Ա ա — ayb
«ayb» is a vowel of Western Armenian, the “The aybuben” script, read as “a”. A clean, open a. For example, in the word “Բարեւ” — hello. The Western Armenian alphabet has 40 letters in total. It appears, for example, in the word “Բարև” — hi.
In short
| Character | Ա ա |
| Name | ayb |
| Sound | a |
| What it is | a vowel |
In our course the character comes 1st of 40: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, after it comes բ, appears in roughly every other word on this site.
How it sounds
A clean, open a
The character in a word
A lone character is hard to remember: memory holds on to meaning, and a letter has none. The word it stands in provides that anchor.
- Բարեւparevhello
The character in the “vowels” group
Eight signs, and they sound the same in both norms. Two of them — ե and ո — gain a y-glide and a v at the start of a word. Ես is "yes"; Ոչ is "voch". And ը is a fleeting murmur and the article in one. The difference between the norms is not in the vowels but in the consonants below.
Words with this character
How to remember this character
A single letter is the hardest thing to remember: memory has nothing to hold on to — a character has no meaning. A three-step loop works: see the character, try to recall the sound (for «ayb» it is “a”, as in the word “Բարեւ”), see the right answer.
And come back to it the next day, not in an hour: a check a day or two later beats a check the same day. Nobody holds the whole alphabet — 40 letters — at once.
- It is better to test yourself the next day than at the end of the same session. That is why a word comes back to you tomorrow.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · g = 0.82 when tested a day or two later, against 0.56 on the same day.
- Studying a little every day gets more into your head than spending the same total time in one sitting.checked many timesDonovan & Radosevich, 1999, Journal of Applied Psychology 84(5) · 63 studies compared, difference d = 0.46 — a sizeable figure for a learning effect.
Frequently asked
How does the Western Armenian character ա read?
As “a” — it is a vowel of the “The aybuben” script. A clean, open a. For example, in the word “Բարեւ” — hello.
What is the letter ա called?
Ayb. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Western Armenian script: it is called “ayb” and reads as “a”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.