Los Angeles – May 14, 2013 – Nayiri.com today announced the release of digitized versions of two seminal Classical Armenian dictionaries: Nor Parkirk Haigazian Lezvi (New Dictionary of the Armenian Language, or Haigazian Pararan in short) and the Artsern Pararan Haigaznian Lezvi (Handy Dictionary of the Armenian Language). Both are essential companions to scholars of the Armenian language. Users of Nayiri.com can now search the dictionaries by headword and the corresponding page in the dictionary will be presented.

Published in Venice in 1836 and 1837, the monumental 2-volume Haigazian Pararan is considered to be the most complete dictionary of Classical Armenian. The work also goes by the name Yerits Vartabedats Pararan (Dictionary of the Three Masters) in reference to the three members of the Mekhitarist Order who authored the book: Kapriel Avedikian (1784- 1834), Khachadur Surmelian (1750-1827), and Mgrdich Avkerian (1762-1854). In addition to definitions in Armenian, the dictionary presents equivalents in Latin and Greek. The volumes were republished in Yerevan in 1979.

Building upon his leadership in authoring the Haigazian Pararan, Father Mgrdich Avkerian also wrote the Artsern Haigazian Pararan, a compact dictionary with a rich lexicon that was published in 1846 in Venice. In 1865 the Mekhitarist Press published a second edition that included 5,000 additional headwords by Father Krikor Jelalian.

The digitization of these two works was made possible by the financial support of the Hamazkayin Armenian Educational and Cultural Association.

Since 2005, Nayiri.com has been providing electronic tools for the Armenian language, including freely accessible Armenian explanatory and bilingual dictionaries in both Western and Eastern Armenian. In 2010, Nayiri.com partnered with HySpell to provide the most comprehensive Armenian spell-checker for traditional Armenian orthography that includes a lexicon base of 156,000 words and over 5 million inflected forms. Nayiri.com is a free service which relies on the sponsorship of philanthropists, educational foundations, and all who are concerned with the longevity of the Armenian language.

The newly digitized dictionaries are available at the following locations:

http://www.nayiri.com/imagedDictionaryBrowser.jsp?dictionaryId=26

http://www.nayiri.com/imagedDictionaryBrowser.jsp?dictionaryId=34

For a full list of the 15 dictionaries currently available on the site, please see:

http://www.nayiri.com/dictionaries.jsp?l=en