How does Armenian sound like to foreigners?

Disclosure: my wife’s cousin is married to someone who works at Hrant Dik’s newspaper, and was in the office when he was killed. A painfully distressed look washed over him when it came up in Üsküdar.

Western Armenian: you mean it isn’t Turkish? Yeah, that surprised me too. I could hear all the aspirates, but the intonation really was indistinguishable for me from Turkish.

Eastern Armenian: This actually sounds a lot more like what little Western Armenian I’ve heard from my wife’s circle. Which is odd. Clearer consonants, much more distinctive ch’s.

Other than that…

Oh God, this is going to be so predictable. Can you predict this?

Pegah Esmaili can predict I’ll say this. And so can Mehrdad Dəmirçi. Because I’ve said this already about their language.

It sounds Persian. It’s the back a’s, and the easy flow of the intonation.

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