Gor-Gor

The 60,000 figure for Turkey is the official figure from the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul. I can't remember whether it is only for Istanbul. But even if it is, I can't imagine there would be more than a few thousand (if that) Armenians left in the rest of Turkey. Of course, this does not count the Hamshen Armenians. As for my pessimistic figures -- the only one that I will admit to being pessimistic is the North America figure. Maybe it's closer to 600-700,000, but I put 500,000 because the rates of assimilation and mixed marriage are so high. The same goes for France. I've heard figures close to 300,000 -- but I know from personal experience that assimilation is strong there, too. Russia's 1.5 million Armenians are the largest Diaspora -- but they are the least organized. I imagine this lack of organization will is resulting in rapid assimilation. There is not one Armenian school in all of Russia. And also, most of the Armenians knew Russian before they went to Russia, so assimilating becomes even easier. Very sad...

The 1 million figure is too optimistic, taking into consideration the rapid pace of assimilation of Armenians in the USA over the generations.

Kerkorian doesn't give only to the Armenian Republic. Every year Lincy gives donations to the ArmeniaFund telethon, to all the Azkayin schools in Southern California, etc. I imagine once he dies, there will be a very sizeable gift to Armenia and the schools.

It depends on who you consider to be "Armenian." There are thousands of very assimilated Armenians all across the US, many of whom are only 1/4 Armenian, or less. Are these people Armenian? How should we count whether someone is Armenian or not? By whether they speak the language? By their last name? By whether they consider themselves Armenian? Etc, etc, etc. The US Census estimates that there are 155,000 Armenian language speakers in California; 8500 in New York; 8000 in Massachusetts, and so forth, with just over 200,000 in all of the US. These people, for sure, we will consider Armenian. But what about the rest? How will we measure them? Church membership? Anyway. I just wanted to point out that there is NO WAY to give an accurate estimate of the number of Armenians in the Diaspora, because we do not have an agreed-upon definition for what it means to be an Armenian in the Diaspora. In any event, my own estimate is a little under 6 million. I consider "Armenian" someone who 1) considers himself an Armenian; and 2) feels some connection to his heritage (not necessarily through language). Here's how it goes in my head: Armenia, Karabagh, Javakhk - 3 million Lebanon & Syria - 120,000 Iran - 100,000 Turkey - 60,000 Other Middle Eastern countries - 10,000 Russia - 1.5 million France - 200,000 Other CIS - 50,000 Other Europe - 50,000 North America - 500,000 South America - 50,000 Australia - 30,000

You really wonder whether these news reports are translated directly and literally from Armenian to English. Arabian? How about Arabic?

I'm surprised Soviet orthography maintains the rule that before the "noo" comes the "ra" and not "re." Interesting.

Jesus. Some guy is talking Western Armenian. lol What are the chances?!

Yes! I've been looking for this for ages! Thanks!

Did any of my favorite artists win awards? Hasmik Karapetyan Armine Nahapetyan Maya Margaryan etc? Long live Armenian pop!

Even if you're right, the Soviet changes were not made to correct things like that. If anything, the Soviet changes distanced the language even further from how the letter was supposed to be pronounced. This is what I meant by original orthography preserving the history of the language. If Յարութիւն was meant to be pronounced Yaroutiun, then the Soviet change to Հարություն didn't do us any favors. It makes it even harder to see if Յարութիւն was supposed be pronounced Yaroutiun...

Regarding yev/oo -- You'll probably want to hang yourself after I tell you this. There are several websites on the internet that list the 34th letter of the alphabet as ՈՒ not Ւ. It's a tragedy. (I just clicked on the link you provided to the Eastern Armenian thread, and it seems that this is quite popular among Armenians from Armenia.) When I was in school, our teacher told us that the reason for adopting the new orthography was two-fold: (1) To make it similar to Russian, with the eventual goal of using Russian letters; and (2) To make the language easier to learn, so that schoolchildren would not be disgruntled by Armenian and simply choose to learn another language. I kind of don't believe either one. Maybe it was a conspiracy to further divide the Armenian nation -- as if dialect wasn't enough, now we'd have spelling differences, too. Somewhere in the passages you quoted, it stated that from the 5th to the 10th centuries, we used a different orthography. I'd love to know more about this (sarcasm, as I don't think that is true). I think part of the beauty of the classical orthography is that you can see the history of the words. Once you change the spelling, the history goes out the window. Also, classical orthography DOES FOLLOW STRICT RULES. Things like Է --> Ի in words like Սէր (becomes Սիրել Սիրամարգ Սիրտ, etc). These rules of thumb are lost in Soviet orthography. The language loses its flavor. As for Western Armenians being blameless -- I think we are! Our pronunciation has nothing to do with this. Even with our pronunciation problems, we can still learn how to spell correctly. So, it should be even easier for Easterners. (Case in point: Barsgahays.)

BTW, thanks for that news clip, Arpa. I realize it would cost lots of money to switch back to the original orthography (storefront signs, textbooks, government documents, dictionaries, teacher re-training, etc), so I hope it is done over a long period of time. Say, along with bringing in Mesrobian spelling, can we get rid of the '39th letter'??? I mean "yev," of course...lol

The day schoolchildren in Armenia have arguments over how to spell words will be the day I can die in peace! It's եկեղեցւոյ. No! It's եկեղեցուոյ! Ahhh, one can dream.

A few questions: 1) Despite my near-hatred of Soviet orthography, I'm interested in learning all the rules, to try make sense of it all. Does anyone know of a website that details the rules? I also know there was a more radical version of spelling changes in the beginning, but that they were modified to the current version some decades ago. 2) As a secondary question, I always wondered how the spelling rules were put into place. I imagine that there must have been lots of opposition to it. And, I imagine it was quite an upheaval, quite an undertaking. How long did it take? Were people opposed to it? And today, do Armenian linguists in Armenia hate the spelling system? Do they oppose it? Do old people in Armenia still use the 'tasagan' orthography? 3) Finally: What was the point??? I learned the 'crazy' spelling rules of classical orthography. It's not that hard. I imagine if I lived in a country where everyone used Armenian (w/ classical orthography), it would have been even easier to learn. English is a language that has no spelling system. At least classical Armenian orthography had many rules and reasons behind its spelling rules. Why the change?

I never thought I could be so moved by nails. Thank you!

You all may think I am crazy or tribal or even prejudicial... But I don't think the Great House of Cilicia should go anywhere, if only for this one reason. For me, the Great House of Cilicia is the last institution testifying to the existence of Western Armenia. As such, it should remain. Besides, joining the 2 would be such a huge undertaking. What would happen to all the churches that under Cilicia's jurisdiction? What would happen to the Arachnortarans, to the schools operated by, for instance, the Western Prelacy here in the US? What would happen to the Cilicia printing house? To the mayr dajar in Antelias, to the veharan at Antelias?

Jeez, I don't know if I should respond to any of that...lol BTW, I know it's Beria in English. But if some Armenians are allowed to spell words incorrectly, then some other Armenians should be allowed to pronounce words incorrectly.

Cool, thanks. We're probably related...or your uncle and my aunt were neighbors, at the very least! GO HALEB! lol

Maybe it might have something to do with the Ethiopian Armenians. An ancestor may have been an Ethiopian Armenian, or married one, etc.

Excellent, thank you. Now, a follow up question. Was the diocese named "Perio Tem" as a historical nod to the ancient name of Aleppo, or did the diocese exist in some form in ancient times when the area was called Peria? Hmm.

I noticed that Aleppo's diocese (under G.H. Cilicia's jurisdiction) is called "Perio Tem," as opposed to something like "Halebi Tem." I wanted to see if anyone knew the answer to that... In case you're confused, this is what I'm talking about: Բերիոյ Թեմ And here is their website (it's quite nice, in Armenian and English): www.periotem.com

Interesting!! My mom's side of the family is the one that uses it -- and they are Dikranagerdtsi. I just checked my dictionary, and sure enough, it's in there, with the definition of "vodk." Cool.

In my family, we say "jivers" -- meaning something like "who cares" or "verchin hoks"... I always assumed it was Turkish -- or is it?

Eastern Armenian is not my native tongue either. For me, it's not the dialect that bothers me and gives me a headache -- it's the spelling!!! Anyway. The part about double citizenship is on page 4, halfway down. It's a new section to be added to article 30. Here is my translation: "The rights and responsibilites of those persons with dual citizenship are to be delineated by law."* Following that, it gives a few sentences explaining why we should ratify this amendment. It says that with 70% of Armenians living outside the country, it's not fair to preclude Diasporans the right to citizenship. It says that Israel and Ireland also have large diasporas, but they have not forbidden dual citizenship. It ends by saying this article will be a new and unprecedented step in uniting the Armenian nation. As for the part about right to change fronteirs, I'm not quite sure what you mean... * I am not a native EA speaker -- so I don't know whether "sahmanvoom" is to be translated as the present tense or the future tense.

Ahhh, the English source. RFE/RL translated an official government brochure regarding the referendum. http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/...a74230a09e.html