Armenians

Armenians (Armenian: հայեր, hayer [hɑˈjɛɾ]) are an ethnic group native to the Armenian Highlands.

Armenians constitute the main population of Armenia and the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. There is a wide-ranging diaspora of around 5 million people of full or partial Armenian ancestry living outside of modern Armenia. The largest Armenian populations today exist in Russia, the United States, France, Georgia, Iran, Ukraine, Lebanon, and Syria. With the exceptions of Iran and the former Soviet states, the present-day Armenian diaspora was formed mainly as a result of the Armenian Genocide.

Most Armenians adhere to the Armenian Apostolic Church, a non-Chalcedonian church, which is also the world's oldest national church. Christianity began to spread in Armenia soon after Jesus' death, due to the efforts of two of his apostles, St. Thaddeus and St. Bartholomew. In the early 4th century, the Kingdom of Armenia became the first state to adopt Christianity as a state religion.

Armenian language

The Armenian language (classical: հայերէն; reformed: հայերեն [hɑjɛˈɾɛn] hayeren) is an Indo-European language spoken by Armenians. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia and the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. It has historically been spoken throughout the Armenian Highlands and today is widely spoken in the Armenian diaspora. Armenian has its own unique script, the Armenian alphabet, restored in 405 CE by Mesrop Mashtots.

Linguists classify Armenian as an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. It is of interest to linguists for its distinctive phonological developments within the Indo-European languages. Armenian shares a number of major innovations with Greek, and some linguists group these two languages with Phrygian and the Indo-Iranian family into a higher-level subgroup of Indo-European, which is defined by such shared innovations as the augment. More recently, others have proposed a Balkan grouping including Greek, Phrygian, Armenian, and Albanian.

Armenian alphabet

The Armenian alphabet (Armenian: Հայոց գրեր Hayots grer or Հայոց այբուբեն Hayots aybuben) is an alphabetical writing system used to write Armenian. It was developed around 405 CE by Mesrop Mashtots, an Armenian linguist and ecclesiastical leader, and originally included 36 letters and now includes 39.

The Armenian word for "alphabet" is այբուբեն aybuben (Armenian pronunciation: [ɑjbubɛn]), named after the first two letters of the Armenian alphabet Ա այբ ayb and Բ բեն ben. Armenian is written horizontally, left-to-right.

Alphabet

Listen to the pronunciation of the letters in  Eastern Armenian  or in  Western Armenian .

Ligatures

Ancient Armenian manuscripts used many ligatures. Some of the commonly used ligatures are: ﬓ (մ+ն), ﬔ (մ+ե), ﬕ (մ+ի), ﬖ (վ+ն), ﬗ (մ+խ), և (ե+ւ), etc. Armenian print typefaces also include many ligatures. In the new orthography, the character և is no longer a typographical ligature, but a distinct letter with a place in the new alphabetic sequence, before "o".

Capital

Capital may refer to:

Architecture

Colleges, seminaries, and universities

Capital ẞ

Capital sharp s (ẞ) is the majuscule of eszett. Sharp s is unique among the letters of the Latin alphabet in that it has no traditional upper case form. This is because it never occurs word-initially in German text, and traditional German printing (which used blackletter) never used all-caps. When using all-caps, traditional spelling rules required the replacement of ß with SS. However, in 2010, the use of the capital ẞ became mandatory in official documentation in Germany when writing geographical names in all-caps.

History

There have been repeated attempts to introduce a majuscule ß. Such letterforms can be found in some old German books dating back to the late 19th century and some later signage and product design. One of the best known examples is the East German 1957 Duden.

Inclusion in Universal Character Set

A proposal by Andreas Stötzner to the Unicode Consortium for the inclusion of capital double s in the Universal Character Set was rejected in 2004, on the basis that capital ß is a typographical issue, and therefore not suitable for character encoding. A reworked version of Stötzner's proposal was submitted on 25 April 2007 by DIN. The proposal suggested the Unicode name LATIN CAPITAL LETTER SHARP S. The proposal has been adopted and the character was added as Unicode character "ẞ" U+1E9E LATIN CAPITAL LETTER SHARP S when Unicode 5.1 was released, on 4 April 2008.

Capital (economics)

Capital is a type of good that can be consumed now, but if consumption is deferred, an increased supply of consumable goods is likely to be available later. Adam Smith defines capital as "That part of a man's stock which he expects to afford him revenue is called his capital." Capital is derived from the Latin word "caput" meaning head, as in "head of cattle". The term "stock" is derived from the Old English word for stump or tree trunk, i.e. something that grows over time. It has been used to refer to all the moveable property of a farm since at least 1510. In Middle Ages France contracted leases and loans bearing interest specified payment in heads of cattle.

In economics, capital goods, real capital, or capital assets are already-produced durable goods or any non-financial asset that is used in production of goods or services.

How a capital good is maintained or returned to its pre-production state varies with the type of capital involved. In most cases capital is replaced after a depreciation period as newer forms of capital make continued use of current capital non profitable. It is also possible that advances make an obsolete form of capital practical again.