following (simplified) mappings for the bilabial plosives show the pattern for all plosive and affricate letters:
Eastern: պ p բ b փ pʰ
Western: պ b բ pʰ փ pʰ
Armenian is not a tonal language.
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Click on the characters to find where they are mentioned in this page.
The Armenian alphabet has 31 consonants and 8 vowels (one of which is a digraph). Each has upper and lowercase forms; shown above and below, respectively.
In the table, 'standalone' groups the characters that have special pronunciations when word initial.
Basic: | ||
---|---|---|
Standalone: |
For additional details see vowel_mappings.
The list below shows the 7 simple vowel letters with an upper and lower case form each, but see also ech_yiwn and digraph_u. Where two pronunciations are given, click on the character for more information.
The letter ը [U+0568 ARMENIAN SMALL LETTER ET] is generally used only at the start or end of a word, and so the sound ə is unwritten between consonants.d
ազդր
օ [U+0585 ARMENIAN SMALL LETTER OH] and its uppercase form are only used in classical orthography, word-initially and in some compound words.d
և [U+0587 ARMENIAN SMALL LIGATURE ECH YIWN] is a ligature that has no single-character uppercase form. It wasn't used prior to the Soviet reform, and is treated differently in the western and eastern orthographies.
Outside Armenia it is not used as frequently, and the lowercase form may often be represented instead by the 2 distinct letters եւ [U+0565 ARMENIAN SMALL LETTER ECH + U+0582 ARMENIAN SMALL LETTER YIWN].
In the eastern orthography (Armenia and those Armenians from the former Soviet Union) it capitalises as Եվ [U+0535 ARMENIAN CAPITAL LETTER ECH + U+057E ARMENIAN SMALL LETTER VEW],a eg. Եվրոպա
In the western orthography (and eastern Armenian speakers in Iran), it capitalises as Եւ [U+0535 ARMENIAN CAPITAL LETTER ECH + U+0582 ARMENIAN SMALL LETTER YIWN],a eg. Եւրոպա
The sound u is written using the two letters ու [U+0578 ARMENIAN SMALL LETTER VO + U+0582 ARMENIAN SMALL LETTER YIWN]. In the classical orthography, this was considered a digraph, but in the modern orthography it is a letter of the alphabet.
Vowel length is not marked.
Nasalisation is not marked.
Standalone vowels are written using ordinary vowel letters and no special arrangements.
ականջArmenian is not a tonal language.
This section maps Armenian vowel sounds to common graphemes in the Armenian orthography.
Click on a grapheme to find other mentions on this page (links appear at the bottom of the page). Click on the character name to see examples and for detailed descriptions of the character(s) shown.
Lowercase graphemes are shown to the left, and uppercase on the right.
part of և [U+0587 ARMENIAN SMALL LIGATURE ECH YIWN] ev, pronounced jev when word-initial or standalone.
արև
Եվ U+0535 ARMENIAN CAPITAL LETTER ECH + U+057E ARMENIAN SMALL LETTER VEW titlecase in Eastern orthography.
Եւ U+0535 ARMENIAN CAPITAL LETTER ECH + U+0582 ARMENIAN SMALL LETTER YIWN titlecase in Western orthography.
օ
U+0585 ARMENIAN SMALL LETTER OH in classical orthography, word-initially and in some compound words.
օձ
0565, pronounced jɛ word-initially or as a standalone.
տերեւ
0567
էակ
0535
0537
0578, pronounced ʋɔ word-initially or as a standalone.
պոզ
0548
0561
ատամ
0531
A few contextual and allophonic alternatives are not shown here.
All: | ||
---|---|---|
For additional details see consonant_mappings.
The Armenian block has 31 consonant letters, each of which has an upper- and lowercase form.
Pronunciations of many of the consonants vary between eastern and western variants of Armenian.
ց [U+0581 ARMENIAN SMALL LETTER CO] and its uppercase form are only used in classical orthography, word-initially and in some compound words.d
In reformed orthography, the letter ւ [U+0582 ARMENIAN SMALL LETTER YIWN] appears only as a component of ու.d
A number of letter pairs can create ligated forms. They include the following, of which the first is the most common.
These forms can also be written using code points in the Alphabetic Presentation Forms block, with compatibility decompositions to the relevant consonant pairs. As a general rule, however, code points in the Armenian block should be used rather than those in the Presentation Forms blocks. The font should still produce the ligations when the relevant letters appear side by side.
No special mechanisms.
No special mechanisms.
No special mechanisms.
No special mechanisms are used to indicate clusters of consonants. However, not all sequences of consonant letters are pronounced without intervening vowels, since the word-medial ə is not written.
ազդր
No special mechanisms.
The following maps consonant sounds to common graphemes in the Armenian orthography. Click on the Unicode names to see examples. Graphemes are grouped by lowercase ( l ) or uppercase ( u ).
057A
պարան
054A
0562
բերան
0532
0583
փայտ
057A sometimes after a silibant.
ապստամբել
0562 in certain circumstances, such as medial/final letters following a rhotic, a nasal, a vowel, etc.
սրբել
0553
054A
0532
057F
տաք
054F
0564
դեղին
0534
0569
թեւ
0564 in certain circumstances, such as medial/final letters following a rhotic, a nasal, a vowel, etc.
մարդ
0539
0534
056F
կրակ
053F
0584
թեւ
0563 in western Armenian as the default, and in eastern Armenian, in certain circumstances, such as medial/final letters following a rhotic, a nasal, a vowel, etc.
0554
0533
0563 in eastern Armenian.
գետ
0533
056E
ծով
053E
0571
ձու
0541
0581
ցուրտ
0571 as the default in western Armenian, and in certain circumstances in eastern Armenian, such as medial/final letters following a rhotic, a nasal, a vowel, etc.
0551
0541
0573
ճիշտ
0543
057B
ջուր
054B
0579 in eastern Armenian.
չորս
057B by default in western Armenian, and in certain circumstances in eastern Armenian, such as medial/final letters following a rhotic, a nasal, a vowel, etc.
վերջին
0549
054B
0586
ֆոլգա
0556
057E
վիզ
0582
սեւ
part of 0587 ev, pronounced jev when word-initial or standalone.
սեւ
054E
0552
0578 word-initially or as a standalone.
որոշ
0548
057D
սիրտ
054D
0566
մազ
0536
0577
մշուշ
0547
056A
բաժանել
053A
056D
խոտ
053D
0572
ուղիղ
0542
0570
հուր
0540
0574
մեկ
0576 alongside a coarticulated stop.
0544
0546
0576
նոր
0546
0576 alongside a coarticulated stop.
մենք
0546
057C
մառախուղ
054C
0580
արև
0550
056C
լավ
053C
0575
մայր
part of 0565 vowel pronounced jɛ when used word-initially or as a standalone.
երկու
part of 0587 vowel pronounced jɛ vowel pronounced jev when word-initial or standalone.
նաև
0545
0535
֍ [U+058D RIGHT-FACING ARMENIAN ETERNITY SIGN] and ֎ [U+058E LEFT-FACING ARMENIAN ETERNITY SIGN] are widespread architectural motifs, and an ancient national symbol of Armenia. The actual representation of the symbol can vary, but it generally has the same swirling effect, and typically 8 segments.e
This section offers advice about characters or character sequences to avoid, and what to use instead. It takes into account the relevance of Unicode Normalisation Form D (NFD) and Unicode Normalisation Form C (NFC)..
The characters on the left are deprecated by the Unicode Standard (the second was an encoding error). The characters on the right are recommended for use instead. See deprecated_punctuation.
Do NOT use | Recommended |
---|---|
՚ [U+055A ARMENIAN APOSTROPHE] | ’ [U+2019 RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK] |
ՙ [U+0559 ARMENIAN MODIFIER LETTER LEFT HALF RING] | ʻ [U+02BB MODIFIER LETTER TURNED COMMA] |
The following precomposed ligated forms are included in the Unicode Standard for compatibility with legacy code pages. The Standard recommends use of the standard characters instead. The font should provide the necessary ligation.
Given that Armenian doesn't use combining marks, there is nothing to say here. Character sequences just follow the pronounced order.
Modern Armenian uses European numeral digits. In the past, however, letters were assigned numeric values. This numbering system still persists in counter styles (see lists).
Observation: The ASCII hyphen appears to be used for ordinal numbers in dates, eg. նոյեմբերի 20-ին: On November 20
֏ [U+058F ARMENIAN DRAM SIGN] was introduced in 1995 for the new, post-independence currency.wd
Armenian text runs left to right in horizontal lines.
Show default bidi_class
properties for characters in the Armenian language.
This section brings together information about the following topics: writing styles; cursive text; context-based shaping; context-based positioning; baselines, line height, etc.; font styles; case & other character transforms.
You can experiment with examples using the Armenian character app.
Armenian text is not cursive (ie. joined up like Arabic), and the script has little contextual variation.
As mentioned in ligatures, when text occurs in manuscripts fonts may commonly cause the following pairs of letters to ligate.
The tonal punctuation marks described in tonalmarks and emphasis are not combining characters, but should nevertheless be positioned above the vowel they are associated with.
Due to print capabilities, it has become common to see those over a gap to the side of the letter, or as a half-spacing letter instead, however nowadays font rules can be used to achieve the overlapping effect in digital applications.
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Armenian is bicameral, and applications may need to enable transforms to allow the user to switch between cases.
The shapes of the upper and lowercase forms can differ significantly.
This section is still undergoing research and development.
Grapheme clusters correspond to code points, and are used as typographic units for cursor movement. However, in-word line breaking may keep digraphs and ligated sequences together.
Base | Modifier
Grapheme clusters can be used to segment Armenian words.
Armenian has no combining characters, but does use modifier characters for emphasis, exclamation and question marks. Those modifiers are usually positioned above a base character, but are not combining marks. The grapheme cluster definition treats each code point as a single character unit.
The following words show a variety of grapheme clusters. The 2nd and 4th contain digraphs. The 3rd contains a modifier question mark. The 4th ends with a ligated pair.
Click on the text version of these words to see more detail about the composition.
![]() | բերան |
![]() | սուր |
![]() |
հնարավո՞ր |
![]() |
ուրեմն |
The following may be treated as single units for word-internal line-breaking:
Test in your browser. The words test units that equate to grapheme clusters only, and others that include conjuncts. First, the text is displayed in a contenteditable paragraph, then in a textarea. Results are reported for Gecko (Firefox), Blink (Chrome), and WebKit (Safari) on a Mac.
բերան սուր հնարավո՞ր ուրեմն
Cursor movement. Move the cursor through the text.
Gecko, Blink, and WebKit browsers step through the text one code point at a time, which is equivalent to using grapheme clusters. It takes 2 steps to get past a letter with a modifier above. The movement is not affected by digraphs or ligatures.
Selection. Place the cursor next to a character and hold down shift while pressing an arrow key.
The behaviour is the same as for cursor movement.
Deletion. Forward deletion works in the same way as cursor movement. The backspace key deletes code point by code point, for all browsers.
Line-break. See this test. The CSS sets the value of the line-break
property to anywhere
. Change the size of the box to slowly move the line break point.
When the Gecko engine breaks a line it does not separate the components of the u digraph, nor the ligated forms. They do, however, wrap a modifier to the beginning of a line. Blink and WebKit don't keep digraphs and ligated forms together, but they wrap modifiers with their base letter.
Double-click. Double-click the mouse inside each word.
Blink and WebKit browsers will highlight a whole word in each case. Gecko, however, doesn't highlight a whole word containing a modifier – the selection needs to be manually extended to include the whole word.
Words are separated by spaces.
As a word-joining hyphen (miowt‛jan gic) Armenian uses - [U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS] or ‐ [U+2010 HYPHEN].
Armenian uses a mixture of ASCII and Armenian punctuation.
phrase | , [U+002C COMMA] |
---|---|
sentence |
. [U+002E FULL STOP] |
՝ [U+055D ARMENIAN COMMA] is used more like the English colon, and ․ [U+2024 ONE DOT LEADER] functions like a semi-colon.
Napoleon read the works of Corneille, Racine and Voltaire, and his favorite poet was Ossian.
Expression error: unrecognized word: "etal".
Armenian indicates questions, exclamations and emphasis by associating a modifier with a vowel in a sentence, rather than by using sentence-final punctuation.
՞ [U+055E ARMENIAN QUESTION MARK] is used for question, and is placed above and slightly to the right of the last vowel of the question word (usually the stressed vowel), rather than at the end of the sentence
Is it possible to combine family and politics?
՜ [U+055C ARMENIAN EXCLAMATION MARK] is used rather than an exclamation mark.
The modifier marks should appear above and slightly to the right of the vowel being modified, however, due to mechanical difficulties in printing, fonts often put the modifier alongside the vowel instead.
Armenian commonly uses ASCII parentheses to insert parenthetical information into text.
start | end | |
---|---|---|
standard | ( [U+0028 LEFT PARENTHESIS] |
) [U+0029 RIGHT PARENTHESIS] |
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (June 7, 1848 – May 8, 1903) was a world-renowned French Impressionist painter.
Armenian uses « [U+00AB LEFT-POINTING DOUBLE ANGLE QUOTATION MARK] and » [U+00BB RIGHT-POINTING DOUBLE ANGLE QUOTATION MARK] for quote marks. ASCII quotation marks are sometimes used, but as they resemble other Armenian characters, their use is discouraged.ws
start | end | |
---|---|---|
initial |
The statement made at the state level states: "The news about our marshal's health being in a serious condition is also wrong and harmful for our country."
Armenian indicates emphasis by associating the modifier ՛ [U+055B ARMENIAN EMPHASIS MARK] with a vowel in the emphasised word – usually the last vowel.
Italy was part of both the Entente and the Central Powers."
The modifier mark should appear above and slightly to the right of the vowel being modified, however, due to mechanical difficulties in printing, fonts often put the modifier alongside the vowel instead.
tbd
tbd
՟ [U+055F ARMENIAN ABBREVIATION MARK] is one of 4 abbreviation marks found in manuscripts to abbreviate words such as God, Jesus, Christos, etc. It is placed above the abbreviated word and spans all of its letters. Difficulty of implementation in modern systems led to it becoming an archaic usage.
The Unicode Standard recommends not to use ՚ [U+055A ARMENIAN APOSTROPHE], but to use ’ [U+2019 RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK] instead.
ՙ [U+0559 ARMENIAN MODIFIER LETTER LEFT HALF RING] was encoded by mistake, and is not used in Armenian.
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Lines are generally broken at inter-word spaces.
As in almost all writing systems, certain punctuation characters should not appear at the end or the start of a line. The Unicode line-break properties help applications decide whether a character should appear at the start or end of a line.
Show line-breaking properties for characters in the Armenian language.
The following list gives examples of typical behaviours for characters used in modern Armenian. Context may affect the behaviour of some of these and other characters.
Click on the Armenian characters to show what they are.
Some characters need to remain attached to following or preceding numbers even if they are separated by space or other characters.
The following characters should not produce a line-break when they appear inside or alongside a word: ʼ ՛ ՜ ՝ ՞ ՟.
See also orthographicS for other situations where line-breaks may be avoided, incuding between digraphs and ligated forms.
At the end of a line, when a word is split, ֊ [U+058A ARMENIAN HYPHEN] can be used. Note that this is different from the hyphen which is used to bind compound words together, and it is only used where a word is broken across a line ending.
The most common approach to justification relies on adjustment of spaces.d
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Armenian uses the so-called 'alphabetic' baseline, which is the same as for Latin and many other scripts.
To give an approximate idea, fig_baselines compares Latin and Armenian glyphs from Noto fonts. The metrics of the Armenian letters is typically the same as or very similar to the Latin metrics. Modifier glyphs poke just very slightly above the Latin ascender height.
fig_baselines_other shows similar comparisons for the Sylfaen and Calibri fonts.
You can experiment with counter styles using the Counter styles converter. Patterns for using these styles in CSS can be found in Ready-made Counter Styles, and we use the names of those patterns here to refer to the various styles.
The Armenian language uses 2 additive styles (one uppercase, the other lowercase).
The upper-armenian additive style uses the letters shown below. It is specified for a range between 1 and 9,999.
Examples:
The lower-armenian additive style uses the letters shown below. It is also specified for a range between 1 and 9,999.
Examples:
Full stops + space are commonly used.
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This section is for any features that are specific to Armenian and that relate to the following topics: general page layout & progression; grids & tables; notes, footnotes, etc; forms & user interaction; page numbering, running headers, etc.