Armenian phrasebook

Armenian (հայերէն/հայերեն, hayeren) forms its own isolated branch within the Indo-European language family, and is not closely related to any other language. It is the official language of Armenia, and also spoken by ethnic Armenians in Georgia, Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and also by the Armenian diaspora all over the world. The estimated number of speakers is 7 million.

It is divided into two main dialects: Western and Eastern. Eastern Armenian and its minor dialects are used by the Armenians living in Armenia. Western dialect is spoken by the members of Armenian diaspora whose ancestors fled Western Armenia (now in Turkey's Eastern Anatolia region) as a result of the Armenian Genocide.

This phrasebook deals with the Eastern dialect, which is the official language of Armenia.

One important thing: in Armenian there are two ways of addressing people, informal and formal, like in German, French or Russian. For formal address the plural form of second person (pronoun դուք (douq)) should be used, while the informal is pronoun դու (doo).

Very few people in Armenia speak English, but almost everyone speaks Russian as a second language. People have no problems speaking that language (with a slightly guttural accent), but learning a couple of expressions in Armenian will still not only turn useful in practice but also warm the hearts of already hospitable Armenians.