[BUG] Armenian script generation broken - outputs "delays" instead of Armenian characters

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
• [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
• [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

When generating Armenian text, Claude outputs the English word "delays" instead of Armenian characters. The first 1-2 Armenian characters may render correctly, then all subsequent characters are replaced with the literal string "delays".

Example output when asking for "Hello" in Armenian:
Բdelays delays delays!

Instead of:
Բարեւ

This bug affects ONLY Armenian out of 58 tested scripts/languages. Even rare scripts like Cherokee (ᎣᏏᏲ), N'Ko (ߊߟߎ߫), Javanese (ꦲꦭꦺꦴ), and Tibetan (བཀྲ་ཤིས་) work correctly.

The bug is also reproducible in claude.ai web interface, indicating this is a model-level issue, not specific to Claude Code.

What Should Happen?

Claude should output proper Armenian text. For example:

Input: "Write 'Hello, I received a notification' in Armenian"

Expected output:
Բարեւ, ես ծանուցում եմ ստացել

(Full Armenian text with proper Unicode characters from the Armenian block U+0530–U+058F)

Error Messages/Logs

No error messages - the model completes successfully but outputs incorrect text.

Sample corrupted output:
Բdelays delays delays delays delays delays delays delays! Delays delays delays delays Postcard-delays delays delays delays delays delays delays delays delays delays delays delays delays delays delays delays delays delays delays delays delays delays delays delays delays delays delays.

The word "delays" consistently replaces Armenian characters.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Open Claude Code CLI (or claude.ai web interface)
2. Enter a prompt requesting Armenian text generation, for example:

• "Write 'Hello, how are you?' in Armenian"
• "Translate this to Armenian: I received a notification from the delivery service"

1. Observe the output - Armenian characters will be replaced with the word "delays"

Alternative test:

1. Ask Claude to write an email in Armenian
2. Notice that after the first 1-2 characters, all Armenian text becomes "delays delays delays..."

Verification that this is Armenian-specific:

1. Test the same prompts with Georgian: Works ✅ (გამარჯობა!)
2. Test with Greek: Works ✅ (Γεια σας!)
3. Test with Hebrew: Works ✅ (!שלום)
4. Test with Arabic: Works ✅ (!مرحبا)
5. Test with Armenian: Broken ❌ (Բdelays delays delays!)

Claude Model

Opus

Is this a regression?

I don't know

Last Working Version

Unknown - not tested on previous versions

Claude Code Version

2.1.3 (Claude Code)

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

Other

Additional Information

Comprehensive Multi-Script Testing

I tested 58 different non-Latin scripts/languages. Results:

| Status | Count | Languages |
|--------|-------|-----------|
| ✅ Working | 57 | Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Belarusian, Russian, Macedonian, Mongolian (Cyrillic), Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Greek, Georgian, Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Pashto, Kurdish, Uyghur, Sindhi, Yiddish, Thai, Lao, Khmer, Myanmar, Tibetan, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Sanskrit, Nepali, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Sinhala, Odia, Assamese, Amharic, Tigrinya, N'Ko, Cherokee, Inuktitut, Dhivehi, Javanese, Balinese, Sundanese, Uzbek, Bashkir, Chechen, Chuvash |
| ❌ Broken | 1 | Armenian |

What this rules out

• ❌ NOT a general Unicode issue (57 other scripts work)
• ❌ NOT a non-Latin script issue (Georgian, Greek work)
• ❌ NOT a RTL issue (Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, Urdu work)
• ❌ NOT a multi-byte UTF-8 issue (all tested scripts use multi-byte)
• ❌ NOT a low-resource language issue (Cherokee ~2k speakers works, Armenian has 3M)
• ❌ NOT a script complexity issue (Tibetan, Myanmar, Khmer work)

Reproducibility

• ✅ Reproducible in Claude Code CLI
• ✅ Reproducible in claude.ai web interface
• ✅ Consistent replacement with "delays" (not random corruption)

Impact

Armenian is spoken by ~3 million native speakers and is the official language of Armenia. This bug makes Claude unusable for Armenian language tasks.