Modern linguistics interprets the concept of language development as the development of its grammatical factors and lexical composition, which is actually characteristic of its literary version. The concept of language development in its dialects, which is studied in the courses of dialectology and historical dialectology, is interpreted as "gradual and consistent changes" occurring in dialects, which leads to their consistent death under the influence of literary language in connection with consolidating political and economic processes. The article shows that the development of a language as a set of its dialects occurs mainly outside of connection with the development of literary norms and the development of dialects does not lead to their disappearance. The development of the language in its dialects (not a literary language!) is the real history of the development of the national language in connection with the history of its native speakers, which is shown by the example of Armenian. The problem is being raised so fundamentally for the first time and may cause serious objections, as well as become the beginning of a new approach to the study of the history of the language.