THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles
WORD OF INTRODUCTION
The Armenian language represents one of the lesser known idioms, although it is spoken in various lands by citizens of Armenian descent. Yet, it is gradually slipping away from them, in order to enable them, nevertheless, to retain a fair vocabulary of their original tongue, this little dictionary can be of good help. It will quickly bring back to their minds the Armenian equivalents for so many English words that for most of them now form their principal conveyance of thought.
Without doubt, not only citizens of Armenian descent will be profited by this dictionary, but also any student of the Armenian language, who is already familiar with its grammar and syntax, including scholars who may be momentarily in want of one or the other word. Therefore, we wish this little volume a good reception.
I have known its author for quite a long time. He is one of those rarely found minds that quickly detect the invisible relationships which often remain hidden to the one who searches the surface primarily. I sincerely hope that circumstances will not delay unnecessarily the publication of another of his dictionaries which is dealing, in a more exhaustive way, with the etymology of the Armenian language, his beloved mother tongue.
Hans Nordewin von Koerber, PH. D., Professor of Asiatic Studies
Los Angeles, Calif.
May 10. 1943
The University of Southern California
PREFACE
Many years, my fellow scholars suggested that T should compile a dictionary of several thousands Armenian words in Latin characters. There are dictionaries for French, German, Spanish. Italian etc. into English and vice versa, with only 3,000 words. The above languages adopted Latin characters many centuries ago. The Armenian had her own alphabets in 36 (now 38) characters, since 400 A. D. Many Occidental alphabetic sounds and especially rich English phonetic sounds are composed of several letters, where as those sounds arc represented in Armenian in single letters, which caused the great obstacle to reduce the rich Armenian sounds into Latin characters. Armenian, now las Western and Eastern ways of pronunciation of her alphabets — in the philological sense of High and Low German or Latin, yet both ways have chins to the 400 A. D. Armenian orthography. Renowned etymologist Prof. Walter W. Skeat, Litt. D. of Cambridge University, in his, "The Science of Etymology" examining Only 60 Armenian words, quoting — "The Armenian sound-laws are difficult and intricate, so that many of the words assume a disguise in which the connexion with the forms of the other Indo-Germanic languages is not easy to recognize . . . Now Armenian actually exhibits a very similar sound-shifting (with English), in which several (about two thirds) of the results coincide." Shents has these words almost with the same transliteration that I have used in this dictionary, mine with Western Armenian sound differences. His several transliterations were erroneous for Armenian. English-Armenian this dictionary has about 11,000 English words against about 25,000 Armenian meanings and cognates. Prof. V. H. Hagopian's (M. A.) dictionary was used. In Part II, Armenian-English, dictionary has about 12,000 Armenian words against about 30,000 English meanings and cognates. M. K. Minasian's Diet. used.
