Armenian Transliteration

Multi-standard Armenian transliteration library with IPA phonemic transcription. Supports 8 transliteration standards with full type safety and 1325 tests.

Installation

npm install armenian-transliteration

Usage

import { transliterate, createTransliterator } from "armenian-transliteration";

// Default: BGN/PCGN romanization
transliterate("Երևան");              // "Yerevan"
transliterate("Հայաստան");           // "Hayastan"

// ISO 9985 (reversible, with diacritics)
transliterate("Երևան", { standard: "iso-9985" });  // "Erewan"

// Hübschmann-Meillet (academic)
transliterate("Երևան", { standard: "hubschmann-meillet" });

// ALA-LC (Library of Congress)
transliterate("Երևան", { standard: "ala-lc" });

// Russian geographic names (Кузьмина–Туманян 1974)
transliterate("Երևան", { standard: "ru-geographic" });  // "Ереван"

// Russian personal names (Вартапетян)
transliterate("Հակոբ", { standard: "ru-personal" });    // "Акоб"

// IPA phonemic transcription (Western Armenian)
transliterate("Հայաստան", { standard: "ipa-western" });  // "Hajasdan"

// IPA phonemic transcription (Eastern Armenian)
transliterate("Հայաստան", { standard: "ipa-eastern" });  // "Hajastan"

// Factory for repeated use
const toRussian = createTransliterator({ standard: "ru-geographic" });
toRussian("Հայաստան");  // "Хаястан"
toRussian("Երևան");     // "Ереван"

Supported Standards

| Standard | ID | Target | Reversible | Description | | ------------------ | -------------------- | -------- | ---------- | ----------------------------------------- | | BGN/PCGN | bgn-pcgn | Latin | No | US/UK geographic names (default) | | ISO 9985 | iso-9985 | Latin | Yes | International standard with diacritics | | Hübschmann-Meillet | hubschmann-meillet | Latin | Yes | Classical academic system | | ALA-LC | ala-lc | Latin | No | Library of Congress | | Russian Geographic | ru-geographic | Cyrillic | No | Geographic names (Кузьмина–Туманян 1974) | | Russian Personal | ru-personal | Cyrillic | No | Personal names (Вартапетян) | | IPA Western | ipa-western | IPA | No | Phonemic transcription (Western Armenian) | | IPA Eastern | ipa-eastern | IPA | No | Phonemic transcription (Eastern Armenian) |

API

transliterate(text, options?)

Transliterate Armenian text.

• text: string — input text (Armenian characters are transliterated, everything else passes through)
• options.standard — transliteration standard (default: "bgn-pcgn")
• options.direction — "from-armenian" (default) or "to-armenian" (not yet implemented)

createTransliterator(options)

Create a reusable transliterator function with fixed options. More efficient for repeated use.

listStandards()

Returns an array of all supported standard IDs.

Features

• 8 transliteration standards — BGN/PCGN, ISO 9985, Hübschmann-Meillet, ALA-LC, Russian geographic, Russian personal, IPA (Western & Eastern Armenian)
• Declarative standard definitions — each standard is a data object, not imperative code
• Proper tokenizer — no temporary Unicode symbol hacks
• Case preservation — uppercase, lowercase, and title case handled correctly
• Full Unicode support — Armenian ligatures (U+FB13-FB17), punctuation, mixed scripts
• Type-safe — strict TypeScript, zero any types, zero type assertions
• 1325 tests — unit, per-standard, integration, edge cases, and formal model verification
• Tree-shakeable — ESM, CJS, and IIFE builds (16KB minified)