Tranquilizer

Arto has some great works! I have been on his concert - exciting, original, not quite Armenian style, but very nice - fresh experiments with eastern motives... I don't understand much of what he is singing, sometimes I think he's just babbling and saying nonsense, but he surely got his style BTW, Serart stinks!

Guys and girls (o hi everyone!) do you really believe there's Armenian music these days? Most of it, if not all, is genuine crap! Yes, that Nune too - in my opinion, at least everything I heard of her.. Point me to some nice Armenian music, please. I haven't heard anything living in Armenia for years. Well not counting Hakhverdian, but I haven't heard of him for a while, and his style can't be called truly Armenian I think...

Thanks for the info Gamavor jan! Actually, Armenians, at least the lower classes of Hayastancis with whom I had many unfortunate contacts (the same meaning as you have - forced to or as a matter of survival ) carry a lot of Arabic influence, as I see it now - I know quite a few Arabs these days... All the great and prosperous rabiz culture has its roots in middle east, if you ask me. And with turks, of course, no one rejects their input

Well, about the IE thing, of course it's interesting and fun to play with it, do reconstructions and comparisons, but I think the "IE dialect" languages have gone so far apart, that the existence of a common source is of no help any more. After all, these guys found out about the common origin in 19th century, before that the languages were considered completely different.. Here's an example text in IE to support my point: Gwrhéei hówis, qésyo wlhnéh ne est, hécwons spécet, hoinom kke gwrhúm wóccom wéccontm, hoinom-qe méghm ppórom, hoinom-qe ccménm hóocu ppérontm. Hówis tu hecwoippos weuqét: “Céer hekknutór moi, hécwons héjontm hnérm widntéi”. Hécwoos tu weuqónt: “Cluttí, hówei, céer kke hekknutór nsméi widntppós: hnéer, pótis, héwyom r wlhnéhm seppi qrnéuti nu qqérmom wéstrom; nécci héwyom wlhnéh hésti”. Tód cecluwóos hówis héjrom ppugét. I believe not a single word here has its analogy in Armenian. So you get my point - they are very very far apart now. About the Artsakh barbar. Well, I know only a few phrases in it, so my example is not quite relevant. I wrote yesterday to my friend in Yerevan who is Artsakhci, he gave me a few examples of their speech. Again, I know Armenian, the way they taught us at school, and I can hardly understand what Artsakhcis say (written is easier, but still very problematic): 1. (easiest) A lakut et torn@ lyav paki li, skvaznyaka, mejks cort@ tarav. 2. (harder) Ke matagh parki mghre kon li, ver vagh@ kshana ver kenas knyas tasi. 3. (chinese) Ara, de knya mhre en ghol@ kuzi li, en knanik loh bda stegh en eshum. Any guesses?

Hi again! Mersi hyurnkalutjan hamar Yes forumnerum kich em lnum, mek mek, enkan vor hetakrkir tema lni xosalu mi erku mitk im komic el kavelacnem.. So, about the languages... Ok, when do we consider two dialects to become distinct languages? When they are spoken in different countries? After all, many languages we know have common ancestors, to which they were dialects once. Say Russian and Polish, English and German, Italian and Spanish, even all these alltogether are beleived to have come from a common source. But no one calls them dialects of the same tongue now. Why? Because they are too far from each other, so that native speakers of one of these can hardly understand the other. Now I don't understand Artsakh people. Why should it be considered an Armenian dialect. They have different words for many nouns, different accent, different sounds, I mean it is really different. Pya hunc, ke matax, krabaxskin lox munk'nk mogonal u s'xraniat 'ral ) - Anyone "who really knows the language" understands this? In my opinion Armenian dialects have gone too far and it's the ethnical and other secondary issues that keeps them all called Armenian. Slavic languages are about as far from each other as Armenian dialects, but everyone admits that they are different yet similar languages. Why do they call Ancient Armenian by a different name, Grabar, cause it's different and we admit it, right? Armenian being an Indo European language is another issue. The ancient Armenian is of course Indo European, but with a great amount of borrowings from other unrelated tongues. From the very basic words denoting natural objects, body parts, and things like that, only very few of them are recognized as Indo European, but the structure and other basic things suggest that it is. But this is irrelevant for our topic, I don't see why have you given me the IE link..

Hello Armenian ladies and gentlemen! A few questions about Armenian language. Curious about what you guys think.. First: Is Armenian one language? Generally, what do scholars mean when they say that the given two groups of people speak different languages? An objective criterion would not depend on political map, on racial and ethnical issues, would it? So my opinion is that the languages of two groups are considered different when there is a certain difficulty for native speakers of those groups to understand each other - without prior knowledge of the other group's language. Why only "certain difficulty"? because otherwise Russian and Ukrainian would not be considered different, or I guess even Norwegian and Swedish. Now my point is that "without prior knowledge of the other group's language" most western and eastern folks would not understand each other. Personally, I am native Armenian speaker Yerevantsi, natively bilingual with Russian actually, but that doesn't change anything. And I have not only certain, but great difficulty understanding the so-called Armenian dialects from south Armenia, and some others. I understand western Armenians better only because I am acquainted with their language - and there still are certain difficulties.. So, at the point where Armenia doesn't need any more help from the westerners, and at the point where westerners get totally disappointed with their eastern "brothers", will the languages be indeed considered different? The others are of a more provocative nature, I will keep them for the next time

Thanks a lot Gamavor I was curious about this issues and looked up some stuff.. Well, kind of cool to know about these cultural ties you pointed out Yeah I wondered about those clothes on trees at pilgrimage sites, and Trndez, thanks again for the info. You know, Armenians' connections with southern Europe some people explain by commmon Arabic and other influences. I see now there might be alternative ways of looking at this. I wonder why I have never heard from Armenians, neither read in Armenian literature and historical accounts, any single word about Phrigia and the Balkan heritage..

Hi everyone! I see some people here quite interested in Armenian historical, cultural, linguistic heritage. So I have one question, does anyone know anything about the cultural and other ties between Armenians and ancient nation of Phrygia. I have been wondering about this recently. Some linguistic sources place Armenian language in the Phrygian group. Besides, I have read in some article that Greek historians identified Armenians with Phrygians... I have looked up the few sources about Phrygian language. I was really curious, since as far as I knew scholars had not found any close relatives of Armenian language. Well, I can say one thing - certain words do sound similar or same (like "jerm" - meaning warm), but on the other hand many words from other languages sound similar too.. Anyway, anyone heard anything on this?