Eastern Armenian

Eastern Armenian (Armenian: արևելահայերեն arevelahayeren) is one of the two standardized forms of Modern Armenian, the other being Western Armenian. The two standards form a pluricentric language.

Eastern Armenian is spoken in the Republic of Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh Republic as well as Georgia, and by the Armenian community in Iran. Although the Eastern Armenian spoken by Armenians in Armenia and Iranian-Armenians are similar, there are pronunciation differences with different inflections. Armenians from Iran also have some words that are unique to them. Due to migrations of speakers from Armenia and Iran to the Armenian Diaspora, the dialect is now very prominent in countries and regions where only Western Armenian was used. It was developed in the early 19th century and is based on the Yerevan dialect.

Distinguishing the two forms of Armenian

Eastern Armenian and Western Armenian are easily mutually intelligible. They share the same ISO 639-1 code hy. The ISO 639-3 code for both is hye. The Armenian Wikipedia is coded hy and is largely Eastern Armenian. Commercial translations are generally done into Eastern Armenian, the official language of the Republic of Armenia.