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Ancient Armenian
Family: Armenian
Region: Armenian Highlands
Time: 400-1100 C.E.
Consonants
| Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
| Voiceless stop | p | t | k | |||
| Aspirated voiceless stop | pʰ | tʰ | kʰ | |||
| Voiced stop | b | d | g | |||
| Voiceless affricate | ts | tʃ | ||||
| Aspirated voiceless affricate | tsʰ | tʃʰ | ||||
| Voiced affricate | dz | dʒ | ||||
| Fricative | v | s z | ʃ ʒ | x | h | |
| Nasal | m | n | ||||
| Lateral | l | l̴ | ||||
| Trill/tap | r ɾ | |||||
| Approximant | w | j |
Vowels
| Vowels | Front | Central | Back |
| High | i | u | |
| Mid high | e | ə | |
| Mid low | ɛ | ɔ | |
| Low | a |
Notes
- There are other explanations of this opposition: some scholars, following the statement of the armenian translation of the Tékhnē grammatikḗ of Dionysos Thrax, interpret it as a lenght opposition, while, according to Clackson (2004:926) the two phonemes are probably a rolled alveolar trill and an unrolled approximant.
- /v/ and /w/ are nearly in complementary distribution, so they have probably to be regarded as allophonic alternants. The place of articulation of /v/ is uncertain (bilabial/labiodental?).
- The phonological status of <o> in classical armenian is uncertain. In post-classical language <o> was surely /ɔ/, because of its opposition with <ô> (/o/), a new introduced phoneme came from the diphthong <aw>.
Bibliography
Clackson, J. 2004. Classical Armenian. In Woodard, R. W. (ed). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World’s ancient Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Godel, R. 1975. An Introduction to the Study of Classical Armenian. Wiesbaden: Reichert.
Schmitt, R. 1981. Grammatik des Klassisch-Armenischen mit sprachverlgleichenden Erläuterungen. Innsbruck: Inst. für Sprachwiss. d. Univ.
Author
Federica Lini