Western Armenian
Western Armenian people, and the language, are basically those Armenians and the dialects they speak which originated in the Ottoman Empire (basically, anywhere outside of the former USSR and Iran). Western Armenian is still written in the original spelling system invented by Mesrop Mashtots.
Learning Western Armenian
For people studying the western dialect, Robert Bedrosian has posted a handy guide to resources available on archive.org, which links to a number of printed materials for the dialect. (It seems he's posted most of these materials himself.)
You can download a pdf of his seven-page guide, with links to the resources, here:
https://archive.org/download/western-armenian-ia/Western_Armenian_IA.pdf
His guide is available in other formats here:
https://archive.org/details/western-armenian-ia/mode/2up
Very
One thing the Western Armenian language has which Eastern Armenian does not, is a special way to say "very", depending on the word in question. For example, instead of using shad which is the standard word for very in describing something that is very black, the word sep can be used. It has no meaning on its own, but in conjunction with the word black, sep sev comes to mean very black. Here is a list of known examples.
- sep sev
- jep jermag
- gas garmir
- gas gabuyd
- tep teghin
- gas gananch
- lep letsun
- bas barab
- mis minag
- ship shidag
- dzups dzur
- chop chor
- tap tats
- pas parag
- nip nihar
- jip jisht
See also
- Eastern Armenian
- Western to Eastern Armenian Guide - including vocab