The Armenian alphabet (Armenian: Հայոց գրեր, romanized: Hayocʼ grer or Հայոց այբուբեն, Hayocʼ aybuben) or, more broadly, the Armenian script, is an alphabetic writing system developed for Armenian and occasionally used to write other languages. It was developed around 405 AD by Mesrop Mashtots, an Armenian linguist and ecclesiastical leader. The script originally had 36 letters. Eventually, two more were adopted in the 13th century. In the reformed Armenian orthography (1920s), the ligature և, ev, is also treated as a letter, bringing the total number of letters to 39.
The Armenian word for 'alphabet' is այբուբեն, aybuben, named after the first two letters of the Armenian alphabet: ⟨Ա⟩ այբ, ayb, and ⟨Բ⟩ բեն, ben. Armenian is written horizontally, left to right.
