Armenian 101

  • պակա (paka) -- "Goodbye" from Russian пока
  • եմիշ (emiš) -- "melon" from Turkish yemiş
  • ալլո (allo) -- "Hello" on the phone, from French allô and many other languages
  • մերսի (mersi) -- sometimes said as "thank you", from French merci

These are just a sample of the words that are borrowed from other languages. Especially in Eastern Armenian there are many borrowed Russian words because of Armenia being under the Soviet Union a long period of time. This caused the Russian language to gain influence on the Armenian language. When you drive around Yerevan today you will still recognize many Russian influences in the country like a sign of gas will be in Russian "газ" (gaz).

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