Trchnakir: The Armenian Bird Letters, Explained

Trchnakir is the Armenian tradition of drawing letters as birds. Scribes used it in illuminated manuscripts, often for the large initial letter at the opening of a text. In Armenian the word is Թռչնագիր, and in Eastern Armenian transliteration you will also see it written trchnagir.

The name joins the Armenian words for bird and writing, as Armenia's official travel site notes. Once you know what to look for, you start seeing it on manuscripts, posters and textiles.

One branch of Armenian ornamental lettering

Bird letters belong to a wider practice called zardagir, or ornamental letters. The Matenadaran, Yerevan's manuscript institute, uses these terms side by side in its manuscript catalogue:

• zardagir, ornamental letters
• hangutsagir, knot letters
• kendanagir, animal letters
• trchnagir, bird letters

The catalogue uses this wording for Gospel books from the 15th and 17th centuries. UNESCO groups Armenian ornamental scripts in a similar way, by shape: knots, birds, animals, people, and mythical or imaginary creatures.

Where bird letters appear

In a manuscript, ornament sits where the reader's eye lands first. That usually means the initial letter at the start of a Gospel or a chapter.

Gospel books often built these initials from the symbols of the four Evangelists, including the eagle of Saint John. In the Gospels illuminated by Toros Roslin in 1262, the Walters Art Museum describes the first three Gospel initials as formed by the Evangelists' symbols, with John's eagle perched in the fourth.

The Hill Museum & Manuscript Library has photographed zoomorphic letters in Armenian manuscripts from Aleppo and from the convent of Our Lady of Bzummar in Lebanon. Its curators describe human and animal figures and plants being used to decorate capitals and the corners of the page.

Why the tradition is still alive

In 2019 UNESCO added Armenian letter art and its cultural expressions to its list of intangible cultural heritage. The listing notes that the letters live on in carpet weaving, embroidery, sculpture and jewelry. It also notes that schools and the Armenian Apostolic Church pass the art on to young people.

Bird letters reach classrooms in the United States as well. A lesson plan from The Genocide Education Project has students write their own names as bird letters.

For a diaspora family, that is the appeal. A bird letter is unmistakably Armenian, even to someone who cannot read it, and it opens the conversation about the alphabet behind it.

Bird letters in the shop

Several of my designs draw on the tradition. They are modern designs, not copies of a particular manuscript:

• Armenian Alphabet Woven Blanket, Trchnakir, with the bird script in woven cotton and fringed edges.
• Trchnakir Bird-Letter Throw Pillow in beige, with letters drawn as birds across the cover.
• The bird alphabet mug in white or glossy black.
• The Bird Letter Square Tablecloth, which draws the alphabet as birds, animals and small figures. It sits closer to the wider zardagir family than to bird letters alone.

Any of them can carry a name you add. For more designs built on the letters themselves, browse the Armenian Alphabet collection.