Extra many letters — Faultline

Sculpture of the monk Mesrop Maschtoz, the inventor of the Armenian script, in front of the Institute of Ancient Manuscripts, Matenadaran, in Yerevan.

Armenian is an Indo-European language, unlike that of Armenia's neighboring countries with the exception of Iran. It has its own alphabet that hardly resembles Hebrew, Greek or Latin. When the monk Mesrop Mashtoz invented the Armenian alphabet in 405, it had 36 letters, later adding three more. This makes it quite extensive, which is explained, among other things, by the fact that there are two letters each for e and o, the pronunciation of which only differs at the beginning of the word. The fact that there are two T letters is something that Armenian has in common with Greek and Hebrew, and in German the identically pronounced t and th also exist next to each other.

There are also special letters for ds (voiced), dsch (voiceless) and dsh (voiced) and for three R sounds: the most common one sounds like the English r before a vowel, less common is the grated French r as in "Renault" and most rarely the rolled r, which is used in the usual pronunciation of "Berlin". On the other hand, the sound f does not exist, except in foreign words - as in Indonesian. O and u are pronounced without pursing the lips.

“Du” means “you” in Armenian, and the Armenian word “dur” means “door.” Anyone who has often seen menus from Indian restaurants will not be surprised that cheese is called “panir” in Armenian. Both Hebrew and Armenian have the same word for “shop,” namely “chanut.” The fact that the priest's name is "kahana" while in Hebrew he is called "kohen" is certainly no coincidence. After all, Christianity, after splitting off from Judaism, gained a foothold in Armenia relatively early and became the state religion around 315.