texas

Hi, thanks for the response. Yes I am sure that Armenian has lent words to other languages too. But from what I have read it has taken a lot from other languages, to such an extent that this borrowing is always mentioned in everything I have read about it. Sometimes languages take on more than just a few loan words due to the political, cultural or military influence of another people. I already mentioned English taking on all that Norman French after 1066 AD...also Korean and Japanese owe about half their vocabulary to Old Chinese. It seems Armenia was subjugated by foreign powers and absorbed a massive amount of new vocab. I just wonder to what extent. (I know most of the grammar is native)

Hi all, I have a question about the vocabulary of Armenian. I know that 19th Century linguists initially mistook Armenian for a dialect of Persian due to many loan words. I read everywhere that Armenian has a massive amount of foreign loan words, but I wonder what percentage of general Armenian vocabulary is believed to be borrowed. If you look at English, about half is native vocabulary and then the other half from Norman French and other sources (I am speaking of general, non-specialized vocabulary) Is Armenian like that? I mean, does it use mostly foreign-derived vocabulary or is it just in the realm of science and "learned" areas? I have a seen a lot of people post here that seem to be very knowledgable about the Armenian language. thanks!