THE ARMENIAN ALPHABET
Հայոց այբուբեն · HAYOTS AYPUPEN More than 1,600 years of Armenian writingLook at Armenian writing and there is no mistaking it for another alphabet. Its distinctive letters have been used for more than 1,600 years — in medieval manuscripts, carved inscriptions, church decoration, books, signs, family records and everyday writing.
At ArmeniaFest, we use Western Armenian pronunciation and traditional Armenian orthography as our primary convention. That means the first three letters are introduced as:
If you have seen Armenian taught in Armenia or in an Eastern Armenian setting, you may have heard Ben and Gim instead.
THE ALPHABET IS SHARED. THE PRONUNCIATION IS NOT ALWAYS THE SAME.
MESROP MASHTOTS AND THE BIRTH OF THE ALPHABET
The Armenian alphabet was created around 405 AD by Mesrob Mashdots, a scholar, teacher and Christian cleric. Armenia had already adopted Christianity, but Armenian did not yet have a writing system fully suited to the language. Religious and scholarly texts were largely available in other languages, especially Greek and Syriac.
Mashdots created a script designed specifically for Armenian. The original alphabet contained 36 letters.
That was a turning point. It made it possible to teach, translate, write and preserve Armenian in its own script.
WESTERN ARMENIAN AND EASTERN ARMENIAN
Today, Armenian has two major standardized forms. Western Armenian developed in the Armenian communities of the Ottoman Empire and remains especially important in the diaspora. Eastern Armenian is the official language of the Republic of Armenia and is also spoken in Armenian communities elsewhere.
Both use the Armenian alphabet. But some letters are pronounced differently.
That is why the same Armenian word may sound different depending on who is reading it. A familiar example is Բարեւ. In Western Armenian, you may hear Parev. In Eastern Armenian, you may hear Barev.
SAME WORD. SAME LETTERS. DIFFERENT PRONUNCIATION TRADITION.
TRADITIONAL AND REFORMED SPELLING
There is also a difference in spelling conventions. Western Armenian generally uses traditional Armenian orthography. In Soviet Armenia, a spelling reform was introduced in the 20th century, and that reformed system is now standard in the Republic of Armenia.
So sometimes the difference between Western and Eastern Armenian is not only how a word sounds. The spelling itself may also differ. That is why you may see more than one Armenian form for the same word — and both may be correct within their own tradition.
HOW MANY LETTERS ARE THERE?
Mesrob Mashdots’s original alphabet had 36 letters. Later, Օ and Ֆ were added. In the traditional alphabet used with Western Armenian, that gives us 38 letters.
In modern reformed Eastern Armenian, և is also treated as a separate letter, which is why the alphabet is often described in Armenia today as having 39 letters.
So if you see both numbers, 38 and 39, the difference usually reflects which Armenian orthographic tradition is being used. For ArmeniaFest, because we are using Western Armenian and traditional orthography, 38 is the more appropriate count.
AYB + PEN? NOT QUITE
The Armenian word for alphabet comes from the names of the first two letters, Ա — Ayb and Բ — Ben:
այբուբեն — AYPUPEN — ALPHABET
That reflects the historical letter name. In Western Armenian pronunciation, however, Բ is pronounced Pen when reading the alphabet aloud. So Western Armenian speakers may say Ayb, Pen, Kim… while the word for alphabet remains aypupen.
It is a nice reminder that the history of the language and its modern pronunciation are not always identical.
AN ALPHABET THAT CHANGED ARMENIAN HISTORY
Once the alphabet was created, Mashdots and his students established schools and began translating major works into Armenian. The Bible was translated into Armenian, and Armenian writing expanded into theology, history, philosophy and literature. The 5th century became one of the most important periods in Armenian intellectual history.
The alphabet became much more than a practical tool. It helped preserve language, faith, history, literature and cultural memory.
That role became especially important for Western Armenians after the Armenian Genocide, when communities were displaced across the Middle East, Europe and the Americas.
THE ALPHABET COULD TRAVEL EVEN WHEN A HOMELAND WAS LOST.
WHEN LETTERS BECAME ART
Armenians did not simply write their letters. They decorated them. In medieval illuminated manuscripts, initials could be transformed into elaborate compositions of birds, animals, flowers, vines, knots and imaginary creatures.
Sometimes the letter is obvious. Sometimes the letter seems to disappear inside the picture. Over time, Armenian letter art developed into a distinctive visual tradition of its own.
In 2019, UNESCO inscribed Armenian letter art and its cultural expressions on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. That recognition is important because Armenian letter art is not only historical. It is still practiced today.
TRCHNAGIR — BIRD-WRITING
թռչնագիր · TRCHNAGIROne of the most distinctive forms of Armenian ornamental lettering is թռչնագիր. The word means bird-writing. In trchnagir, birds and other living forms are shaped into Armenian letters.
A neck may become one stroke. A wing may create another. A tail, vine or flower may complete the form. The result is part writing and part image.
This tradition connects directly with the Junior Explorer activity that asks children to look closely at Armenian decorative forms and notice how letters can become art.
ADVENTURE 6 · BIRDS OF THE MOSAICA TREASURE HOUSE OF ARMENIAN WRITING
One of the most important places in Armenia for preserving this written heritage is the Matenadaran in Yerevan. Its full name is the Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts.
The collection includes thousands of Armenian manuscripts and fragments covering subjects such as history, religion, medicine, philosophy, science, geography and literature.
The Matenadaran is named for the man who created the alphabet itself. That connection is fitting. More than 1,600 years after Mashdots created Armenian writing, the institution bearing his name preserves some of its greatest surviving treasures.
WRITE YOUR NAME
Adventure 3 of the Junior Explorer Guide asks you to do something simple: have your name written in Armenian. But once you know the story of the alphabet, those letters mean more.
They belong to the same writing tradition used by Armenian scribes, teachers, poets, priests, historians and families for more than sixteen centuries.
For Western Armenians especially, those letters also became a form of continuity across diaspora communities. They appeared in church books, schoolbooks, newspapers, letters home, family records and community life. Today they appear in text messages and social media too.
The form changes. The alphabet remains.
Ա. Բ. Գ.
Ayb. Pen. Kim. More than 1,600 years later, Armenian writing is still doing what it was created to do:
GIVING THE ARMENIAN LANGUAGE ITS OWN WRITTEN VOICE.
NINE ADVENTURES IN THE GUIDE
Pomegranates, Mount Ararat, khachkars, Kochari, the church façade and more — every adventure has a page like this one.
