Mavi Boncuk |Classification des dialectes arméniens (Classification of Armenian dialects) is a 1909 book by the Armenian linguist Hrachia Adjarian[1], published in Paris. It is Adjarian's translation into French of his original work Հայ Բարբառագիտութիւն (Armenian Dialectology) that was later published as a book in 1911 in Moscow and New Nakhichevan. The French translation lacks the dialectal examples.
Adjarian surveyed the Armenian dialects in what is now Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, Iran, Azerbaijan and other countries settled by Armenians
Unlike the traditional division of Armenian into two dialects (Western Armenian and Eastern Armenian), he divided Armenian into three main dialects based on the present and imperfect indicative particles that were used. He called as the -owm (-ում) dialects, -gë (-կը) dialects, and -el (-ել) dialects. The three major dialects were further divided into subdialects. The book is one of the few reliable sources of Armenian dialects that existed at the time. After the Armenian Genocide, linguists Gevorg Jahukyan, Jos Weitenberg, Bert Vaux and Hrach Martirosyan have extended the understanding of Armenian dialects.
[1]Armenian linguist, lexicographer, etymologist, philologist, polyglot and academic professor at the Armenian Academy of Sciences. Hrachia Adjarian (Armenian: Հրաչեայ Աճառեան (classical) Hračʿeay Ačaṙean; Հրաչյա Աճառյան (reformed) Hračʿya Ačaṙyan; 8 March 1876 – 16 April 1953) was born in the Samatya neighborhood of Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire. His father was a shoemaker. His love of languages developed early. In 1893, at the age of seventeen, he spent time among the Lazes and wrote the first grammar of their language. He left for Europe in 1898 to study in France and Germany. On his return, he taught at the Jemaran in Etchmiadzin and at schools in Shushi, Tavriz, Nor Nakhichevan, and Tehran. He came to Yerevan in 1923, where he taught foreign languages, comparative grammar, and the history of the Armenian language at the university. Offered the post of assistant director of the Sorbonne in Paris in 1931, Ajarian rejected the position because he was unwilling to leave Armenia. Instead he concentrated on his linguistic and pedagogical endeavors. During his career, Ajarian traveled the Caucasus, Turkey, and Persia, researching some thirty Armenian provincial dialects, on which he based his monumental six volume "Etymological Dictionary of the Armenian Language", a definitive work. He also compiled a four volume dictionary of Armenian proper names, which included all Armenian proper names from prehistoric times to the present. Among his most famous works is a two volume grammar of the Armenian language. Ajarian considered his magnum opus to be a comparative grammar including references to 560 languages and covering 8000 pages. He was a member of the French Linguistic Association and the Czechoslovakian Institute of Oriental Studies.
Adjarian studied at the Sorbonne with Antoine Meillet and at the University of Strasbourg. He worked as a teacher at the Ejmiatsin Gevorkian seminary in Shusha and Tehran. He came to Yerevan in 1923. There, he taught foreign languages, comparative grammar, and the history of the Armenian language at Yerevan State University.
He authored more than 200 scientific publications on Armenology, Armenian language, and Oriental Languages.