Middle Armenian (), also called Cilician Armenian (a term that may also refer to modern dialects), was the second phase of the Armenian language, spoken and written in between the 12th and 18th centuries, after Grabar (Classical Armenian) and before Ashkharhabar (Modern Armenian).
Classical Armenian was predominantly an inflecting and synthetic language; in Middle Armenian, agglutinative and analytical forms influenced the language. In this respect, Middle Armenian is a transition stage from Old Armenian to Modern Armenian (Ashkharhabar). Middle Armenian introduced the letters ÃÂ (o) and ÃÂ (fe), based on the Greek letters "o" and "ÃÂ".
The letter ÃÂ, based on the Greek letter o, was added during this period. It originally represented the IPA sound (close-mid back rounded vowel), which developed out of the Classical Armenian diphthong áà. Today, in the Armenian alphabet, it represents IPA (open-mid back rounded vowel) and is indistinguishable in most cases from ø. Therefore, in standard orthography, o is only written word-initially (using ø represents the cluster initially).
The letter ÃÂ, based on the Greek letter ÃÂ, was added during this period. It represents the IPA sound (voiceless labiodental fricative), which is not a native phoneme in Armenian. However, it was prevalent in borrowed words, making it necessary to use a letter to write it. It is still used today in the Armenian alphabet.