1 The Armenian dialect of Smyrna Bert Vaux, University of Cambridge December 2011 1. Introduction Little has been written about the Armenian dialect of Smyrna, which now appears to be extinct, yet it arguably played a central role in the development of Standard Western Armenian, thanks to the efforts of the nineteenth-century American missionaries who happened to be based in Smyrna and appear to have (perhaps unwittingly) based the language of their proselytizing texts on the local speech patterns of the city. In this chapter I review what is known about the traditional Smyrna dialect from dialectological sources, complementing this with materials from what is arguably the first grammar devoted entirely to what we now see as Standard Western Armenian 1 , the K‘erakanut‘iwn Angghiarēn ew Hayerēn (English and Armenian Grammar) published by Bishop Step‘annos in İzmir in 1835. 2 Here we find one of the earliest attempts to standardize Modern Armenian, but in a form noticeably closer to the spoken language of the region than what survives in the standard language today. Regional forms such as իրեք iɾɛk h3 ‘3’, տասնըւինը dɑsnəvinə ‘19’, քսանւերկու k h əsɑnvɛɾgu ‘22’, and նիստ 1 Sebastats‘i 1727 presents a form of the language quite different from what we would now think of as Standard Western Armenian (SWA), and Cirbied 1823 presents fragments of dozens of varieties of Armenian. 2 Elias Riggs’ important 1847 grammar of Western Armenian arguably reveals elements of Smyrna Armenian as well, but reviewing these lies beyond the scope of the present chapter. 3 In order to cater to Armenians, armenologists, and linguists alike I render all linguistic forms in both Armenian script and the International Phonetic Alphabet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IPA_chart_2005_png.svg). References and names, on the other hand, are rendered in the ALA-LC system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Armenian#ALA-LC_.281997.29) so as to facilitate bibliographic research. Turkish words are presented in Turkish orthography. to appear in Armenian Smyrna/Izmir, Richard Hovannisian, ed. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers