Armenian- difference between է and ա?
I recently visited Armenia, and had studied a small amount of the language before I went. One question that I had that I never quite figured out is why sometimes the word "is" becomes ա instead of the normal է. For example, in one greeting that I heard: տատիկը վո՞նց ա: I also heard it again on a recent Wendy's commercial, in which an Armenian man says: Միսն ու՞ր ա: Why don't these phrases use the word է instead?
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well, I'm an Armenian let me tell you this, there is nothing hard, whenever you see "ա" it should be "է" instead ALWAYS, grammatically "ա" is wrong in ANY PHRASE, there is no single phrase that "է" can be substituted with "ա" it's kind of spoken slang since if you say "է" instead of "ա" it will be excessively polite and official if you are talking to someone who you know, you might say "է" to a complete stranger, that will be nice. but in daily conversations I hardly think you will see people who'd say "է" instead of "ա", but from grammar's angle it is wrong.
much like "gonna" and "going to" or "wanna" and "want to"
տատիկը վո՞նց ա - you can easily replace that "ա" with "է" and it becomes grammatically correct.
Միսն ու՞ր ա - the same about this phrase... you always can replace last "ա" which supposed to mean "is" with "է" and it will always happen to be correct in every case.