Anaheet

I'm only a goddess here...in RL I'm an archangel. Uh....yum? She made a lot of yogurt soup, though. And nazook, every so often. No, I'd just like my family to spell our name a different way (not the way I spelled it up there, the way they really spell it). I'd also like an actual Armenian first name in RL, but it seems a bit late to change it now. Sounds great!

True! True! Loved the Rowling reference.

OK, you've invoked my name, so I feel compelled to respond here. The problem was not that my father married an "odar." The problem was that he deliberately chose to not teach us the Armenian language. Yet at the same time, he taught us about what it is to be Armenian, about Armenian culture, Armenian history, etc. You can reject that or not- it's your choice. If my dad had wanted us to learn Armenian, it would have been a different story. My mom wanted to learn it. My dad didn't want us to learn it. Blame him for that, not marrying an "odar." I think Jews have a better idea. If you marry a Jew, your children are Jews. Why isn't it that way for us? If you marry an Armenian, your children are Armenians. Clear definition of lineage is BS. That's a nineteenth century ethnological concept with no basis in fact. Language and culture are more important than "bloodlines." Why do you think the Russians are so dominant? How many Russian speakers are ethnically Russian? Language and culture can be acquired. Seriously, you sound like you're trying to preserve some kind of royal family. (Another outdated concept.) Anyway, don't pretend to be speaking for me, since you're obviously not.

The Septuagint is the oldest translation of the Old Testament extant. It's a translation into Greek. "Septuagint" refers to "seventy"- it is traditionally believed that there were seventy translators. The Septuagint is the text that the Christian Church originally used for its Old Testament- the Orthodox Church still uses it. It would not surprise me if the Grabar text of the Old Testament was translated from the Septuagint. The Vulgate is the Latin Vulgate, translated from the Greek Septuagint into the commonly used Latin of the day (400s, I believe) by St. Jerome.

My great-great-grandfather was Popik Simonik (Barefoot Simon) since he never wore shoes, apparently!

Ok...I'm embarrassed to ask but I'll ask anyway...could somebody translate? I caught about four words, maybe five... Thanks!

Asghtrik (my great-aunt's name) means roughly the same as Esther: star Anahit was the ancient Persian/Armenian version of Astarte/Ashtoreth/Aphrodite. The goddess of love and fertility.

What about Nejdeh and Vrezh? I know "Vrezh" means "revenge" (it's my father's name)(sometimes spelled Vrej)- what about Nejdeh? Also, do you know the origin of Harand?

My father LOVES Charles Aznavour. He listens to him all the time. "Yesterday when I was young..."

Merci, Vava jan! I appreciate the welcome.

Thanks for the welcome! I am open to flirting with all comers, except Vigil (who wouldn't anyway!).

Um, hello, Jews (most of them) are not Christian...Christianity may have originally been derived from Judaism but it has diverged from it (or one might say Judaism has diverged from it- they share a common root). Besides that, what's wrong with having a Jewish-derived religion? You got something against Jewish people? They are nice folks- also much persecuted, also with a Diaspora.

What's Kragapasht? Why is it superior?

Yeah, no doubt. Don't forget about Leo the Issaurian (should be called Leo the Armenian. Levon the Armenian, if you like!). Of course he was an iconoclast, but putting that aside, he was one of ours...

My mother's (Armenian) side is from Istanbul..and before that both sides were from some villages near Divrig - (Sivas region) in Anatolia... My grandmother said we were "Mushi," so I guess some of my ancestors came from Mush...my understanding of it's a little garbled. Relatives in the KKK- OWCH! So we're getting it from both sides, aren't we? Isn't human nature great? BTW - you know expotentially more Armenian then I! Wow! I thought I couldn't know more Armenian than anybody! Except maybe my brother...he is terrible at languages...after 3 years of high school Spanish he can hardly speak a word of it. What I do is, I keep interrogating my relatives, and anybody else I find who speaks Armenian, and learning one little bit at a time. ...oh yes and I too do like my So did my grandmother (Mezmom)! She kept singing this song about it...something about Armenians loving wine. Since all I knew of it was 'gini', 'wine', I never learned it, alas. Does that ring a bell for anyone? Heto khosank! (TTYL)

He is inviting us over for food and drinks. Apparently Sev-mart is throwing a huge party for HyeForum members. When do I come? "Fridgei mech a, hamestek." - it's inside the fridge, come over. So 'mech' is 'inside', then? Cool. Or should I say "Shat lav e"?

I always heard that Turkey discouraged, if not outright forbade, such expeditions. Being Moslem, they believe the ark landed on some other mountain.

Inch? Inch es asum?

What is it? Is it in our genes? Our genome? The hawk nose and the piercing eyes? The will to be around for another few millennia? Many of the ancients are simply history. Boastful Assyrians, artful Medes, powerful Parthian, not to speak about Ethrusians, Arameans, Scythes, Alanis, Summerian, and dozen of others. There are a few Assyrians left, in Iraq. Actually there's a lady who's Assyrian who goes to my church. I know another lady whose father is half-Hye, half-Assyrian. The others are all gone, though. And of course, there's no country of Assyria, anymore. I attribute it to pure stubbornness. Armenians are just plain stubborn. We're never going to give up while we're still breathing. Is that a good trait to have? Well- we're still here, right! Even the mighty Romans are gone. But we are still around. And Armenia is still there “And that it is right here on the clear Sevan that the sky could make its exact duplicate Simply David has indeed fought right here Simply the Narek was written right here Simply we know how to build from the rock, a monastery How to make fish from stone, how to make man from clay” Good stuff.

Thanks, Thoth. I'm flattered. It seems you and I share something of our backgrounds. My mother is Armenian and my father mixed Northern European. I've got the reverse- Father hye, mother not. My dad's a first generation immigrant, a ParskaHye from Khuzistan (southern Iran, by the Arabian Sea, so hot that the asphalt melts). His family was one of those who had been in Isfahan since Shah Abbas (I believe it was Shah Abbas) deported a whole bunch of them to build mosques and what-all. My mom's family's been in the US since it was the Colonies- since the 1600s. I like to say that makes me a typical American. My mother experienced much discrimination due to her color/ethnicity growing up and it affects her attitudes to this day (and caused her to disuade me from learning Armenain - so like you I do not speak - and to this day she insists that I "be" American and forget everything about my Armenian heritage). My dad encountered that sort of thing growing up a member of the Christian Armenian minority in Muslim Iran, and then again when he immigrated to America with a strong accent. He insisted that me and my brother get American first names (Anaheet is just a handle- it's the name of one of my dad's first cousins)- my mother, the nonArmenian, wanted us to be Ani and Ara! She also experienced the same sort of racist attitudes from many of may fathers family - including from my grandmother - who never really accepted her as "white" - so i hear you. So did my dad. That's not the only such story he can tell (the KKK thing). He still has the KKK literature they gave him. I think he thinks of it as a badge of honor. So do I, frankly. If the Klan hates you, you must be all right! One of my ex-uncles (one of my aunts' ex-husbands) has said some nasty things about my dad. My dad calls him "Shoon Ferre-ghar." (The "ghar" part is supposed to be Farsi for "donkey," I don't know how to transliterate it. Of course "shoon" is dog!) He always enjoys his bilingual joke. I think that kind of talk is silliness at best and virulently evil at worst. So again welcome - stick around - we need more who think as you do (emphasis on "think")...and good luck on your quest to discover/understand your history/heritage/culture etc - I think that - for the most part - you will find this forum somewhat helpful (and interesting/entertaining/enlightening & worthwhile) in this regard. Thanks, man. It's nice to know I'm not the only half-Hye floating around here. I appreciate the welcome! If I ever manage to make it to Hayastan, I'll let you guys know! Oh, and true story: I am picking up more and more Armenian as I go along. My aunt (my dad's sister) is staying with us as she recovers from back surgery. She asked my dad "Ginis vordergheh?" and I immediately went to get it. I understood she was asking where was her wine. Ten years ago, I would not have been able to pick that up.

I'm just saying that it looks to me like if we had converted to Islam like everybody else, we would have adopted the less savory aspects of Arabic culture (polygamy for example) and the better aspects of our culture would have been lost. Loss of language would probably have followed as well- look at Iran, which lost its Alphabet, or Egypt, which lost its language. By not becoming part of the Islamic "Ummah," we managed to maintain our cultural identity, our cultural integrity. I'm not saying you're not a real Armenian if you're not a Christian.

I cannot believe you just said Armenia needs a Hitler. Armenia was on the receiving end of a Hitler (Talaat ***** and his cronies), and you think we should grow our own? Hitler was a monster. No country needs a leader like that. He led the corruption of his entire society, and then all of Europe. You sound like a classic early 20th century eugenecist, except most of them would have classified you as being too dark to be part of their master race. You really think Armenians would have fared better than Gypsies in Nazi Germany? We're the same color, for crying out loud! (And yes, I have olive skin. My features are Armenian. As if that matters to you.) And how dare you attack a black person! Haven't blacks been attacked enough by idiot white supremacists? Now you have to be an Armenian supremacist? I just want you to know my father was stopped and threatened by the KKK- that's the Ku Klux Klan, in case you didn't know- when he was in the South in the '60s. He was too dark for them, you know. Him, a pureblooded Caucasian Armenian. Yes, us pure Indo-Europeans! I've heard the arguments! Also, when my mother was about to marry my father, my great-aunt said something about how her kids would be 'black.' Hmmm, sounds an awful lot like your argument, doesn't it? Only in this case, my father was the 'otar.' And what are you doing attacking Christianity? Do you really think the Armenian language or culture would have survived without it? Look at Azerbaijan- I've heard that the people there were once Armenian in language and culture. They became Turk because of converting to Islam. That is besides the other benefits, less tangible, of Christianity. I don't expect you to listen to me; your mind is closed. I'm just putting this out there for the record.

Thank you very much. I agree with what you've said.

Amen to that!

Thanks Azat. My father is a ParskaHai, but he never taught me the language- I had to learn it higgeldy-piggeldy from my relatives. So I'm picking up a little bit here and a little bit there. In fact, I learned the word ParskaHai from one of his cousins. I guess you could say I'm trying to "de-assimilate." I didn't have any choice in the matter as a child. My family are the only Armenians I know. There are not a whole lot where I live, and apparently the ones there are speak a different dialect from my dad's family (Western as opposed to Eastern Armenia). Also, my dad was not very well educated in Armenian, so he gets embarrassed, I guess. Of course, he made things even worse for me, not having been educated in Armenian at all! One of my life goals is to go to Armenia for a year or three and really get fluent in the language and learn everything there is to learn about being Armenian. My cousin is 100% Hye and he could care less. Who's the better Armenian? My license plate says HAI EM. And it's true.