BBC Travel publishes article about the Armenian alphabet

BBC Travel has published an article about the Armenian alphabet. Sugato Mukherjee, the author of the article entitled “How a 1,600-year-old alphabet shaped Armenian identity", has noted that the Armenian alphabet is not just a writing system, but it's also a numerical system used for mathematical calculations and recording calendar dates, as well as a national point of pride.

In the article, the journalist also has shared his impressions from his visit to the Armenian Alphabet Monument and Matenadaran.

“I knew that the aesthetically eloquent shapes of Armenian letters, with their long usage in folk art and calligraphy, have made it onto Unesco's Lists of Intangible Cultural Heritage. But I had no idea that the dainty, artistic designs are also imbued with secret codes and cryptographs, and endowed with hidden properties.

All the original 36 letters also have an assigned numerical value based on their order in the alphabet. When arranged in four columns and nine rows, the letters in each column respectively represent digits in singles, tens, hundreds and thousands,’’ writes Mukherjee.