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• 1 2021-08-25T20:32:15+00:00 Chapter 2: The Sounds of Armenian , by Matthew Briskovich 76 plain 2021-12-15T22:07:24+00:00

  2.1. Introduction

  This chapter will focus on the Armenian language. Here's a little history on the language's origins. Theories were created and expanded upon by many different linguistic experts over the course of several decades. One theory suggested it part of Indo-European list of languages. Over time, it became its own independent language that separated into two different varieties that I'll touch upon in the paragraph below. 
  
  It is spoken worldwide in different communities. The Armenian language is separated into two different varieties: Eastern and Western. Eastern Armenian is located and mainly spoken in Armenia and Iran. Western Armenian is mainly spoken in different communities spread worldwide in The Middle East and North America. The number of Armenian speakers range from in between seven and eight million. The next section will cover the wide range of consonants that were studied and transcribed.
  
  Below is a visual of where Eastern Armenian is spoken.
  
  Citation: https://travelblog.shobhagopinath.com
  
  2.2. The Consonants 
  In both Eastern and Western Armenian languages, it covers quite an extensive range of pulmonic consonants listed down here in the IPA chart. But first, let's get into where consonants are placed in written and transcribed words. Consonant sounds are mostly composed of voiced, voiceless, and aspirated stops and affricates. Consonants contain a greater amount of air obstruction in the lungs.
  
  The Armenian language (Eastern and Western) contains 31 consonant sounds and seven vowel sounds. We will delve into the vowels in the next section. How these consonants are pronounced are different when spoken in Eastern Armenian than Western.
  
  The IPA chart below is provided by the website created by Peter Ladefoged in the ULCA database. 
  
  
  
  The image below are examples of the voiced, voiceless unaspirated, and voiceless aspirated of the Eastern Armenian language. The Western focuses more on voiced and aspirated sounds. he first set of examples goes over the voiced consonants in words like "spider" and "pillow". In "spider", the d in "sard" (IPA translation) is a Labial Voiced Stop and the s is a Voiceless Fricative Alveolar. 
  
  These examples in the image below are provided by the UCLA Phonetics Lab Data in the language index. 
  
  
  Citation: http://www.phonetics.ucla.edu/appendix/languages/armenian/armenian.html
  
  Below are several examples that help differentiate between Western and Eastern consonants that fall under the stop and affricative categories. The sound files later in the section will demonstrate how ph (an aspirated stop) is produced.
  
  Eastern
  p
  b
  ph
  
  Below here are sounds files that focus on words that showcases different consonants and their sounds. Along with each file is a visual of each file's sound waves broken down using Praat. It should help in giving you closer look at the stress located in the final syllable. Many words in both Western and Armenian language contains large amounts of stress emphasized on the final syllable. 
  
  Sound File #1 - The word pronounced in Western Armenian is, "Door". The consonant produced in the word is tʰ. The sound file contains both the English and Armenian pronunciation of the word. Sound file is collected from a larger sound file located in the UCLA Phonetics Archive. 
  
  
  
  Sound File #2 - The word pronounced in Western Armenian is, "Fist". The consonant produced in the word is pʰ. This sound file contains both the English and Armenian pronunciation of the word. Sound file is collected from a larger sound file located in the UCLA Phonetics Archive.
  
  
  
  2.3. The Vowels 
  This section will cover the vowels in the Armenian language. Vowels are speech sounds like consonants that are produced. They can separated in smaller units that break down a vowel. A vowel is the one of the basic units of speech sound. Unlike consonants, there is little to no air obstruction in the lungs. There are seven vowels in Western Armenian. In Eastern Armenian, six vowels are listed as seen in the image below.
  
  Below is an IPA chart of the vowels of the Eastern Armenian. 
  Citation: http://www.languagesgulper.com/eng/Armenian.html
  
  
  
  Each of the sound files below cover some of the six vowels with the Armenian language. These sound files were collected from a larger group of files located Archive Databases from the Phonetics Resources at UCLA. Included with each audio file is a visual of the sound waves in Praat that breaks down the vowel sound. 
  
  Sound file #1 - File below demonstrates the word, "pupil" in the both the English and Armenian language. The interest lies in the "i" and its sound. pʰipʰ is the transcription of the word collected from list of data from the first sound file. The beginning of the file showcases several words. The first six words focuses primarily for the vowel sounds in the language for both Eastern and Western.
  
  
  
  
  This visual is an analysis of word, "Pupil" spoken in both English and Armenian. The highlighted section of the sound file on the right is the word is spoken in Western Armenian. 
  
  Sound File #2 - File and visual below demonstrates the word, "Duck" as spoken in the Western Armenian dialect. pʰatʰ is the transcription of the word. An "a" sound is back low vowel in the language. 
  
  
  
  
  Sound File #3 - Below is an audio file and visual of the word, "Need" as spoken in Western Armenian. The vowel located in the transcription is ɛ. Th full transcription of the word is bɛtʰkʰ. 
  
  
  
  
  2.4. Allophonic Alternations 
  
  This section covers the allophonic alternations of the Armenian language. Allophones are parts of phonemes. A phoneme is a category of speech sounds. These sounds are very contrastive with one another. A different between phonemes and allophones is the predictability of the sounds. Allophones are easier to identify than phonemes. Phonemes are not as predictable to find as allophones. The example I provided in the consonant is example of an allophonic variation. tʰ in the word, "Door" is an example of allophones. 
  
  Allophones can consist of more than just a single vowel or consonant. Allophones can be identified by minimal pairs. Allophones are variants of phonemes. There is contrast between the three speech sounds. This is mainly in the Eastern Armenian dialect. There are seven phonemes in the vowel section. Down below are a few examples.
  
  The first example of the allophonic alternations is the letter /v/ is an allophone of the letter /u/ (Vaux).
  
  According to Winter, the allophones fall within the category of voiced and voiceless stops. A voiced d in the alveolar stop is an example of the voiced allophones. Examples of voiceless allophones variations are a included in that section is h (Winter). 
  2.5. Syllables and Syllable Structure 
  
  Syllables
  Syllables have a complex structure within both Eastern and Western Languages of Armenia. A syllable is another basic unit of speech sounds produced. Stress mainly falls onto the last syllable in modern Armenian languages. It can fall on first syllable as well in both dialects. In the Armenian language, 
  
  The structure of words in the Armenian language is similar to other Indo-European languages with differences included which I discuss down below later in this section. A very prominent usage of syllable types is the closed syllables. When the last syllable contains either n or a few other consonants, usually large amounts of stress is placed upon the last syllable. Not all of the time that the stress falls on the last syllable. It can be placed on the second to last syllable. Sometimes, the stress is placed on the first syllable in a word.
  
  The Armenian language is part of the Indo-European languages. The syllable structure is similar to the structure found in other Indo-European languages. The structure follows a particular patterns. A few examples include as part of the coda structure. CC is an example provided by Vaux that demonstrates how the syllable structure works.
  
  There are noted differences between the syllabic nature of both Eastern and Western dialects. There are several arguments on whether or not on the similarities between the two dialects. A major difference between the two is that the Eastern dialect has more of a collection of words that fall under the monosyllable category, with the Western dialect capturing more of the polysyllable category (Vaux). 
  
  2.6. Armenian Alphabet
  
  This section will give you some insight into different categories of the language not discussed in the categories above. 
  
  The Armenian language images seen below of the modern Armenian alphabet. Before we get into the images, here's an overview of how the alphabet was constructed and changed over time.
  
  The original Armenian Alphabet was created by Meshrop Mashtots during 404 and 407 CE period. This was established as the first step in developing the alphabet as seen in the modern reimaging after the discovery of new sounds. The original alphabet created by Mashtots contained 36 letters total. The modern alphabet brought in two more letters, bringing the total to 38. 
  
  
  Within the alphabet, the Eastern and Western dialect of the Armenian language contains differences in pronunciation regarding voiced and aspirated.  As noted in the section about syllables, a few differences occur between the two dialects. 
  
  
  Thank you for reading my section about the Armenian language. 
  
  2.7. References Cited/Bibliography 
  
  http://www.phonetics.ucla.edu/appendix/languages/armenian/armenian.html
  http://www.languagesgulper.com/eng/Armenian.html
  https://travelblog.shobhagopinath.com
  http://armenianlanguage.org/index.html
  http://languagesgulper.com/eng/Armenian.html
  Vaux, Bert. “Syllabification in Armenian, Universal Grammar, and the Lexicon.” Linguistic Inquiry, vol. 34, no. 1, The MIT Press, 2003, pp. 91–125, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4179221.
  Winter, Werner. “Problems of Armenian Phonology II.” Language, vol. 31, no. 1, Linguistic Society of America, 1955, pp. 4–8, https://doi.org/10.2307/410886.