Gor-Gor

10% of CSUN's student body has a last name ending with "ian" or "yan." CSUN has more than 30,000 students. That's more than 3000 Armenians being helped by this generous gift. The school's student services building will be renamed Bayramian Hall. We need more role models like these -- our youngsters need to be bombarded with the visuals of successful Armenians.

The number for France is closer to 400,000. I know that assimilation exists there, too. Lebanon is at about 120,000 -- about half of its Armenians left in the last 30 years. Syria is at 50,000 -- 40,000 in Aleppo. Aleppo used to have over 100,000 Armenians. A full quarter of the city was Armenian. Iran is at 200,000, with half in Tehran. (But I think I am remembering the pre-emigration number. I think it's 100,000 now.) USA is supposedly at 1 million, but that includes a lot of assimilated Armenians. I would put the number closer to 500,000 to 600,000. California, they say, has 400,000, but again, I'd say closer to 250,000.

I can write it with English letters. If you're really desperate, I'll write it with Armenian script. Im sireli ungers, Ampoghch ays jamanagin untatskin, yes deser em miayn te inchkan martgayin (martavari? azniv?) yev badshaj ants mun es, polor oorishneren aveli. Ayt badjarov eh vor yes guh maghtem koo yev im mdermootyoonuh. Ungert, Armin.

I never heard of "aga" until I started frequenting these sites and read about it. Maybe it's a strictly Beirutsi thing? (As opposed to other variants of Arevmdahays.) Arpa: What's interesting about "neh" is not that it is used for emphasis; it completely replaces "yerp" or "yerp vor." Such that if you were to say "yerp vor kam neh" that would be redundant -- pick either "yerp vor" or "neh." Another very common use "muh" is after "che." Here, "muh" is used solely to emphasize. Ex: "Ays dari toon bidi avardes, che muh?" You can't use "muh" on its own, as you could "neh." (Which is why "neh" is so intriguing...Even "gor" isn't used on its own.) As for "che ka" -- I've never heard of the variants "kele" or "kla." Interesting... As for your comment about the Genocide: I've had this theory....That the Genocide actually helped PRESERVE the Western Armenian dialect. Not so much the fact that we have purified it by getting rid of Turkish words. But what I mean is that, the Genocide didn't occur, we'd all be living in Turkey. If we take a look at the existing Armenian community of Turkey, namely Bolis, you will note that they have THE SAME EXACT PROBLEM that Armenians are having in Western countries. The young generation is speaking Turkish, not Armenian. (There was an article in Asbarez about this.) So even in our historic homeland, we would begin to lose our language. You can argue that Bolis is a cosmopolitan city, with many international influences, and that that is the reason for the loss of language; and that in the regions outside Bolis (where most Armenians lived), retaining the language would be easier. But I have a feeling that Armenians, being economically inclined, would want to move to the large cities for reasons of upward mobility. But with the Genocide, 2 relevant things resulted: (1) A reawakened emphasis on language retention; (2) a sizeable Diaspora in Islamic countries, where Armenian language is retained and not subject to fast assimilation. So without the Genocide, I think Western Armenian would die out faster than it will in the circumstances we find today. Why? Because Armenians are more aware about the importance of language retention. And with Syrian and Lebanese Armenians not subject to the same pressures of language assimilation found in Western countries and Turkey, they are firmly holding on and passing down the Western Armenian language. Had these Armenians not endured the Genocide and had still been living in Turkey -- I don't think they'd be able to keep the language as alive as it is being kept today. What do you think?

Isn't the third color of our tricolor supposed to represent agriculture? You know, wheat/tsoren. Which is where the orange would fit in. (Well, I suppose gold would be more accurate, but hey, the the second color should be sky blue, not royal blue. )

Dave: LOL @ chenesiz. Beynsouz means "brainless." Souz is common suffix meaning "-less." Ahh, okay, for some reason I thought you were the other resident Dikranagerdtsi. My mom's side is Dikranagerdtsi. My dad's side is Kharpertsi and Hin Halebtsi.

I can't believe you've never heard "neh." Almost every single Western Armenian I've met uses it! All my former classmates at school all used it, and our Armenian teacher wanted to murder us. LOL @ "muh" and "ya." I swear, when people hear me speak Armenian, they think I just got here from Haleb. I'm such a Halebtsi with all these words. Che kaaaa. As for "hetch" -- our teachers would tell us that was Turkish too. I've heard it used by Hayastantsis too, so I don't know. (That's not to say Hayastantsis never use Turkish words, but certainly not to the extent that Western Armenians do, or at least those Western Armenians who never repatriated to Armenia...) My mom and her sister were talking earlier...and they were using so much Turkish!! "Beynsouz" comes to mind at the moment. lol Hey I think you've said in the past that your family is Dikranagrdtsi, too, right?

I've been trying to find some information about this for some time. In Western Armenian slang (and as far as I know, this exists only in WA), there are some common things we add onto words. The most famous, of course, is "gor." But just as pervasive is the suffix "neh." It is commonly added to verbs to take the place of the word "yete" (if). For example: In proper WA, you would say "Yete khosis, bidi parganam" to mean "if you speak, i will become angry." But in slang, we often say "khosisneh, bidi parganam." It means the same thing. You can use it for most verbs. I was thinking about it the other day, and thought of a second use of the "neh" suffix, but it has escaped my mind at the moment. A caveat: There are some Armenians who say "nuh" instead of "neh." If anybody knows Turkish, maybe he or she can tell me whether this is taken from Turkish grammatical structure? (Note: It's probably wrong to call it a suffix, but it's all I got...lol)

I'll give it a shot. Both dialects were derived from the Classical Armenian (grabar/krapar). That is the language still used today in the Armenian Apostolic Church, whether its parishioners speak Eastern or Western Armenian. Over the course of hundreds of years, the Classical Armenian went through many phases in its spoken form, including a Middle Armenian, which is the closer link to today's 2 modern dialects. Although the written language remained Classical Armenian, the spoken language among common Armenians (the vernacular) changed. These variations took on different forms in the many different Armenian settlements. Armenian was spoken from the westernmost points of the Ottoman Empire (Western Armenia) to the easternmost points of what is today's Armenia (Eastern Armenia). This is a huge area. Armenian settlements were far from each other and there was often little communication among them. Compounded with a lack of standardization, there formed many, many regional dialects. Each town had its own dialect. Very few of these regional dialects survive today. I am not sure when and for what reasons (although I fathom it was for unification purposes and for longevity of the language, perhaps heeding warning signs of a forthcoming genocide), but the intellectuals of Constantinople and Yerevan created 2 standard forms of Armenian, based on the regional dialects of Constantinople (Bolis) and Yerevan, respctively. The dialect of Constantinople became today's Western Armenian; the dialect of Yerevan became today's Eastern Armenian. Although the local dialects remained in use, the schools in the towns and cities outside Constantinople and Yerevan began to teach these standardized forms. (My grandfather, for instance, was born in Dikranagerd, and never went to school. Until the day he died, he spoke only in the Dikranagerd dialect. Others like him who went to school, could speak both. They were encouraged to speak the standard form, my mom tells me. The local dialects were viewed as 'hasarag.' My grandfather told my mom stories of how everyone in church in Dikranagerd would be mesmerized when a visiting priest from Constantinople would 'karozel' in the standard dialect. It was viewed as the formal dialect.) I'm not sure how similar the local dialects were to the 'standardized' forms that came and took their place. It was only when the vernaculars were standardized into Eastern and Western that Armenian was allowed to be written how the people spoke it. It's difficult to comprehend today, but for hundreds of years, spoken and written Armenian were 2 different languages, much like spoken and written Arabic today. Anyway, so standardized Western Armenian was spoken in Western Armenia; Eastern Armenian in Eastern Armenia. The Soviet Armenian Republic was created out of Eastern Armenia, and hence adopted Eastern Armenian as its state language. Today's Armenian Republic obviously continued this practice. As a result of the Genocide, Western Armenian became a Diaspora-only dialect. Speakers of the dialect were either killed or forced out of the Ottoman Empire, to Syria, then Lebanon, Europe, and the US. Western Armenian survives in these Diaspora countries. How long it can survive is a question open for debate. Many Western Armenians, after having survived the Genocide, in the 1930s and beyond, emmigrated from the Middle East to Soviet Armenia. There, they 'assimilated' and today speak Eastern Armenian. Armenians of Iran also speak Eastern Armenian. They were generally unrelated to this whole mess. Armenians settled in Persia around 600 years ago from Eastern Armenia. Armenians in Russia and former Soviet countries also mostly speak Eastern Armenian, for obvious reasons (emmigration from Armenia either during Soviet times or today). The traditionally Western Armenian-speaking Diaspora has recently been joined by Eastern Armenian speakers, as they leave Armenia, Iran, and Russia to Western countries, such as the USA, UK, France, etc. ....I knew I shouldn't respond, as I knew I couldn't keep it short. Hopefully there aren't too many mistakes in there.

Longest one I could think of off the top of my head: արժանապատւութիւն (arjhanabadvoutuin)

One of my friends (non-Armenian) is obsessed with Kasabian....he was quite interested to find out I have cousins with that last name. lol

I think most women on the shows are beautiful. Then again, I think most women can be made that beautiful, too. It's all in fun. But I don't think they're the most beautiful women... I quite like our Miss Armenia. On LBC (Lebanese satellite channel), sometime last year she was the host of an hourlong special showcasing the highlights of Armenia. She went all over the country to all the sites, etc. It was in English with Arabic subtitles. She was quite pretty and nice and I was impressed with her English, though heavily accented.

Oh you beat me to this!! I was busy looking for pictures of our first runner up. And you guys thought she was ugly...

So, as you all know, I spend half of my day brainstorming about the Armenian language (lol)...and this one sprung upon me a few days ago. Do you think they have the same origin? While the Armenian word for "award" is probably "գնահատագիր" or "գնահատաանք," I think there's a strong connection between award and աւարտ. You might be awarded when you աւարտել something. In any event, I thought this might be of interest to Arpa, since it furthers his hypothesis regarding "w" and "ւ."

LOL! And, I'm sorry, I knew that 'holovum' was the incorrect term to use, but it was late and I couldn't think of either the English or Armenian word for it. Actually, I still can't! And no, it wasn't a typo. In WA, it's ոտնլուայ. Interesting! Sia: And yet the 'n' rears its head again in dasnamyag, dasn@meg, etc. ..and even yotnerrort, ootnerrort, innerrort, dasnerrort. Do EA speakers not say yot@, oot@, in@, das@? I've always thought of the dropping of the Krapar 'n' as not so much a full dropping, but a halfway dropping when it's replaced by "@" -- by saying @, we're going halfway towards pronouncing it the Krapar way, just omitting the final sound that is a 'n' -- did anyone get that?? lol ex: das@ instead of das@n...

Nairi: For some reason, I feel like I just remembered this from my elementary Armenian grammar classes -- well, either I remembered, or I just made it up. lol Anyway. Perhaps when the 'part par' is made of two words that are NOT joined by a helping letter (ie, the letter 'ayp' -- I forgot the proper word for it), then the word is treated as a regular, polysyllabalic word, and hence takes on 'ner.' This sounds so wrong, yet somehow I feel like I'm onto something....lol This does explain dzovapner at least, so now you can sleep easily at nights. As for Standard Western Armenian -- my grammar books and teachers would beg to differ on there being no SWA!! lol No, but I understand what you mean. Spoken Western Armenian is all one big melting pot of different regional dialects. How something approaching a standard was developed and sustained is still quite an achievement in itself! With that said, there are accepted standard Western Armenian forms -- but they are little known and little used because of a lack of the need for formal use. Like, we did learn that the plural or 'moog' is 'mgner' and 'kir' becomes 'krer' etc -- but who ever says mgner and kirer?? No one! ...Until you open up a (Western) Armenian newspaper... Anyway -- bottom line is that there is a SWA, but it is rarely used because of a lack of support from any state. Siamanto: Thanks for bringing up kentron/getron. This fascinates me! What's interesting is not only that EA adds the 'n' but also that they are spelled differently! EA uses duin/tuin and WA uses ta/da. The end result is that both versions pronounce the word with "T" sound, but they are spelled differently. This RARELY happens in Armenian when we take a loan word. Generally, it is transliterated from the foreign language using EA pronunciations (think: foreign place names). But in this case, it seems WA decided to protest a bit. lol The only other example I can think of is Beirut, where WA spells it with a be/pe, and EA with a pen/ben. But this is quite understandable. As for tserk and odk, aren't those plural forms themselves, much like achk? The singular forms are tser(n), vod(n), ach -- and when they become plural, they keep the krapar form of pluralization, meaning they drop the 'n' and take on a 'q.' So is 'tserker' wrong? I dunno... Oh also -- why doesn't the krapar 'n' return in ALL cases of holovum? For instance, vodNlva (religious washing of the feet ceremony); but tserakir (the 'n' doesn't return)... God I love this stuff!

Arpa: Asdvadz im, don't get me started on the Soviet bastardization of Armenian orthography. Although I can read Armenian written with Soviet orthography perfectly well, it frustrates me to no end to see it. Every other word, I think to myself "WRONG!" *sigh* Poor huin...

SAS, THANK YOU! I was writing a birthday card yesterday and I came upon the word "dzrakir" (tsragir) -- and I stopped writing for a second because I forgot whether to add -ner or -er to make it plural. I knew the basic rule of monosyllable/polysyllable -- but I knew that it was a bit more complicated than that. Thanks for reminding me! Although I'm still confused -- would it be dzrakirner or dzrakirer? Is "kir" acting as a verb here (krel) or as a noun (kroutyoun)? I ended up writing "drakirner" because it sounded better to my ears... Nairi: I would also say "asdgher."

Բարեւ Ձեզ՝ Շատ ուրախ եմ որ վերջապէս առիթը ունիմ հայերէն գիրերով գրելու. Խորհին շնորհակալութիւն կը յայտնեմ անոնց որոնք «Տառափոխում» յայտագիրը պատրաստեցին. Կեցցէ՛ մեր մայրենի լեզուն.

Thanks for all of your replies. I'm now satisfied with the reasoning behind it. It'd been bothering me for some time! Nairi: I know it's difficult when I don't use the Armenian fonts, but I have tried and I have remained unsuccessful to get my computer to get it to work. I have an old computer with an old version of Windows running. But I've used copy & paste for this post. To my ears, this is how it sounds: բ - B փ - P պ - somewhere between B and P Perhaps this is ludicrous to a native EA speaker, but I don't hear պ as simply a variant of the P sound. And that's where my confusion comes in. Maybe my mind is playing tricks on me in that I am conditioned to hear պ as B, and so it doesn't really sound like a P to me. Sometimes I also think that maybe փ in EA is slightly harsher/stronger than փ in WA. It's the only P sound we've got, so I think that over the years, the sound become slightly softer since it is easier on the mouth and there was no other sound that it would be infringing on (since, in my mind, if փ became softer in EA, it would begin to encroach on պ's sound. What say you? [edit: I can use the translator on my school computer! see the "Hayeren" thread for results! lol]

Precisely! Well, it was actually more like "Lre dzo. Shad zrras ne, Asdvadz baban vrat kar gu nede!" Oh I can feel the love, Arpa. Merci shad shad koo khoskeroot hamar.

The only thing I can add to this is that in official WA standards, you are always to write foreign words that contain a "w" using vo-huin, and NEVER to write it using a vev. Example: Washington is written as vo-huin-ayp-sha-ini-noo...etc and not vev-ayp-sha...etc That's how we learned it in Armenian class. Check your daily Asbarez. EDIT: Oops. I use "kve" as a noun for "vote." "To vote" is then "kveargel."

Hey everyone. It's your resident EA novice. As I understand and hear it, Eastern Armenian has some middle sounds for some of our consonants. Such that, for example, there's a sound for P (puir), B (ben/pen), and and P/B mix (pe/be). Now, anytime I read a foreign word that is written in Eastern Armenian (be it on the streets of Yerevan, on the internet, etc), the writer will generally use the P/B mix (pe/be) to transliterate the P sound from English. My question is, why doesn't he just use the "puir" letter, as that is a clear P sound? For example, "pizza" is written as pe/be-ini-tsa-tsa-ayp. Why not use "puir" for the first letter, as the pe/be sound is not a clear P sound? Of course this isn't limited to P/B, but for all the other middle sounds -- K/G, T/D, CH/J, TS/DZ. For example: "Internet" is transliterated using "tuin/duin" instead of "to." I mean, we have a clear T sound in "to," so why use the T/D mix? In some cases, I can understand the reasoning. "Coca Cola" is transliterated using the middle ken/gen letter. I understand this, since the English "C" is itself supposed to be a "soft k" sound. I admit this is a selfish request, as it makes things much easier for me read and comprehend!! But besides that, it just makes more sense, I think.

Arpa -- Perhaps the wrong thread to bring this up in. But, was the Armenian word for "wheel" supposed to be pronounced "aniw" and "number" as "tiw"? Or were these words developed after the change from W to V had already occurred? Oh, and I just noticed - when the "huin" is preceded by "ini" (in Mashdots spelling) - the sound they make together kind of has a "w" in it. Like "tsuin" (snow). Sorry I have no contributions to make to this thread. All I know is hachel and zrral, and I just learned about mlavel the other day. lol My family actually uses "zrral" to mean something like "talking too much." Mi zrrar!

Antsnink Sasoon, mdnink Van, Moosh, Alashgerd, Ardahan... One of my favorite Armenian folk songs!