Airy consonants and the parts of u

Meet tso, vyun, pyur, ke and practise telling them apart.

One letter, two cases

These lessons use Eastern Armenian pronunciation and modern reformed spelling. Capitals start sentences and names; most running text is lowercase. The capital and lowercase are the same letter and sound. There are no Arabic-style positional forms.

tso

Ց ց is ts with a puff. Ծ ծ has no strong puff, and Ձ ձ is voiced dz.

tso

vyun

Ւ ւ is now used within Ու ու ՈՒ for the vowel u in reformed spelling. Recognize the pair; do not read it as a separate modern consonant here.

vyun

pyur

Փ փ is p with a puff, not English f. Ֆ ֆ is the actual letter f.

pyur

ke

Ք ք is k with a puff. Compare Կ կ, plain k, and Գ գ, voiced g.