Pimsleur Armenian - Safe Download

The Armenian Language

Armenian — (hayeren lezow, conventional short form hayeren) is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia as well as Nagorno-Karabakh (a de facto republic but de-jure part of Azerbaijan). The language is also widely spoken by Armenian communities in the Armenian diaspora. It has its own script, the Armenian alphabet.

Linguists typically classify Armenian as an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. Some Indo-Europeanists, notably Clackson (1994), have proposed that Armenian may have been grouped together with the Hellenic branch (Greek). This is called the Graeco-Armenian Hypothesis, in combination with a Graeco-Aryan hypothesis (Renfrew, Clackson and Fortson 1994).

Armenians are fond of naming streets after, and quoting, their heroes - from playwrights to poets to war generals. But it is novelist William Saroyan who is most often cited:

"I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard and prayers are no more answered. ... Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a new Armenia."

Modern Armenian Language

Armenian corresponds with other Indo-European languages in its structure, but it shares distinctive sounds and features of its grammar with neighboring languages of the Caucasus region.

Armenian is rich in combinations of consonants. Both classical Armenian and the modern spoken and literary dialects have a complicated system of declining nouns, with six or seven noun cases but no gender.

In modern Armenian the use of auxiliary verbs to show tense (comparable to will in "he will go") has generally supplemented the inflected verbs of classical Armenian. Negative verbs are conjugated differently from positive ones (as in English "he goes" and "he does not go").

Grammatically, early forms of Armenian had much in common with classical Greek and Latin, but the modern language, like modern Greek, has undergone many transformations.

With time the Armenian language made a transition from a synthetic language (Old Armenian or Grabar) to a typical analytic language (Modern Armenian) with Middle Armenian as a midpoint in this transition.

Lord Byron studied the Armenian language. He helped to compile an Armenian grammar textbook and translated a few Armenian books into English.

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What satisfied customers think about the Pimsleur ARMENIAN audios :

I ordered this so my husband and I could learn a little Armenian (I am of Armenian descent). I have other Armenian language tools, such as the VocabuLearn cassettes, a textbook, and Samuelian's transliteration dictionary, and they are all helpful in their own way, but in terms of amount of progress for time spent, Pimsleur beats them all.

The Western Armenian Pimsleur lessons start out by teaching you how to ask someone if she understands Armenian and by the end of the first lesson, you can understand and participate in a brief conversation that centers around that. Each subsequent lesson builds on that first lesson, teaching you more words and phrases. The lessons are in both English and Armenian.

The way that Pimsleur handles pronunciation is also very helpful, especially for individuals who are not used to hearing Armenian. Some of the words are very long, and can sound very confusing. Pimsleur walks you through the pronunciation of each word, starting with the final syllable and working backwards. My husband, who has pretty crappy pronunciation (since he didn't learn how to make the "gh" and "kh" sounds), has been doing surprisingly well with this method. I still have to help him out, but overall, it is as good as can be expected without an actual person telling you what you are doing wrong, although the lessons do usually address common mistakes.

Pimsleur also sneaks in grammar lessons, so you gradually figure out some of the grammar constructs. Some people catch on to this more easily than others, but the course does make an effort to teach you. Femina Formosa, (USA)