Why Armenian Letters Are Also Numbers
Each Armenian letter has a name and a number. Ayb is one, Ben is two, Gim is three. The alphabet is not just a writing system — for centuries it was also how Armenians wrote figures.
That is a more interesting fact than it first sounds, and it explains something about why the letters carry the weight they do.
The letters have names, not meanings
A common assumption is that each Armenian letter carries a symbolic meaning, the way some traditions assign qualities to individual characters. It does not work that way.
What each letter has is a name. Ayb, Ben, Gim, Da. The alphabet itself is called aybuben, after its first two letters — the same construction as "alphabet" from alpha and beta.
The meaning lives in the system as a whole, not in the individual signs.
How the numbers work
The 36 letters Mesrop Mashtots created around 405 AD were arranged so that each carried a numeric value in sequence.
- The first nine letters are the units: Ayb 1, Ben 2, Gim 3, and so on to 9
- The next nine are the tens: 10, 20, 30, up to 90
- The next nine are the hundreds
- The final nine are the thousands
Thirty-six letters, four groups of nine, covering every number up to 9,999. Greek and Hebrew work the same way, which is not coincidence — Mashtots knew both.
Two further letters were added to the alphabet later, to carry sounds borrowed from other languages.
Where you still see it
Armenian numerals turn up in manuscript dates, on khachkars, in church inscriptions and on older gravestones. A carved date on a cross-stone is often a string of letters rather than digits.
It is one of the reasons Armenian letterforms feel weightier than decoration. They have done more than one job.
Why this matters for what goes on a wall
An alphabet blanket or tapestry is not a chart. It is the working parts of a system that held a language, a liturgy and a numbering scheme for sixteen centuries, in a form that survived without a state to protect it.
That is the argument for putting it somewhere visible rather than folding it away.
- Armenian Alphabet Woven Blanket — $63–$119. Woven in cotton, not printed, and it takes your own text.
- Trchnakir Alphabet Blanket — $63–$119. The bird-script, where each letter is shaped into a bird.
- Large Alphabet Wall Tapestry — $63–$119. Full-width, for a wall a smaller piece cannot fill.
One number worth knowing
Armenians count the alphabet's age from 405 AD. Sixteen hundred years is not a round marketing number — it is how long a set of thirty-six signs has been doing continuous work.
The whole range sits in Armenian Alphabet. Back to school and the Armenian alphabet covers what it means to pass it on.