Translit

Finally we got our hands on the Armenian transliteration table. Below is the letter/symbol mapping which is used on the Armenian transliteration site: ARM EAST WEST Ա ա a a Բ բ b p Գ գ g k Դ դ d t Ե ե e e Զ զ z z Է է e' e' Ը ը y' y Թ թ t' t' Ժ ժ jh zh Ի ի I I Լ լ l l Խ խ x x Ծ ծ c' dz Կ կ k g Հ հ h h Ձ ձ d' tz Ղ ղ gh gh Ճ ճ tw j Մ մ m m Յ յ y h' Ն ն n n Շ շ sh sh Ո ո o o' Չ չ ch ch Պ պ p b Ջ ջ j ch' Ռ ռ r' r' Ս ս s s Վ վ v v Տ տ t d Ր ր r r Ց ց c c Ւ ւ w w Փ փ p' p' Ք ք q q Օ օ o' o Ֆ ֆ f f ՈՒ ու u u և & & We tried to find a compromise between many variations of Armenian transliterations. The decisions were based mainly on the following factors: 1) All Latin symbols must be available on a standard English keyboard (thus symbols like "ə", "ç" were avoided) 2) We tried to avoid all triple-letter Latin combinations and use apostrophe in combinations rather than another latin letter where possible (e.g. _ch'_ instead of _tch_ for "Ջ ջ") 3) Try to match Armenian letters phonetically to Latin combinations 4) Try to utilize all 26 single Latin letters to one Armenian letter each. 5) Try to keep similar transliteration for Eastern and Western Armenian where possible. Still I have few questions to the forum members. As you see from the table above the letters "Ո ո" and "Օ օ" have different transliterations for Eastern and Western Armenian. Does it make sense in this case? I would rather make the transliteration of these letters similar for both dialects if they phonetically sound similar in both dialects.

I just asked a techy guy at work, he advocates strongly either for Levono (daughter company of IBM) or Toshiba. Dell, in his opinion, cannot produce laptops. HP is not as it was before.

Dear Arpa, I mean the Eastern Armenian dialect.

Harut, at first let me thank you for participation. Your comments are very useful and help us to improve the service dramatically. OK, so we'll adopt the "R'" variant for both dialects. very nice and clear point. On our side we are also trying to utilize at first all single Latin letters and to avoid where possible all triple-letter-combinations. Harut, I'll take a closer look at this exact case. I think we can apply your idea here too. Well, the project may solve several problems. Partially it might replace a lack of Armenian keyboard. I don't see how an Unicode-capable PC can solve this problem. Correct me please if I'm wrong.

Yes, this is what I was saying

Dear Ashot, very elegant solution. I actually discovered that the current version of our transliterator does "e" + "w" -> "և" conversion. What would you say if we change transliteration of "և" to "ew" and "&"? Thus, whether the visitor types "ew" or "&" he'll get "և". But when transliterated from Armenian to Latin then "և" will be always converted as "ew" rather than "&".

Dear Harut, I converted the sentence to Latin (Eastern way) and from that to Armenian again. Before: անդորր՝ իմ դժվարին պահի միակ փրկիչը... To Latin: andvorr՝ im dzhvarin pahi miak p'rkichy'... After: անդոռ՝ իմ ձհվարին պահի միակ փրկիցհը... There are 3 letter collisions: 1) "րր" -> "rr" -> "ռ" This error will disappear when we adapt the Eastern Armenian mapping from this forum, where the letter "ռ" transliterated as Latin "r'" (with apostrophe). Still this can appear in the Western Armenian version, where the "ռ" is still transliterated as "rr". Do you think it's reasonable to transliterate "ռ" as "r'" for both Eastern and Western? To the creators of the cureent forum transliteration: What was the reason to make the transliterations of "ռ" different for two dialects? 2) "դժ" -> "dzh" -> "ձհ" This error should also disappear when we adapt the transliteration from this forum. Then "դժ" will become "djh" (Eastern) and "tzh" (Western) which both are reverse translatable to "դժ". 3) "չ" -> "ch" -> "ցհ" I don't have any solution right now for this type of collision. Thank you a lot Harut for pointing out this case. Such things are difficult to find and I'll happy to hear more of them to continuously polish the letter mapping.

Dear Arpa, I see your point regarding the "Yev" word. Are you generally OK with the Latin<->Armenian symbols mapping used on this forum and available from here? My point to include Yev to the transliteration mapping is very simple - We need to have this symbol (as well as all other Armenian writing symbols including letters and punctuation signs) to let our visitors to reproduce this symbol without a physical Armenian keyboard. This is just it.

but which one is better in your opinion? Or maybe you can take something from them to extend the one from this forum?

Oh yes, I see, my bad I was thinking of the one from genocide.ru instead of Armenians.com. How logical is their version?

Arpa, but if so many letter will be removed there will be a little mismatch, as I know there are 39 letters in the Armenian alphabet. To all: Are you all agree that the letter mapping provided on this forum is the optimal one? If so, we'll simply go for it and adapt our version accordingly. How would you also comment on these two versions from armeniapedia and armenians.com? Thank you everyone for active participation!

Thank you everybody veeeery much! I'll consider all feedback and apply it asap. Ashot, you can send me your ideas as PM or using the contact form on the site. I'll be happy to get it.

Dear members of the forum, I want to ask you for assistance and help. Please test this Armenian Transliteration service and give us your feedback and ideas to improve. Especially interesting is the mapping of Latin<->Armenian letters for Eastern Armenian transliteration table as well as Western. I'm curious whether the letter mapping is convenient for native speakers of both dialects. Thank you in advance, Sarah