Help

1. A bilingual index of the Armenian Badarak (Divine Liturgy) in English and Armenian;

2. The dynamic text of the Badarak, in Classical Armenian, Western Armenian transliteration, and English.

      • Color-Coded Text. The instructions are in dark green; the parts spoken aloud or sung are in black, and the priest's silent prayers are in blue.

      • Word-by-Word Translations. The Classical Armenian text is clickable word-by-word translations, the pronunciation for each word can be heard by clicking on the Audio Icon, and each word can be concordances by clicking on the Binocular Icon.

      • Search and Concordance. The English has copious Biblical annotations, which can also be concordanced, to facilitate bible study. These annotations underscore the Biblical content as well as instructional goals of the liturgy. They can be viewed by clicking on the footnote numbers. The biblical text of the annotation can be viewed by clicking on the annotation itself.

3. Music and Hymns – In addition to text, for each of the 20 hymns of the liturgy, the musical notation and a recording (with voice and accompaniment, karaoke style) can be activated by clicking on the Note Icon and activating the recording from there. The hymns are provided in .pdf format, ready for printing, with Classical Armenian and Transliteration, as well as word-by- word and integrated translations.

4. Proper Names and Saints – The names of saints and other proper names used in the divine liturgy are annotated in Armenian and English, and may be viewed by clicking on the round Information icon in the text.

5. Main Menu Tools – Always available from the top menu bar are various tools to help with studying the liturgy

     • Dictionary - A three-way (Classical Armenian, Transliteration, English) "talking" dictionary of all the words in the Divine Liturgy complete with a search and concordance

     • Background - articles on the history, structure and meaning of the liturgy and biographical information about saints and other holy people mentioned in the liturgy

     • Exercises in Church Armenian – These graded exercises (basic, intermediate, advanced) are designed to permit facilitate review and reinforcement of vocabulary and grammatical forms, as well as familiarity with the most common phrases of the liturgy.

     • The vocabulary is presented in three levels. The basic level consists primarily of words in the congregation's part of the liturgy; the intermediate, of the public parts of the liturgy (congregation, deacon and priest's spoken/sung parts); the advanced, primarily on the priest's silent prayers.

      • The grammar drills . These drills in the forms of Church Armenian cover the 60 most common grammatical categories in the liturgy. They are organized in two ways – practical and academic, offering roughly the same material, which users can access according to their preferred approach and method. The practical presentation is primarily functional/semantic, whereas the academic is organized along more traditional grammatical lines.

     • Phrase drill. These drills assist in learning the vocabulary and grammar in context, emphasizing understanding and fluency.

     • Grammar charts. These paradigm charts present all of the major regular and irregular noun, verb, pronoun and preposition forms used in the Church Armenian, in .pdf format, ready to print for easy reference.

6. Word of the Day – based on the Diocese of the Armenian Church (Eastern) Word and Phrase of the Day Calendar, which helps learn the most common words and phrases one a day.

Troubleshooting:

Fonts – Note that this site has been written in Unicode Armenian. Unicode Armenian fonts can be downloaded free from http://www.freenet.am/armnls/ . If you are using Windows 2000, XP or higher and have done a complete installation of the windows software including regional language support, your browser should automatically display Armenian and include Armenian keyboard support.

If Armenian letters are not displayed, try the following troubleshooting tips:

   1. Check the Regional & Language Settings in your Control Panel (accessible through the Start Menu on the lower left corner of your screen). On the Language Tab, make sure that the “Install complex scripts option (including Thai)” is checked. If you select it and the necessary files were not installed when you did your initial Windows installation, you will be prompted to insert your Windows system disk to install the missing language support components.

   2. Check your Browser's Internet Options under the Tools menu for Internet Explorer. Click on the Languages button and add Armenian if it is not already listed on the languages list. Click on the Fonts button and check to make sure you don't have a conflicting font selection. Common default settings that are compatible with displaying Armenian are Latin-based, New Times Roman and Courier New.

   3. Check your Brower's Encoding Setting , located under the View Menu in Internet Explorer. Common default settings which are compatible with displaying Armenian are Auto-select, UTF-8 (Left-to-right).