The Armenian Alphabet: All 39 Letters and How to Learn Them

The Armenian alphabet is the first thing every learner meets, and it looks intimidating for about a week. After that, most people find it one of the most satisfying parts of learning Armenian. It is logical, it is phonetic, and it has a history Armenians are rightly proud of. This guide covers where the alphabet came from, all 39 letters of the modern Eastern Armenian alphabet, and practical tips for learning them.

A short history

The alphabet was created in 405 AD by Mesrop Mashtots, a monk and scholar, with the support of King Vramshapuh and Catholicos Sahak Partev. Its purpose was very practical: to translate the Bible and write Christian texts in Armenian, a language that had no widely used script of its own at the time.

Mashtots created 36 letters. Two more, Օ and Ֆ, were added in the Middle Ages, and և, originally a joined form of two letters, is counted as a letter in its own right in the modern alphabet. That gives the 39 letters children learn at school in Armenia today. Mashtots is still widely honoured in Armenia: the Matenadaran, the great manuscript library in Yerevan, carries his name.

The Armenian word for alphabet, այբուբեն (aybuben), comes from the names of its first two letters, այբ (ayb) and բեն (ben), in the same way that "alphabet" comes from the Greek alpha and beta.

Eastern Armenian and the reformed spelling

In the 1920s, Soviet Armenia introduced a spelling reform that brought writing closer to pronunciation. This reformed orthography is used in the Republic of Armenia today, and it is what Haylingua teaches. Western Armenian, spoken mostly in the diaspora, still uses the older classical spelling, and so does the Armenian community in Iran.

The letters themselves are the same in both. What changes is how some words are spelled and, in Western Armenian, how several consonants are pronounced. If you are learning Eastern Armenian, use the sounds in the table below.

All 39 letters of the Armenian alphabet

The table shows each letter in capital and small form, a common Latin transliteration and a rough English equivalent. Several Armenian consonants come in sets of three, for example գ, կ and ք. The first is voiced, like English g. The second is unaspirated, said without a puff of air, like the k in "skin". The third is aspirated, with a puff of air, like the k in "kite".

Two small notes. Ու is written with two symbols but counts as one letter. And և has no capital form of its own: at the start of a sentence it is written Եվ.

Tips for learning the letters

• Learn in small groups. Five or six letters a day is plenty. In a week you will have met them all, and in two weeks most of them will feel familiar.
• Watch out for false friends. A few small letters look like Latin ones but sound completely different. Small ս looks like a u but is an s, and small ո looks like an n but is o or vo.
• Write by hand. Copying a letter five times with a pen does more than staring at it for five minutes. Say the sound aloud as you write.
• Read real words early. Start with names you already know: Երևան (Yerevan), Արարատ (Ararat), Սևան (Sevan). Recognising a word you know is a small but real win.
• Train your ear for the sets of three. The difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds matters. կար (kar) – there was and քար (kar) – stone look identical in simple transliteration, which is one more reason to learn the script itself.
• Review little and often. Five minutes in the morning and five in the evening works better than one long session on Sunday.

How long does it take?

With a little practice each day, most learners recognise all 39 letters within one to two weeks. Reading smoothly takes longer, usually a month or two, because your eyes need time to take in whole words rather than spelling them out letter by letter. That is normal. Keep reading short, simple texts and the speed comes by itself.

If you would like to learn the Armenian alphabet step by step, Haylingua starts right here, at the very first letter.