The Republic of Armenia


Area: 11,484 sqmi (about the same size asMaryland) Population: 2,970,495 Capital: Yerevan (population 1.11million) Ethnic Groups: Armenian 97.9%, Yezidi 1.3%, Russian 0.5% Religions: Armenian Apostolic 94.7%, other Christian


denominations 4%, Yezidi 1.3% Official Language: Armenian


Themodern-dayRepublic ofArmenia is a landlocked, mountainous country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia. It is bordered by Turkey to thewest, Georgia to the north, the de facto independent Nagomo-Karabakh Republic


and


Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and Nakhchivan to the south.


A former republic of the Soviet Union, Armenia is a democratic nation-state with an ancient cultural heritage. The Kingdom of Armenia became the first state in theworld to adopt Christianity as its religion, and the modern Republic of Armenia recognizes the Armenian Apostolic Church, the world’s oldest national church, as the country’s primary religious establishment. The official language isArmenian, an Indo-European language with its own unique alphabet that has been in use since itwas invented by Saint Mesrop Mastots in 405 or 406 C.E. The native Armenian name for the country is Hayk’.


As of 2011, the Republic of Armeniawas negotiating with the European Union to become an associatemember.


Armenian is one of the most widespread languages of theworld,with distinct dialects located as farwest as Transylvania and as far east as India. It has a rich literary history dating from the fourth century AD, when the Bible was translated into Classical Armenian. It is one of the most linguistically divergent of the Indo-European languages, having undergone a host of complicated phonological, morphological and syntactic changes that continue to resist satisfactory analysis by historical linguists. The historical interest of the language derives in part from the significant lexical and grammatical influence of neighboring languages (primarily Iranian, Turkish, Anatolian and Caucasian); none the less, a significant portion of the Armenian lexicon cannot be related to any known source.


Bert Vaux, The Phonology of Armenian. Oxford University, 1998.


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https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/am.html


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