Armenian

The vernacular speech of Armenia, a mountainous country of Asiatic Turkey, bordering on the S.E. extremity of the Black Sea, including Mt. Ararat. Armenian is written from left to right, and has an alphabet peculiar to itself, which has been modernized from an older original, attributed to Miesrob, A.D. 406. ⁂ The language is e entially an Aryan dialect, akin to Achæmenian Persian and Zend , but still distinct from either: into which have been absorbed a large number of Turanian roots.     G. R.