History of the Armenian Alphabet

Armenian language belongs to Indo-European language family. It has been used in Armenia, in the surrounding in Iran, Turkey, Russia and Armenians in the distant areas. It is also known that, the number of Armenians mostly living in Russia, France, USA and Lebanon are known to be more than the ones living in Armenia.  

Until 1800s classical Armenian was named as “Grabar”. Then two other dialects as Eastern and Western have come into being. The Eastern has been used in and around Armenia. The Western has been used in the rest of the World but Armenia and Iran. The Western dialect, mentioned in UNESCO’s Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, is also used in Turkey.

Progress of the Armenian literature goes back to beginning of usage of a proper alphabet. Mesrop Mashtots and his followers, observed manuscripts of different languages and introduced Armenian letters and alphabet in 405. Thus Armenian cultural-artistic life improved rapidly. Besides, the classical Armenian, Grabar has been used only by some clergymen. Improvement of Armenian Language also caused clarification of the difference between Eastern and Western Armenian Dialects. Until recently it was believed that Armenian was a dialect of Farsi, till the discovery of it’s being an Indo-European language. Today it has been used in printed publication, Armenian Churches and Armenian schools in Turkey.

The strangest part of the language and the alphabet is the mystery behind the inventor or composer of the alphabet as who is he exactly. Armenian is probably has a unique place in that sense. The importance of the Armenian alphabet from Turkish view is that, it is claimed that the very first printed book in Ottoman era to be in Armenian. So that Armenian alphabet is also registered as one of the alphabets used in Turkish geography. It has been the language and alphabet that many historical documents and many works of arts are registered. It is also known that there have been many words transferred from and to Armenian and Turkish. On the other hand, it is known that there are also Turkish works of arts and periodicals in Turkish with Armenian alphabet in 19^th century.