Middle Armenian

Middle Armenian
Region	Armenian Highlands, Cilicia
Era	developed into Armenian
Language family	Indo-European Middle Armenian
Early forms	Old Armenian Middle Armenian
Writing system	Armenian alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	axm
Linguist list	axm
Glottolog	None

Middle Armenian (Armenian: միջին հայերէն or Կիլիկեան հայերէն), also called Cilician Armenian,^[1] though the latter 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 (Old Armenian) and before Ashkharhabar (Modern Armenian).^[2]

Grabar was predominantly an inflecting and synthetic language, while in Middle Armenian, during the period of Ashkhrabar 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. Although Modern Armenian started to form under conditions of strong dialect differences, decline of old literature and manuscript traditions. 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, as well as having introduced the letters օ and ֆ.

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.
3. History of the Armenian Language in the Pre-Written Period, Yerevan, 1987.
4. H. Acharian, History of the Armenian Language, parts I-II,

External links

• Dictionary of Middle Armenian (Միջին Հայերենի Բառարան), Ruben Ghazarian, Yerevan, 2009.