Reformed Armenian Orthography

An orthography reform of the Armenian alphabet was conducted between 1922 and 1924 in Soviet Armenia. It was rejected by Armenian diaspora communities, which for the most part speak Western Armenian, including the Armenian communities in Iran who also speak Eastern Armenian, and continue to use the Classical Armenian orthography. Although it is barely used by Armenians outside of Armenia and the Post-Soviet states (namely Georgia and Russia), it is the official orthography of the Republic of Armenia.

One of the most significant and successfully achieved policies of the former Soviet Union was the rise in the overall population's literacy which began in the early 1920s and, most probably, this urgent need was one of the reasons for reforming Armenian spelling. This and a variety of other educational reforms resulted in almost 90% literacy throughout the country by the early 1950s. Although the orthography of the Armenian language was changed by this reform, it is hardly plausible to assess this change as a simplification. In fact, some other nations of the former USSR changed their entire scripts from Arabic (Central Asian nations) and Latin (Moldova) to Cyrillic. However, it was a rather progressive step in the spirit of these historical developments in that it did not hinder the ability of all of the former Soviet nations to develop literature, education, research and science. The original orthography is known today as the classical orthography (Armenian: դասական ուղղագրութիւն dasakan uġġagrut'yun), and sometimes referred to as Mashtotsian orthography (մաշտոցյան ուղղագրություն), named after Mesrop Mashtots, the inventor of the Armenian alphabet in 405 AD.

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