The beauty of Armenian Human languages change and evolve and Armenian is not an exception. Throughout centuries the Armenian language experienced semantic changes - a change in the meaning of a word over the course of time. In Armenian many words have lost their initial meanings, and gained new meanings, or small shifts in spelling or grammar made the language speakers forget the initial meanings of the words. Below you can see examples of the latter. Բարև [bar’ev] - This word means “hello” and is the most common greeting of Armenian. The word originated from the old Armenian բարյավ [bar’jav], which was the instrumental case of the word բարի [bar’i], that means kind. In the past, the greeting was used to wish someone goodness. Nowadays, we say bar’ev in order to acknowledge the presence of the second person, without thinking much about the meaning of this beautiful word. Ողջույն [voṙdžujn]- this is another way that you can use to greet people in Armenian. The root of the word “ողջ’’ [voṙdž], means alive or healthy. So, in the past when Armenians met people and said voṙdžujn, they wanted them to live! Կենաց [kenats’] - The word originally was the genitive case of the word կեանք [keank’] , which means life. Nowadays, Armenians use the phrase քո կենացը [qo kenatsë] when they offer a toast. For some of us, the phrase has become part of drinking ritual, and it started to connotes ‘cheers to you,’ but it originally meant “for your life.” To be continued.