If you
need a translation into Armenian
this information will help you better understand
what you can expect.
- Western versus Eastern Armenian
Eastern Armenian and Western Armenian are two different languages. Though the two languages are rather close and any Armenian can understand both languages, you can hardly trust a Western Armenian translator to translate into Eastern Armenian, and visa-versa.
Historically Western Armenian was spoken in Western Armenia, which was occupied by the Ottoman Empire and is currently part of Turkey. Armenians fleeing from Turkish massacres moved to America, Europe and other Asian counters in the beginning of the 20th century, where they formed vast Armenian communities.
Eastern Armenian was spoken in that part of Armenia which has long been under the Russian rule. In 1920 it was included in the Soviet Union as a separate ethnic republic and in 1990 it obtained
independence.
Hence, the linguistic differences between the two Armenians. Western Armenian is influenced by Turkish and Eastern Armenian has rather strong influence of Russian. This is especially obvious in the phonetic structure and word-stock. Besides, Western Armenian was further influenced by the local languages and dialects where different Armenian communities lived. As for Eastern Armenian, during the Soviet Union there have been attempts to russify it. This was part of the general policy of making Russian a universal language. The first attempt was the reform of orthography and the use of many Russian words instead of Armenian. Later on most Russian words were again replaced by their Armenian equivalents, however the Soviet orthography remained and is now the official orthography of Armenia.
Geographically Western Armenian is more widespread. It is spoken in most Armenian communities in Americas, Europe,
Australia and Asia. However, in terms of the number of people speaking the language, Eastern Armenian is much more prevalent. It is the official, literary and spoken language of Armenia, where about half of all Armenians leave. It is also the spoken language of the vast Armenian communities in Iran, Russia, and the other countries of the CIS. Besides, in recent years there is a massive migration of Armenians from Armenia to the USA,
Australia and other European countries, so currently it is really hard to say which Armenian prevails even in the USA and European countries.
Whenever you have a text to be translated into Armenian, it is always safer to choose Eastern Armenian, even if the text is targeted to a traditionally Western Armenian community. The reason is that Western Armenians living in these communities have been there long, most of them were born there, and they speak the local language. However for most Eastern Armenians who have recently immigrated into these countries Armenian is the only language they speak, and they are the ones first of all, who need a translation.
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- Orthography
There are two Armenian orthographies - Western Armenian (or classic) and Eastern Armenian (or Soviet). The Eastern Armenian orthography appeared during the Soviet rule as a result of an attempt to bring Armenian closer to Russian. The shape of the letters remained the same however new orthographic rules were created which have been in use in Armenia until present. Currently attempts are being made to recover the classic Armenian orthography and thus re-unify the orthography of Eastern and Western Armenians. However Eastern Armenian (i.e., Soviet) orthography has been in use for over 50 years now, several generations have been using it, vast literature has been created in that orthography and changing it is no easy task. Today the Eastern Armenian (i.e., Soviet) orthography is the official orthography in Armenia and probably it will remain such in the coming 50
years.
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- No universally accepted Armenian encoding
There is no universally accepted Armenian encoding for computer. Different Armenian character sets have different encoding systems. If you have a font-dependent Armenian file, you'd better install the font used in the file rather than assign another Armenian font that you may have on your system, as the encoding may be
different.
There are no Armenian versions of Windows, MS Office and other popular programs. Web browsers do not support Armenian. In order to view Armenian letters and
type in Armenian a special program should be installed together with Armenian fonts. For Internet navigation and correspondence you have to change the "User Defined" settings of the browser and E-mail agent. Most Armenian encoding programs and fonts are available on the Internet for free. You can get one
here.
There are some problematic Armenian letters. Some programs and systems do not interpret them correctly.
Here you will find the Armenian alphabet in PDF with embedded fonts. If you have an Armenian text and are not familiar with the Armenian letters you can compare the letters with the alphabet, to see if it displays correctly on your computer.
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- Lack of electronic dictionaries, spell and grammar checkers, translators, etc.
Until recently there were no electronic dictionaries, spell-checkers and other electronic tools for Armenian. Some trial products have now appeared on the market however they can hardly be of any help to translators and editors. Probably years will pass until a really professional product appears. Besides, none of the translation memory tools, like Trados, etc. supports Armenian. So 90 per cent of work is done
manually.
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- Lack of printed dictionaries
There is only one professionally compiled English-Armenian dictionary containing 30.000 words. This is a general dictionary and the only dictionary a translator can use. The dictionary was published in 1980s and consequently does not reflect the rapid changes of the last decade. There are a number of smaller dictionaries, both English-Armenian and Armenian-English, but none of them is professional enough to be used by translators. In recent years several small specialized English-Armenian dictionaries appeared on the market but again, one can hardly rely on them when
translating.
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- Lack of specialized literature
Since the beginning of the 20th century until the collapse of the Soviet Union most specialized literature was in Russian. Russian was the second mother tongue of Armenians living in Armenia and there was no need to translate this literature into Armenian. Thus in most technical fields there is hardly any terminology in Armenian. Some terms are created nowadays, however most specialists continue using the Russian
terms.
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- Rapid changes in the life - rapid changes in the
language
Armenian underwent rapid changes due to the recent developments in the area. The collapse of the Soviet Union, independence, shift to the western life-style, creation of new social structures, the latest technologies, migration and inflow of foreign organizations, all this was extensively reflected in the language. Thousands of new words and expressions were created, part of them were borrowed from English and other languages, others were translated into Armenian. Most part of these words and expressions are not universally accepted, neither included in any dictionary. Linguists dispute actively on how this or that phenomenon should be expressed in Armenian. Some words have two-three equivalents in Armenian and translators often have to make a rather difficult choice. Despite this, the bulk of the western words still don't have equivalents in Armenian so translators often have to just create new words or use the corresponding English or Russian word. Often it is really hard to balance between good Armenian that does not sound too Russian on the one hand and not very sophisticated language that is clear to everybody on the other hand.
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