Classical Armenian orthography, traditional orthography or Mashtotsian orthography ( in classical orthography and in reformed orthography, Hayereni tasagan ughakrutyun), is the orthography that was developed by Mesrop Mashtots in the 5th century for writing Armenian and reformed during the early 19th century. Today, it is used primarily by the Armenian diaspora, including all Western Armenian speakers and Eastern Armenian speakers in Iran, which has rejected the Armenian orthography reform of Soviet Armenia during the 1920s. In the Armenian diaspora, some linguists and politicians allege political motives behind the reform of the Armenian alphabet. Classical Armenian orthography uses 38 letters: the original 36 letters of the Armenian alphabet invented by Mesrop Mashtots during the 5th century, and the 2 additional letters included later in the Armenian alphabet during the Middle Ages. It uses also 2 letters that were added to the Armenian alphabet in the 13th century: Vowels Monophthongs Armenian has eight monophthongs () and ten symbols to represent them (). The pronunciation in the examples is Western Armenian. They will be shown here with International Phonetic Alphabet: {| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;" ! rowspan="2" | ! colspan=2| Front ! rowspan=2| Central ! rowspan="2" |Back |- ! Unrounded || Rounded |- ! align="left" | Close | class="nounderlines" style="text-align:center" | || || || class="nounderlines" style="text-align:center" | |- ! align="left" | Mid | class="nounderlines" style="text-align:center" | || || class="nounderlines" style="text-align:center" | || class="nounderlines" style="text-align:center;" | |- !Open | | | | |} — , — , At the end of a word, is always written (never ). For example: , , . At the beginning of a word, is written . For example: , . In the middle of a word before a vowel, is written . For example: , . When followed by two consonants within a root word, is written . For example: , , , . When making a noun plural, or is added to the end of the noun. For example: → , → . When followed by , , , , or , is written (and not ). The following are exceptions: , and foreign proper nouns: , . — is always written . For example: ("his"/"her") is written . — , , — is always written . For example: ("house") is written . — , epenthetical The vowel is usually not written. For example: ("thought") is written (not ), and ("marvelous") is written (not ). is written in the