Hee Or Yee?

[Arpa]

Is it Hee or Yee?

Is it Harut or Yarut?

(Of course, those born after the "Great Liberation", i.e russification will not question as the Hee was totally replaced with the Ho.)

Is it NaYiri or Nahiri?

(I must interject here and explain. Even though Nairi and many other Nairi's including Zarian spell their names without the hi/y, only one other well known literary publication from Aleppo/Beirut, founded by Andranik Zaroukian spells it as NaYiri, or, if you will NaHiri. There may be a method to this madness as "nairi/nayiri/nahiri" is from the Assyrian "nahir" to mean river. (We have spoken about that before.)

There have been many debates about Eastern and Western Armenian dialects, some of them may still be hotly debated even here. Yet, in my opinion, as many differences may exist between the two there is one similarity that both versions have corrupted and altered the pronunciation of many of our letters. We may take them separately at separate times, such as the case of the seventh letter, E, the ninth-Tho, the Hyun etc, in other words, what we today deem unnecessarily burdensome duplications, and at times triplications. There was a reason which today has all but totally lost.

 

See the complete AybBebGim here;

Thank you Raffi K of Cilicia

http://www.cilicia.com/armo_alphabet.html

 

A case in point may be the 21st letter of the ayb-ben-gim that we call "hee". In the lower case it looks like the Latin letter "j" (not without reason either), and in the upper case it looks like the number "3". For quite sometime I had been mulling over a puzzle as to why of all the people we are the only ones that transliterate the J and Y to H as in Hakob, Hovannes and others. In the native languages(Aramaic, Arabic) it is pronounced as Y, as in Yacub and Youhanna. In the Germanics it is the same as Johann/Yohann etc. Even in the Slavics it is Yacov and .... Ivan (probably from the original Yivan). In the Anglo it is J as Jacob and John, even in the Latin- Gi (sounds like J) as in Gioacommo/Giovanni.

Why then we are the only ones sounding it as H?

As it is traditionally (perhaps erroneously, as we shall see)that much maligned letter had three sounds or none depending on its position. At the beginning of a word it sounds like H, in the middle it is Y and at the end it is totally silent. I had asked myself as to why. I looked it up and here is what Ajarian says: "Mashtots, with all his wisdom would not have invented a letter if there was not a particular need for, or that it would be so controversial". Of course, it is not so controversial anymore, at least in the Soviet orthography. In the latter it has all but disappeard except for its use as "Y". It sounds like Y no matter where it is, and, of course it has totally disappeared from the ending. This phenomenon is known as the "Abeghian revolution". If Manuk Abeghian was so orthodox(?) then why did he not spell his name in the proper way as AbeLian, as the "gh" is the transliteration of "L". What did Mashtots name this letter Hee or Yee? What did Mesrop name his fifth letter? E or Ye, Ech or Yech? When did we rename Erevan/Erebuni Yerevan/Yerebuni? Was it before or after we got to know Ekaterina/Yekaterina or Eltsin/Yeltsin/Schmeltsin?

I modern (soviet) othography the initial Hee is totally replaced by Ho, the middle one is removed and replaced with "I" as in NaIri. So what is all this silent/noise about? :)

Coming back to the use of the letter at the end of a word, students of the eastern version will not know this as it has been totally obliterated. Why do we still spell words like "abegha" and "apaga" (future) with the letter hee at the end? Was it supposed to have been enunciated like "abeghaY" or "abagaY" as they are in their original Assyrian? Why do we still say "bay" when we mean "verb" and not "abegha-y"?

Is the ending "hee" really silent?

 

Is it Harut or Yarut?

 

YAAAA!!

 

:)

 

Edit.

The above quote by Ajarian was a paraphrase from memory.

Here are his exact words;

"In our literary orthography the letter hee(j) had three variiable pronunciations, at the beginning of the word it WAS** H, in the middle-Y and at the end it is silent. It would be mindless to think that Mashtots had intended so. Since he already had designed the letter H (ho) why would he reinvent another symbol for the same sound. In other words, if he needed "hee" to sound like "ho" then what would stop him to use the "ho" ?** This shows that the hee and the ho were meant to produce altogether different sounds. We also observe that in many regional vernaculars the initial hee has ben totally removed as in Hakob to Akob, Hovannes to Ovannes etc."

 

* He uses the past tense.

** Of course we know that Soviet orthography did do this, i.e. replace all the hees by a ho at the beginning of words and names.

Edited September 11, 2004 by Arpa

[Stormig]

Yeah, I first realised this when someone read Hovsep as Yovsep out loud...

[nairi]

I don't know......... But from a wild guess: the evolution/mutation of language. It became easier and easier for some to say Harut, Hovhannes etc. than Yarut, Yovhannes.

 

I mentioned elsewhere that members in my family still say "yet" instead of "het" (back), among others. My aunt who has a very strong peretsi accent, does actually say Nayiri, and Nahiri when she's trying to "correct" herself. She does the same between vowels in other words.

 

As for words ending in "mute" y. Again, my aunt, ends words that end in vowels with this extra h sound (not so much y, it seems). She doesn't actually say qa and ga, but qah and gah. You might not hear it as much when she speaks fast and the qa or ga precedes other words. But if she ever stops and exclaims qa, it comes out as qah. Same with other vowels, like Nahirih/Nayirih. Unless the word ends in -hi or something, she wouldn't add that extra h, like Vartuhih. She wouldn't say that. Logically, because that would be too difficult to pronounce for anyone.

 

Also, at the end of words where there must be a y, like in vay, she doesn't actually say a nice/clear y, but a mix between y and h. This is what she does: she positions her mouth and tongue to say y, but blows air out as if she wants to say y and h at the same time, so that it sounds a bit like kh, but softer and not coming out of the throat as much as the front of the mouth, produced by the air passing the opening under her tongue which is positioned to say y. EDIT: it sort of sounds like the German /ch/ in ich.

Edited September 11, 2004 by nairi

[Stormig]

My word, some attention you musta paid that, Nairi.

[nairi]

Hehe. I actually did And still do.. Don't ask why... Stupid linguistics screws with your head...

[vava]

There are other instances of the same problem in our alphabet, no? for example, O, or VO... no wonder the odars joining our ranks (through marriage and whatnot) aren't learning the language!

[Arpa]

I am surprised that we totally missed the fact that not all hee's at the end are silent.

The most common is a word that we use many times during the day- HAY as in Armenian. Even though here at the forum we spell it as Hye, nevertheless the correct transliteration would be Hay.

Other exceptions may be khoy (ram), bay(verb) and they (tea). There may be more but at least in these examples the ending Y is pronounced.

What could be the reason? Are they words that at one time were pronounced ending with the sound of Yi, like hayi, khoyi, theyi, bayi etc.?

 

It seems like there is more to the word "bay" (verb) then meets the eye.

We'll come to that under another cover.

[Arpa]

There are other instances of the same problem in our alphabet, no? for example, O, or VO...  no wonder the odars joining our ranks (through marriage and whatnot) aren't learning the language!

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Yes, that is a valid point. It not only happens to vo/o but to other vowels as well, like ye/e.

Above nairi touched upon it but did not expand.

It seems like when a word ending in a vowel follows with a word beginning with a vowel o becomes a vo and the e becomes a ye. Examples like "erku voski" (two pounds) and "mek oski" (one pound). Just as in "mer nor erevan"(our new erevan) and "depi yerevan".

Just as Nairi suggested languages are not invented, they evolve and develop. People are the creators and people develop it by default or design, they expand it and contract it. Linguists don't creat langauges they only observe and analyze. The only language created from scratch would be something like Esperanto which never caught on as there is no particular people speaking or developing it on a daily basis.

Also as to Nairi's aunt, we have other idiosyncrasies that many use. One of which is that we have very few if any words that begin with the letter R (the softer one), most of them are proper names like Ruben, Robert, Russ (russian) etc. and in most of these cases some of our ancestors would add a vovel in the beginning as Ruben would end up as U-ruben or simply Urben, Russ would be Uruss. It also seems that this phenomenon is particular when the R is follosed by a u/ou, since I have not heard anyone pronounce Robert as O-robert or Orbert.

But all in all we have practically no native words that begin with the soft R. There are few that begin with the stronger R.

[nairi]

Here's another detail: (again observations of my aunt ). Words that begin with h like hay, she does say a clear y. But words that begin with a plosive (b, p, k, g etc.), fricative (f, v, s, z, etc.), nasal or liquid (n, m, l, r) she uses that German "ch" sound. If I remember correctly, she says a clear y with words that begin with affricates (ch, tch, j, etc.) as in chay. In phonetics/phonology there's actually nothing peculiar in this. When she says h her mouth is already open to say another "open" consonant (approximant) like y.

 

What I've also noticed is that she often turns the h at the beginning of a word into a bit of a German "ch", but less pronounced. It seems more like she's really trying to "pronounce" the h instead of just letting air out. The air that she lets out makes this extra sound that normally shouldn't be there if the h is clear. Hope I'm making sense..

[Arpa]

Nairi, where did you say your aunt was from?

You say she has a "peretsi" accent. Did you mean "peratsi" as in Pera the suburb of Polis?

The reason I ask is that I have noticed that Armenians from Polis do what I would call overcompensation. Many of them were brought up in postKemalism which all but convinced them that there is no such sound as "kh". Khachik became Hachik, khaghogh became haghogh, Kharberd into Harput etc. . But once they fly the coop, so to speak, they assume that every time they hear the sound of H it is supposed be "kh". I have heard some of them say khay instead of hay, khayeren instead of hayeren and khayastan.

Another example of overcompensation is that it is assumed that there is no TH sound in Armenian which may be true at the present but originally we did have the sound and the letter for it. It is the 9th letter of the ayb-ben-gim-tho, even though at the present we simply pronounce it as straight T it was designed to accomodate such words and names like Thomas, Mathteos, Theodoros , thagavor (since thag /crown is from a semitic word "thaj"). Back to overcompensation and the "th" sound, I have heard many Armenians struggling with the sound of "th" pronounce toothpaste as thoothpaste (both th's).

Your aunt may be aware of this phenomenon she is overcompensating to a degree, so instead of converting all H's to the hard" kh" she is softening it to sound like the German "ch".

All this is an assumption since I don't know where "pere" is unless you actuallydid mean Pera.

[nairi]

Nah man, peretsi as in Peria A village outside of Esfahan.

 

Edit: which brings me to vowels, but maybe I'll write about my observations in another thread if you make one

Edited September 12, 2004 by nairi

[nairi]

Also, at the end of words where there must be a y, like in vay, she doesn't actually say a nice/clear y, but a mix between y and h. This is what she does: she positions her mouth and tongue to say y, but blows air out as if she wants to say y and h at the same time, so that it sounds a bit like kh, but softer and not coming out of the throat as much as the front of the mouth, produced by the air passing the opening under her tongue which is positioned to say y. EDIT: it sort of sounds like the German /ch/ in ich.

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To come back to this: it's a mix of a y and German ch. She starts of saying y and about a quarter on the way she changes it to ch. So it becomes a bit like this: va(y)ch. The brackets meaning that it's only pronounced in part. So she doesn't say: vach. She more or less assimilates y and ch, where the y is in the beginning and the ch in the end. I thought it may have sounded like she says vach when I reread what I had written.

 

As for overcompensation: it's not what she does. I've heard that phenomenon. Also tranferring sounds from one language to an other, such as Russians being unable to pronounce clear h at the beginning of a word, they say kh instead, as in khelp instead of help. My aunt just "pronounces" the h. Maybe because she (and whoever she learned it from) believes that the h should be pronounced. That's the way they heard it all their lives. It might have something to do with Farsi, but I'll have to look into that. Actually, now that I think about it, many native speakers of English do that as well. They blow more air out than necessary when saying h like in have (esp. the Irish have a tendency to do this). Others leave it out completely and say ave instead of have (esp. in the UK).

 

The aspirated t (th) is of course common. We don't have a th like the English do (of which they have 2!! A voiceless one: thank; and a voiced one: this), so like many other second language speakers of English we "transfer" once again the closest sound in our first language. In the case of Armenians it's an aspirated t. In the case of many Dutch, it's a d (toodpaste).

Edited September 12, 2004 by nairi

[nairi]

Linguists don't creat langauges they only observe and analyze.

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And sometimes prescribe

 

Interesting theory: back consonants tend to move forward over time. Latin /k/ in centum became /s/ in French cent. /k/ being pronounced in the back of the mouth and /s/ to the front. Could the same be true for /y/ and /h/? /h/ being more open (and thus easier to pronounce) than /y/? The laxing of the tongue over time? Try saying words with /y/ at a normal pace without really concentrating. I noticed that I start sounding as if I'm saying /h/. Interesting..

[nairi]

The reason I ask is that I have noticed that Armenians from Polis do what I would call overcompensation.

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Btw, I finally found the official terminology in linguistics for this. It's hypercorrection.

 

Here's a general definition:

 

In grammar and usage, hypercorrections are the new mistakes we make in the effort to avoid old ones.

 

http://www.bartleby.com/68/62/3062.html

 

Also:

 

http://coral.lili.uni-bielefeld.de/~ttripp...bov/node17.html

[nairi]

Another interesting theory: could there have been something between /y/ and /h/? Although I have no trouble going from /y/ to /h/, in linguistics (phonology/phonetics) this seems to be too abrupt a step. It could be speculated that Armenians used another sound temporarily before arriving to /h/. A sound between /y/ and /h/. Our task is to prove this or disprove this. I have trouble believing that there was a middle sound, but maybe I'm wrong. It's interesting, because in Western phonology this phenomenon of /y/ become /h/ is unheard of; which goes to show how little Western phonology knows of other languages... <_<

[Twilight Bark]

I have noticed that Armenians from Polis

Bolis, if you respect how they pronounce the name of the city they live in, as well as the western Armenian transliteration.

 

do what I would call overcompensation. Many of them were brought up in postKemalism which all but convinced them that there is no such sound as "kh".

That's strange; I have not met one Bolsetsi that fits that. Perhaps you have met pseudo-Bolsetsi "kavaratsi" Armenians, who often had lost almost all of their Armenian or acquired a heavily Turkified version before they came to Istanbul (but many of those provincials are the most active intellectuals in that community). But that has nothing to do with Kemalism of postKemalism. That's just the effect of standard Turkish, which lacks the sound.

 

Khachik became Hachik, khaghogh became haghogh, Kharberd into Harput etc. . But once they fly the coop, so to speak, they assume that every time they hear the sound of  H it is supposed be "kh". I have heard some of them say khay instead of hay, khayeren instead of hayeren and khayastan.

Yikes. Again, I have never heard one Bolsetsi do that. I guess I haven't met the "right" ones.

 

What I have seen among Western Armenians, including Bolsahyes is to use the sound "kh" to Armenianize non-Armenian words, e.g. "chojukh" (for Turkish "chojuk", "kid"), or the famous sujukh. But that's not overcompensation. It's more like "if it sounds uglier that the original, it's honorary Armenian".

[Gor-Gor]

[irrelevant comment to follow]

 

Chojukh isn't Armenian?! I had no idea. oops.

 

It's really amazing how many Turkish words are in my regular "Armenian" speech. At least with Arabic, I can recognize odar words and replace them with their Armenian versions (ex. "yaneh" replaced by "aysinkn") - but Turkish words, at least the way we use them, don't *sound* so different than WA, which I suppose is the point you were making...

[sev-mard]

There are other instances of the same problem in our alphabet, no? for example, O, or VO...  no wonder the odars joining our ranks (through marriage and whatnot) aren't learning the language!

style_images/master/snapback.png

 

Burn them at the stakte!

[nairi]

Another interesting theory: could there have been something between /y/ and /h/? Although I have no trouble going from /y/ to /h/, in linguistics (phonology/phonetics) this seems to be too abrupt a step. It could be speculated that Armenians used another sound temporarily before arriving to /h/. A sound between /y/ and /h/. Our task is to prove this or disprove this. I have trouble believing that there was a middle sound, but maybe I'm wrong. It's interesting, because in Western phonology this phenomenon of /y/ become /h/ is unheard of; which goes to show how little Western phonology knows of other languages... <_<

style_images/master/snapback.png

 

New information/theory: /h/ used to be voiced in the early days, sounding indeed as something between a /h/ and /y/. As time went by, some people devoiced /h/ making it sound like the /h/ that we have now, others turned it into a /y/. What is interesting here is that some words universally took a voiceless /h/, others /y/ and yet others either one.

 

In Standard Eastern Armenian for instance, /het/ (back) is the correct pronunciation for HET. Other Eastern dialects, on the other hand (like Persian Armenian), oftentimes still say /yet/. But I have yet to hear any Armenian say /yakob/ for HAKOB or /herku/ for YERKU.

 

Clearly there is some sort of "rule" as to where /y/ came in and where /h/ came in. Either way, going back to Mashtots, neither is correct. They both should have been voiced /h/, because that's really what the 3 symbol stands for! According to one theory...

Edited December 1, 2004 by nairi

[Arpa]

New information/theory: /h/ used to be voiced in the early days, sounding indeed as something between a /h/ and /y/. As time went by, some people devoiced /h/ making it sound like the /h/ that we have now, others turned it into a /y/. What is interesting here is that some words universally took a voiceless /h/, others /y/ and yet others either one.

 

In Standard Eastern Armenian for instance, /het/ (back) is the correct pronunciation for HET. Other Eastern dialects, on the other hand (like Persian Armenian), oftentimes still say /yet/. But I have yet to hear any Armenian say /yakob/ for HAKOB or /herku/ for YERKU.

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Good observation, however a minor adjustment.

The hi in Hakob is subject to many variations. Many Kiliketsis who had lived close to Arabic speaking lands named their sons Yakub or other variations. Many Armenians drop the H sound totally and use Akob, just as sometimes Harut becomes Arutin or Artin.

 

As to the hi or yi of "yerku", the latter has never been written either as yerku or herku, it has always been "erku". We have talked about the fifth letter E that we call "yech" was never meant to be prounced as "ye". I don't know when we began that but someting tells me it was after we met the Russians or the Slavic people who would write "evgeny" and pronounce it "yevgeny". Similarly Erwand became Yervand, Erevan became Yerevan. Oddly enough, even with 80 years of sovietization Erevan is atill spelled as Erevan and not Yerevan unlike "eot"(seven) that now is spelled as "yot".

The closest to this phenomenon in other than Slavic languages is the Spanish "O" where they write "nino" and pronounce as "ninYo" or even Espanol pronounced EspanYol.

[Harut]

...unlike "eot"(seven) that now is spelled as "yot".

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you mean ոխտը [oxt@]...

[Harut]

this might be a silly connection, but have you noticed the similarity between the letter Յ and the altername shape of Հ (see attached).