SIL International, the ISO 639-3 registrar decided on January 30, 2018 to provide a separate “hyw” language code for to Western Armenian. The initiative is a result of joint effort by Wikimedia Armenia Scientific-Educational NGO and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
Eastern Armenian and Western Armenian are two separate branches of modern Armenian language that have developed in different directions and structures, in separate places and in separate literature that are not always read or understood by the other side. After Armenia’s independence, Eastern Armenian, Middle Armenian and Grabar received separate linguistic codes, but Western Armenian did not have one by now.
Three years ago Wikimedia Armenia Scientific-Educational NGO and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation partnered to promote Western Armenian. Within this framework, representatives of Western Armenian communities created content in Wikipedia in Western Armenian.
Though Western Armenian is widely used, in 2010 it was included in the UNESCO map of world-endangered languages.