Armenian Alphabet - Punctuation

Punctuation

Armenian punctuation is often placed above and slightly to the right of the vowel whose tone is modified, in order to reflect intonation. Armenian punctuation marks include:

• (, ) (called storaket), a comma, placed as in English.
• ( ։ ) is verjaket or the ordinary full stop, placed at the end of the sentence.
• The question mark (hartzakan nshan) ( ՞ ), placed after the last vowel of the question word (usually the stressed vowel).
• The bowt' or short stop ( ՝ ) is placed in the same manner as the colon. It indicates a pause that is longer than that of a comma, but shorter than that of a colon.
• ( ․ ), mijaket, is used like an ordinary semicolon. It is used mainly to separate two closely related (but still independent) clauses, or when a long list of items follows.
• The shesht or emphasis mark ( ՛ ) is usually placed over the last vowel of the interjection word, and indicates stress.
• ( « » ) are used for čakertner or quotation marks.
• ( ՜ ) is used as the yerkaratzman nshan or exclamation mark.
• The Armenian abbreviation mark ( ՟ ) was placed on top of an abbreviated word to indicate that it was abbreviated, and was called pativ in Armenian. It is now obsolete.
• ( ֊ ), an Armenian hyphen (yent'amna) is used like an ordinary hyphen
• The apostrophe, apat'arj, is used only in Western Armenian. It indicates elision of a vowel, usually /ə/.