Questions about Armenian punctuation.

Sireli ungernerus,

Many of you already know that I am starting to learn how to read Armenian. It is quite a struggle to deal with 38 symbols! Also I just today noticed that it seems like this symbol : (like the colon in European languages) is used at the end of a sentence. Am I on target with this? Also do they use a question mark or exclamation point in Armenian writing. I didn't seem to notice any, unless Armenians never ask questions or get excited!(That sure isn't true!) It seems that quotation marks, commas and parenthesis are the same in Armenian writing, but are there any special rules. Oknootsun, khuntroomem!

Whoops! I need to be careful with my English writing. I am missing a question mark in my previous post. See if you catch it!

My friend Half Breed,

You missed the question mark because before you finish typing the sentence you forget it. In Armenian you can't miss it - it goes not to the end of a sentence, but right ABOVE the emphasised syllable of the interrogative pronoun(what, where, etc.). And it's not ? it is a different symbol which I cannot reproduce for you here.

You're right, colon in Armenian ends sentences, while full-stop . is used pretty much like colon in English - before explaining or listing something. There is another symbol for the same purpose ` which is used if you continuue the sentence, while . is usually put before you start your explanation or listing from a new line.

Symbol ! does not exist in Armenian. Well, we do get excited and for that we use ~ ABOVE the word. Like How beautiful! - I~nch geghecik e (~ goes above the letter i). However this symbol does not always work like ! in English. For instance, in "Go away!" "Gna aysteghic" you can't use it. I know, sounds complicated, but I'm sure you'll overcome it.

Eastern Armenian uses 39 characters, not 38. I'm not sure about Western. Originally there were 36, and 3 were added later (Ev, O, F). In fact Ev is the combination of letters Yech (E) and Vyun. In Western Armenian Vyun is used separately. There's more to tell about Vyun (like how Eastern and Western Armenians write differently "azatutyun" and similar words) but that would be too much, I guess

Quotation marks in Armenian look something like this: << quote >> unquote. They are put on the letter level, not higher up as in English. The English way "", I noticed, is now also sometimes used, though technically it's incorrect.

Wishing you plenty of patience and quick learning! Will always be glad to help you out, within the limits of my competence.

Ahura Mazda jan,

Shat mersi ko oknootyuni hamar. Amen or me kich aybuben em sovorum, bayts betke asem vor dijvara im hamar.

Barskahayes tun?

Che axpers, parskahay chem. Nshanakutyun chuni hay@ vorteghic e, bolors el hay enq. Ed ....-hay barer@ im kartsiqov izur en horinel.

Hajoghutyun aybuben@ sovorelu gortsum.