Middle Armenian

Middle Armenian
Spoken in Armenian Highlands, Cilicia
Era developed into Armenian
Language family
Indo-European
  • Middle Armenian
Writing system Armenian alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3 axm
Old Armenian (from 405)
Middle Armenian (c. 1100 – 1700)
Modern Armenian (c. 1700 – present)
Eastern, Western
familliar: Homshetsi, Lomavren

Middle Armenian (Armenian: միջին հայերեն or կիլիկյան հայերեն), also called Cilician Armenian, 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).[1]

Grabar was predominantly an inflection and synthetic language, while in Middle Armenian, during the period of ashkhrabar influence, agglutinative and analytical forms influenced the language.[2] 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.[3] Its voicing qualities were closer to modern Western Armenian than modern Eastern Armenian, which itself remains closer to Classical.

References

  1. ^ Melkonian, Zareh (1990) (in Armenian). Գործնական Քերականութիւն - Արդի Հայերէն Լեզուի (Միջին եւ Բարձրագոյն Դասընթացք) (Fourth ed.). Los Angeles. p. 137. 
  2. ^ History of the Armenian Language in the Pre-Written Period, Yerevan, 1987.
  3. ^ H. Acharian, History of the Armenian Language, parts I-II,