23 replies to this topic

[Anoushik]

It was stupid to name the city its current name.  This city was established by the Russian Empress Alexandra and it would have been proper to return her name to the city.

That's not true. The city was long before established before it became Alexandrapol.

[Arpa]

Gyumri, or Gumru is a turkified form of Kumayri that is supposed to indicate that the original name was based on the fact that it was first established and inhabited by Kimerians, i.e. Cimerians. I have no opinion as to how Kimeria(?) becomes Kumayri

Kumayri, Gyumri.

http://www.gyumri.am/eng/history.html

http://www.gyumri.am/eng/

So many times , here and at every Armenian fora the postulate of how the Celts have originated in Asia Minor.
I was reading an article where it contends that the Celts have been everywhere, mostly in Europe though, and among those who claim to be of Celtic ancestry, the Irish, the Scots and the Welsh who seem to be the most passionate. They call themselves “kum-ree”, and connect themselves to the Cymerians.
See for yourself.

http://www.welshdrag...products_id=271

What is Welsh?
[whatis]
Welsh is a member of the Celtic family of languages. It is closely related to Cornish and Breton and more distantly related to Irish, Scots Gaelic, and Manx. The Celtic languages were spoken throughout the British Isles long before English was brought to Great Britain by Germanic invaders from northern Europe. Welsh is thought by some to be the oldest living language in Europe. The Welsh name for Welsh is Cymraeg which is pronounced cum-RAIG (the last syllable rhymes with the first syllable of "tiger"). The Welsh name for Wales is Cymru (KUM-ree). The Welsh name for the Welsh people is Cymry, pronounced the same as Cymru.

Isn't Welsh just a dialect of English? Not at all. Welsh is an entirely different language that had already existed for centuries before English began to evolve from its Germanic roots. Here are some examples: Welsh: Mae Cymraeg yn iaith hen iawn. English: Welsh is a very old language. Welsh: Croeso i'r safle Gwe 'ma. English: Welcome to this Web site.

Isn't Welsh a dead language? Not yet! Estimates vary, but it's believed that about 15-20% of the Welsh population speak Welsh as a first language and perhaps another 15-20% are fluent second-language speakers. Many more are in the process of learning the language. The number of second-language speakers is growing rapidly, especially among younger age groups. This is a hopeful sign that in two or three generations Welsh will be restored as the community language in many parts of Wales. Realistically, however, Wales will always be a bilingual country where nearly everyone will also speak English.

Why should I learn Welsh? Everyone in Wales speaks English, right? It's true that nearly everyone in Wales speaks some English. Especially in predominantly Welsh-speaking areas, you will still find many Welsh-speakers who are not comfortable with English. Some of the reasons that people give for learning Welsh include Out of a sense of national pride or identity To converse with Welsh-speaking friends and family members To expand one's employment opportunities To be able to read Welsh literature Out of sheer love for the language and a desire to help save it There are no "right" or "wrong" reasons for learning Welsh (or any other language). Different people will be motivated by different factors depending upon their individual circumstances.

Is Welsh hard to learn? Welsh is a little harder than many other European languages to get started in because the grammar is very different from that of English. Once you get over this minor obstacle, however, Welsh turns out to be relatively easy as languages go. The grammar, although different, is actually quite straightforward, and a large vocabulary can be quickly acquired once you realize that a huge number of Welsh words are formed by adding prefixes, endings, or other words onto a stem word. For many learners, especially outside Wales, the hardest part is finding classes to take and other Welsh-speakers to practice with. High-quality self-study materials have also been hard to come by, but the number of publications aimed at learners has been growing rapidly in recent years.

[Arpa]

yah, but nothing beats having a community in Yerevan called Bangladesh.

Yeah right!
Was this typhoon/harutfoon in the suburbs of Yerevan?
A long time ago, even before East Pakistan was renamed Bangladesh, when there was another typhoon that killed hudreds of thousands, I asked one of my "East Pakistani" classmate why is it that hundreds of thousands die from a a simple high wind, and why it is that they are so numerous in numbers. His answer was- In "Bangladesh" there are not enough means of entertainement except the "entertaiment of making babies". Yeah right! "Making babes"? Other mammals (canines?)know better how.
Why is that every time there is a disaster in Bangladesh, only the western civilizations are the first to respond?
India, the next door up and coming mega-economy of over a billion population, China, the other mega-economy of a billion+ popultaion don't even move a finger, be it the middle or the index one?
Yeah, yeah! Let them entertain themselevs making more babies with no thought of where and how those babies will live or die.
Who said that, we here in the west have to work 25 hours a day to come to their rescue when they spend 25 hours a day making new babies?

Edited by Arpa, 20 November 2007 - 12:24 PM.

[Arpa]

Before we proceed, let us observe a moment of silence in memory of Dec. 7, 1988.
That terrible and tragic day of the BIG EARTQUAKE
The Article below From ArmeniaNow is quite exhaustive and very informational as to how the original name Kumayri was turkified to “kumri” and why. With one omission about the origin of the name from Cimmeria/Kimmeria/Cimmerian.
Look above Post # 22.
Also see who and what the Cimmerians/Kimmerians were;
http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Cimmerians
===

-----

http://www.armeniano...gyumri_renaming

Analysis | 07.12.10 | 13:07
From Kumayri to Alexandrapol, Leninakan and Gyumri: What’s the historically fair name of Armenia’s second city?

NAZIK ARMENAKYAN
ArmeniaNow
Modern day Gyumri
By Aris Ghazinyan
ArmeniaNow reporter
At a meeting with Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirril I, on December 2, Gyumri mayor Vardan Ghukasyan brought up the idea expressed by many residents of Gyumri to rename the city back to its historical name – Alexandrapol.
The mayor’s suggestion caused a stir in Armenia’s second city, and was read by some as the further “Russianization of Armenia”.
A closer look, however, shows different motives – including the fact that the current name is of Turkish origin – and is one reason over the past years more and more residents of Gyumri talk about recovering the city’s former name. Alexandrapol’s history goes back to 1837, when Emperor Nikolay I personally visited the settlement, which later was named in honor of the emperor’s wife. The place itself was not a city yet. It was a settlement with fortresses erected in early 19th century, as strongholds during the war against Ottoman Empire. It was the Turks who called the place “gyumri”, which meant “customs”. Yet a thousand years before the “the customs”, there was an ancient Armenian settlement called Kumairy, which stood where today’s Gyumri is. In late 5th c. BCE ancient Greek historian Xenophon wrote about Giumnias – “a big, rich and crowded” city. Armenian historian Ghevond (8th c., during the Arab rule) – has reference to Kumairy of his period already as a settlement. The Turks who took possession of that territory played the similarity between the traditional name of the settlement and the Turkish word ‘gyumri’ meaning “customs”, and altered Kumayri to Gyumri. The concept of ‘Gyumretsi’ (native of Gyumri) is the Turkish equivalent of tax- or tribute-collector, as well as a money-lender, money-changer. For dozens of years the Armenians of Kumayri struggled to free themselves of the Turkish yoke, of the hated name Gyumri, and connected all the hopes with Russia - a country that shared the same faith with them. In 1826 the former customs finally rid itself of the Turkish oppression. In 1840 the fortress of Alexandrapol was officially proclaimed a city, and in 1850 that city became the center of Alexandrapol uyezd [district] of Erivan province. As a result of the railway lines Tiflis [Tbilisi] - Alexandrapol- Kars and Alexandrapol-Erivan [Yerevan]-Julpha laid later, it became also one of important communications hubs. The moment when ‘customs’ became Alexandrapol marked the launch of the settlement-to-city transformation process. By a special decree it was developing in accordance with the standards established for Rostov, Kars and Shushi. That period saw the formation of a new type of Eastern Armenia-based Armenians, who combined the best traits of Armenian, Russian, Caucasian and even European cultures. Nonetheless, today’s residents’ growing desire to rename the city is not so much dictated by the drive for the recovery of historical justice (in that case it would make more sense to rename it Kumayri), as by the realization of the deficit of urban culture, and of the loss of urban values and traditions. The concept of “Alexandrapoltsi” (native of Alexandrapol) meant belonging to urban culture. If Gyumri nurtured money-lenders and did not leave behind any more or less worthy name, Alexandrapol, on the contrary, gave birth to mystic Gyurjiyev and sculptor Merkurov, poet Isahakyan and painters Aslamazyan sisters – names that soon became known in all Europe. Alexandrapol became the city of craftsmen, where more than a hundred kinds of crafts flourished – goldsmith craft, smith craft, copper, tin working and casting. Masons, layers, carpenters were especially respected and demanded. While churches were built in a traditionally established manner, residential and public buildings incorporated new – Russian and European – tendencies. After Sovietization the city – then renamed into Leninakan (after communist leader Vladimir Lenin) – lost some of its qualities, but due to the massive “Alexandrapol stratum” it kept standing out among other regions. The city was renamed yet another time in the early 1990s – back to the Turkish name Gyumri along with the objectively brewing multidimensional crisis, and reanimated the pitiful and humiliated Gyumretsi type of the times of Turkish oppression. It is against this reanimated image that many residents of Armenia’s second biggest city are speaking out, and moreover, they say that the mayor who actually voiced that issue in his conversation with the Russian Patriarch would never be able to become the mayor of Alexandrapol, he can only be the mayor of Gyumri. Today’s tour around Gyumri is the fixation of the victory of money-lenders’ world perception. In the current whirlpool of the construction boom, that traditional stratum of Alexandrapol culture is under the threat of complete destruction, either through demolishing the old housing, or their adjustment to the architectural taste of the new rich. But if Alexandrapoltsis knew their limits, Gyumretsis never new such limits and still don’t. It is that all-permissiveness that the residents of Kumayri-Alexanrapol-Leninakan-Gyumri oppose, and in their quiet desire to reclaim a name, seek also to reclaim a character by which their city was honored in its best days.

Edited by Arpa, 07 December 2010 - 05:41 PM.