Armenian language

The Armenian language (հայերեն լեզու, IPA: hayeren lezu, conventional short form hayeren) is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia as well as Nagorno-Karabakh (a de facto republic but de-jure part of Azerbaijan). The language is also widely spoken by Armenian communities in the Armenian diaspora.

Linguists standardly classify Armenian as an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. Some Indo-Europeanists, notably Clackson (1994), have proposed that Armenian may have been grouped together with the Hellenic branch (which contains Greek). This is called the Graeco-Armenian Hypothesis, in combination with a Graeco-Aryan hypothesis (Colin Renfrew, Clackson and Fortson 1994).