Sarkis11

In my previous post of July 20, 2011, I had said that Western Armenian had been compiled and systematized in Constantinople, today’s Istanbul, and that Eastern Armenian underwent the same process in Leningrad, Russia, and Tbilisi, Georgia. Well, it so happens that I had read about it long time ago, and didn’t remember the details very well. I just reread it again and realized I had made a mistake that I want to correct now. The main center for the making of Eastern Armenian was not Leningrad (St. Petersburg), as I had said earlier, but Moscow’s Lazarian Armenian Institute. Yes, no doubt that there were Armenian intellectuals in St. Petersburg, but the principal place was Moscow. The other more important centers were Tbilisi, in Georgia, and Astrakhan, in Russia, a city at approximately 1000 km from Armenia, near the Northern tip of the Caspian Sea. Apparently, the Lazarian Institute was founded in 1815 as a “gymnasium” (secondary school) by the Lazarian brothers —Lazarev in Russian— and in 1827 was transferred to the Ministry of Public Education and renamed Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages. At some point its curriculum was expanded to include an in-depth study of languages for higher grades. Between 1919 and 1920 it was renamed Armenian Institute, then Central Institute of Modern Oriental Languages, and finally Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies. In the 1930s, attendance shrunk dramatically, and the Institute was merged with the foreign language division of the more prestigious schools of Moscow. The Lazarian building is utilized at the present time as the headquarters for the Armenian Embassy of Moscow. In 2001 the Russian government honored the Lazarian Brothers and the Lazarian Institute with a postal stamp bearing the photos of Ivan Lazarian and of the school building. Many important Armenian writers and influential intellectuals were Lazarian Institute graduates. There are some articles about the Lazarian Institute that can be found easily in the Internet. If you can read Armenian, click on the “Armenian” link of the Wikipedia article because the content of the article in Armenian is a little more detailed than that of the English version.

In case anybody is contemplating using the free operating system Linux, but is wondering whether it will be compatible with the Armenian language, wonder no more: most distros (not all, but most) come with built-in Armenian keyboards that you can choose from a menu, and they don't have only the two layouts you see in Windows and Mac OS-X, but five layouts to chose from. The layouts available are the Eastern Papazian (from Windows), Western Papazian (from Windows), Armenia keyaboard, which is the one used most commonly in Armenia, and two phonetic layouts which are not bad. So, with a free operating system, without spending a single penny, you can write in Armenian right from the outset.

In the case of the airplane, the designation of “drone” has no relationship with the characteristics of the insect. In those days, 1920s and 1930s, De Havilland was code-naming its airplanes with insect names, such as Mosquito, Tiger Moth, Queen Bee, etc., for no special reason: it was completely arbitrary. This is a common custom in industry: people code-name their projects with words that often make no sense at all, just because the director of the division thought of it or his wife told him so, or it was their children's favorite pet. Among those airplanes they named their radio-controlled pilotless airplane “Drone.” By the time other companies began to make radio-controlled pilotless airplanes, the name had become a common noun and was being used by everybody to mean radio-controlled airplanes, and everybody called them “drones,” just like the last name of Charles Stent became the noun “stent.” There are many other examples that I can’t remember now. I am not sure that I would translate the word to other languages. Do you translate “Microsoft Windows”? Do you translate “OS-X”? Do you translate “Volkswagen”? But of course, if you did translate it, no matter what word you use, you would have to explain at length what you are referring to, because in other languages that word is not used for those airplanes. I would just call it “radio-controlled aircraft” instead of “drone” and translate that.

Հարցումիս պատասխանը գտայ Սովետական Հանրագիտարանին մէջ։ 4րդ հատորին մէջ (Է-Խ), էջ 255, Թուրքիայի «պատմական ակնարկ»-ին մէջ, հետեւեալը կ’ըսէ. «1569-ին թուրք. զորքերը պարտվեցին Աստրախանի մոտ, 1571-ն՝ Լեպանտոյի ծովամարտում։» «Լեպանտոյ»-ի բացատրութիւնը չկայ որպէս հանրագիտարանի զատ բառ, բայց գրութեան մէջ գործածուած է։ Եւ կարծես՝ 1922-ի ուղղագրութեամբ «մօտ»-ը «մոտ» կը գրեն։

What keyboard layout do you use for typing in Armenian? What do you like most about the layout you use? What do you dislike about it? Below is my keyboard layout. It is a mix of the old Olympia typewriter and a transliteration of the Latin characters according to my own taste, my own modification according to the original sounds, which is closer to the Eastern Armenian pronunciation. The punctuation signs remain where the English punctuation signs are in the QWERTY layout, which is what I like most, and some of the extra letters are placed in a relatively logical way according to the morphology: the փ is in the 4 because it looks like a handwritten 4, the ճ is in the 6 because it looks like a 6, and the շ is in the 7 because the capital Շ looks somewhat like a 7. The rest are either arbitrary, or similar to the "Olympia" or the "Armenia" layouts. The numbers are in the number pad and in the upper row with Right-ALT. This is my keyboard layout: 1) small case and capital (normal and Shift): ՝ ՜ օ Օ ձ Ձ խ Խ փ Փ ռ Ռ ճ Ճ շ Շ ղ Ղ և ( * ) - — էԷ քՔ վՎ եԵ րՐ տՏ ըԸ ւՒ իԻ ոՈ պՊ ջՋ ծԾ ՛ … աԱ սՍ դԴ ֆՖ գԳ հՀ յՅ կԿ լԼ թԹ ’ ‘ ցՑ զԶ չՉ ժԺ բԲ նՆ մՄ , « . » ։ ՞ 2) right ALT: µ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 _ = † ‡ € ՟ ⁂ ¥ § | { } [ ] \ ¶ $ ½ ¼ ¾ % ‰ ❁ £ “ ” ÷ × + − ± # ° < > / I never use the և, but I put it in just because it was there, and because someone else might want to have this same layout and like to have that letter. I am against fusing or mixing two letters in one. Do you have a any suggestions or objections? Any way to improve it? By the way, if anyone likes it and wants the keyboard definition files, I can send them; just send me a PM. Although, if you want to have fun making it yourself, you can make it easily with the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator for Windows or with Ukelele for the Mac. Both are free programs. The MLKC is a free download from Microsoft, and Ukelele is a third party freeware that can be found through Google.

And do not forget the other clown that set up the Macintosh "Mshtakan" font so that every time you type "ե" followed by "ւ," it automatically changes it to "և," and no matter what you do to change it, you cannot do it; even retyping it doesn't work. If I remember correctly, I think you can type them separately if you use a different font, but not with the default font of the Mac, which is the Mshtakan.

I see that in this thread people are using the words թրքահայերէն and ռուսահայերէն with mistaken meanings and as insults. I am not at all insulted when they tell me I speak Turkish Armenian, or someone else speaks Russian Armenian. Let me elaborate. As someone explained at the beginning, there were innumerable dialects all over the territories populated by Armenians. In the West, the people of Istanbul gathered all the dialects from the Western areas and systematized them in what is known today as Western Armenian. In the East, the Leningrad School gathered and systematized all the dialects from the Eastern areas. Keep this in mind: Istanbul and Leningrad, and a little bit from Tbilisi; not Yerevan, not Bourj Hammoud, not Aleppo, not Teheran, not Paris, not Hollywood, not Glendale. So because one comes from Istanbul, is called Turkish Armenian, and because the other comes from Leningrad is called Russian Armenian. Russian Armenian is not the slang of Yerevan or a mixture of Russian and Armenian; it is the Armenian language systematized in Leningrad. And Turkish Armenian is not the slang of Istanbul or Bourj Hammoud, nor is a mixture of Turkish and Armenian; it is the Armenian language systematized in Istanbul. Therefore the Armenians who speak Eastern Armenian, whether it is in Yerevan, Moscow, Teheran. Hollywood or Pasadena, are speaking Russian Armenian, and the people who speak Western Armenian, whether in Istanbul, Beirut, Aleppo, Glendale or Paris, are speaking Turkish Armenian. So there are պարսկահայեր, but there is no պարսկահայերէն. The language is either թրքահայերէն or ռուսահայերէն, or, with the politically correct names, արեւմտահայերէն and արեւելահայերէն։ There is nothing wrong with either one. They are both the same language. As Arpa said earlier, if you really know Armenian, you understand both languages when you read our poets or even our newspapers. Even though I cannot understand the slang of some people here in Glendale or Pasadena, I have no problem reading any Armenian authors from Yerevan, or newspapers or websites. It is the same language. The local slang and the mixing with local languages, be it Russian, Turkish, Farsi, Arabic, French, Spanish or English, are totally different issues. Those “languages” don’t have names; they are not Persian Armenian, Arabic Armenian, or Spanish Armenian. They are just local hybridizations within the colloquial use of people who don’t have a formal education in the language. It is merely circumstantial. If they went to school and learned the proper Armenian words, they would not mix the local languages with Armenian. Even though people often mean it as insults, I don’t feel insulted when someone accuses me of speaking Turkish Armenian. It is a perfectly valid variety of Armenian, as valid as Russian Armenian. Both varieties have outstanding literature. Both varieties are worth preserving and teaching to our children. To say that people who speak Turkish Armenian are lesser Armenians than the rest, or vice-versa, is not acceptable.

Even though five years have passed since the last activity on this thread, let me add something practical: Posting links to bookstore pages is not a good idea, because bookstores don't keep always the same links. Even before clicking on any of these links, I had a very strong suspicion that they would not work. Especially in the case of Abril, things must have changed after Harout's death (Oct 17, 2010). I used to always ask him about books and he would give me advice. He knew so much! He would tell me about books, concerts, lectures, conferences and various Armenian events. Harout was a great guy, we will all miss him. (Harout Yeretzian was the founder and owner of Abril Books)

Ոեւէ մէկը գիտէ՞ Lepanto ինչպէս կ’ըսեն հայերէն։ Բանի մը համար պէտք չունիմ. միայն հետաքրքրութեան համար է։ Եթէ մոռցած էք, յիշեցնեմ, որ ասիկա այն ճակատամարտն է, ուր արեւմտեան բանակը թուրքերուն յաղթեց, 1571-ին։ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lepanto Հայկական Սովետական Հանրագիտարանին մէջ զանազան կերպերով, ամէն մտքէս անցած կարելիութիւնները փնտռեցի, բայց չգտայ։

Ողջոյն քեզի, Աղբեր ջան՝ Թէեւ ասիկա հին խօսակցութիւն մըն է, երեք տարիներ անցած են վրայէն, հետաքրքրական գտայ եւ ուզեցի մասնակցիլ։ «Սիլֆայէն» տառատեսակը Windows-ի default հայերէնի տառատեսակն է։ Առանց որեւէ բան ընելու, ինքնաբերաբար այդ տառատեսակը կը գործածէ։ Հին Windows-ի մէջ դժուար էր նոյնիսկ ուրիշ տառատեսակով գրել, որովհետեւ Windows XP-ի առաջին տարբերակին մէջ, երբ մէկը Language Bar-ը հայերէնի փոխէր, անմիջապէս Սիլֆայէնի կը դարձնէր, եւ նոյնիսկ եթէ ուրիշ տառատեսակի փոխէիր, ստեղնաշարը գործածելու սկսածիդ պէս Սիլֆայէնի կը վերադառնար։ Ուրեմն, եթէ հին XP-ով ուզէիր ուրիշ տառատեսակ մը գործածել, պէտք էր նախ Սիլֆայէնով գրէիր, եւ ետքը «Select All» ընէիր եւ վերջացած գրութեան տառատեսակը փոխէիր։ Եթէ Language Bar-ը օգտագործելու տեղ KDWIN օգտագործէիր, այդ դժուարութիւնը չէիր ունենար։ Աւելի նոր Windows-ները այդպէս չեն, աւելի կատարելագործուած են աւ կրնաս ուզած տառատեսակովդ գրել։ Macintosh-ի մէջ հայերէնի default տառատեսակը «Մշտական» կը կոչուի։ Սակայն՝ եթէ ուզես Սիլֆայէնը զետեղել Macintosh-իդ մէջ, կարելի է զայս ընել, առանց տարբեր տեսակի մը վերածելու։ Ես ինքս այդպէս ըրի շատ դիւրութեամբ։ Windows-ի տառատեսակները Macintosh-ին մէջ կարելի է ուղղակի զետեղել առանց ոչ մէկ դժուարութեան, բայց հակառակը կարելի չէ, այսինքն՝ Macintosh-ի տառատեսակները Windows-ի մէջ զետեղել կարելի չէ առանց զանոնք Windows-ի փոխելու։ Ուրիշ բան մըն ալ ըսեմ. չեմ գիտեր թէ դուն ի՞նչպէս կը գրես եւ ինչ կը տեսնես քու պաստառիդ վրայ, բայց ես քու գրածներդ Սիլֆայէնով կը տեսնեմ, եւ վստահ եմ, որ բոլոր անոնք, որոնք Windows ունին, նոյնպէս Սիլֆայէնով կը տեսնեն եւ բոլոր անոնք, որոնք Macintosh ունին, Մշտականով կը տեսնեն։ Արդեօք դուն Macintosh-ո՞վ կը գրես։ Եթէ այդպէս է, հաւանաբար Մշտականով կը տեսնես քու պաստառիդ վրայ, բայց եթէ այդպէս ըլլար, Սիլֆայէնին գոյութեան մասին գաղափար պիտի չունենայիր նոյնիսկ։ Ի՞նչ է ասոր պատասխանը։ Կրցա՞ր հարցը լուծել։ Բարեւներ

Hello, In my previous post about the origins and development of Modern Armenian I should have mentioned the role played by the Armenian translation of the Bible by the American missionary Elias Riggs around 1850. Although many armenophiles criticized it harshly, especially people from the Loosavorchagan Church and the Mekhitarist Fathers, saying that it was not a good translation, that it was either Armenian with Turkish grammar or Turkish with Armenian words, and that it was merely an imposition of American imperialism, it was actually a very good translation, amazingly accurate as far as translations go, in popular language accessible to everyone and was made available to everyone. Every household had one, for many decades it was the only Armenian book that many could lay their hands on, it was the only textbook that schools and orphanages had, and many thousands of Armenians learnt Armenian through it. Many Armenians who knew only Turkish learned Armenian by reading and memorizing the Elias Riggs translation; people who couldn't even pronounce the Armenian letters and sounds, who had never even heard the Armenian language spoken, ended up very fluent and were able to read and write and compose poetry in Armenian. And other translations that came many decades later were not significantly better, if at all. The Nareg began to be translated from Grabar into Modern Armenian towards the late 19th Century, but the Nareg is a much more difficult book. It has a much richer vocabulary and the sentences are long and complex, with great profusion of figures of speech. The level of literacy required by the Nareg is at least 12th grade or better, and very few people can read it without having a dictionary at hand. The Elias Riggs translation of the Bible, on the other hand, is written in everyday language, easy to read and easy to understand. Then came some real textbooks, most notably the series by the brother-and-sister team Hrand and Zabel Asadour, called Tangaran, Nor Tangaran and their accompanying grammar books. Later many more were written in Beirut and other places. It would be a very incomplete history of the Armenian language one that doesn't mention this. Greetings

I think Arpa explained that part of your question very well. The same way you learn how to write English or any other language: by reading a lot and paying attention to the spelling. I have the same problem. After I left Armenian school at the age of 12, I didn't read or write Armenian for a good many years and forgot great part of the spelling. Now I am having a hard time remembering and relearning it. Often my friends from Middle Eastern countries laugh at my spelling errors, such as գայլ instead of քայլ, and similar misspellings, which change the meanings of phrases in very funny ways. Another thing I still have not mastered, is what names are male and what names are female. For example, I don't know whether some of the people in this forum are male or female, unless their names are very obvious and similar to English or Latin names or have the typical endings in -ուհի or -ոս. The only way to learn it is by reading a lot, speaking a lot and looking words up in dictionaries. Sarkis

Hello, I don't know how much of this is true and accurate, but this is what I have read: Written Armenian used to be only "Grabar" until very recently, that is, 18th Century, and spoken Armenian was composed of a multitude of local dialects, often unintelligible from one region to the other. Armenians from different regions could not communicate with each other in Armenian, and used either Turkish, Arabic, Farsi or Russian. Some didn't even speak Armenian at all, but the foreign language of their closest neighbors. When the persecutions against Armenians became more intense, a stronger sense of nationality was awakened and the need for a uniform contemporary language became apparent. People began to work on that in several places. The Constantinople School (Istanbul) began gathering linguistic materials from the Western areas of Anatolia and systematized something that eventually evolved into what we know today as Western Armenian, hence the name "Turkish-Armenian." This happened approximately in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries. At the same time similar efforts were carried on in Tiflis (Tbilisi), Georgia, and St. Petersburg (Leningrad), Russia, with the dialects of the Ararat region and surrounding areas. Eventually, the Leningrad School came up with what we know today as Eastern Armenian, hence the name "Russian-Armenian." Since the language spoken in the regions that comprise Armenia was more similar to the Leningrad variety, that was adopted as the official language of the country. The Tbilisi school also made great contributions to the systematics of the Eastern Armenian. It is interesting that the main impetus behind Modern Armenian was not from Erevan, but from Leningrad and Tbilisi for the Eastern language and from Istanbul for the Western language. That means both languages, Eastern and Western, are somewhat artificial and diasporic. This is the reason why all the literature in Modern Armenian starts in the 18th Century. Before that, everything was in Grabar. So to answer your question, on one hand, this phonetic corruption started with the persecution that caused the Armenians to lose their language and a new language was made up afterward, or rather two new languages, Eastern and Western; but on the other hand, the local dialects all over Armenia, Russia, Persia and Turkey were so different from each other, that there was no right and wrong way to pronounce things. Of course, I agree with you in that the original pronunciation was closer to the Greek and Latin, but I don't think there was a way to prevent the local changes of the sounds. My grandmother, who was from a little Armenian-speaking village at only 60 km from Istanbul, used to pronounce many words differently, more in line with the original sounds than with Modern Armenian, and I learned to pronounce them like her when I was little. I don't know how much we can blame the authors of these changes or corruptions of sounds, because they were some of the greatest writers and poets that existed in the Armenian language, and they gave us a language where there wasn't one. Remember that most people in Istanbul and the whole Western Anatolia didn't speak Armenian, but Turkish, and those who were able to go abroad to study, spoke French, German, Italian and English. It was very difficult for them to start speaking Armenian. And many on the Eastern side didn't speak Armenian either, but Russian, Farsi and Arabic. I hope I didn't make many factual errors, but as I said earlier, this is what I read. I have no way of proving or disproving the accuracy of this information. Greetings

Hello, As Yume and Vava said, often it is possible to install Windows fonts in the Mac OS-X, because many of the new fonts are OpenType, but even the older TrueType fonts can be installed. A friend of mine is converting many fonts to Unicode OpenType, so that they can be used both for Mac and Windows. Once he is done with it, he will make them available for free. When these fonts become available, I will post a notice and a link in this forum. In the meantime, if you see a font that you like in Windows, try it on your Mac: it may install without problems. I have done it even with older TrueType fonts, that were not OpenType. Some of them install without problems: once you double click on the font file and it opens with Font Book, you click on "Install Font" and it installs right away. Others may not install directly from your disk or your flash drive, and you may have to copy the file manually into the font library and then double click again and then click on "Install". Most of them install easily. I have encountered some fonts among the older ones, that Microsoft Word does not show in the list of fonts from the tool bar, but if you go into the "Format" menu and then into "Fonts", you find it and it works, but with the newer ones you won't have those problems. Sarkis

Yes, Ashot, you are right, I think it is a problem with my computer, because when I access the forum from my desktop computer at home, they look fine, all in a nice Sylfaen font. However, when I access the forum from my Toshiba laptop, the Armenian "r" appears much bigger, and I found out that it is in Verdana font, while the rest of the text is in Sylfaen. I just found this out now. I had never accessed the forum from home, from my desktop computer; it had been always from my laptop away from home and I had always seen the problem I described. I don't know whether it is a problem of the operating system, because at home I have Windows XP, but in my laptop I have Vista. Բարեւներ՝ Սարգիս

Dear FlyHye, You are trying to use an Armscii-8 with a Unicode keyboard. The keyboard definition file in Windows is for Unicode. For Tarumian fonts or any other Armscii-8 font, you need to use the NLS 2.0 keyboard. The problem is, that everything is changing to Unicode and you want to use the older standard which is incompatible with a lot of other fonts and is incompatible with Macintosh. That means you will be writing something that soon nobody else will be able to read, except those who have Armscii-8 from the old days. I recommend that you switch to Unicode, the earlier the better. There are a lot of free Unicode fonts available at different Web sites, and you can make any keyboard layout you like with the available free tools, both with KDWIN and with the Microsoft tools. There are also similar tools for the Mac System X. By the way, if you decide to switch to Unicode, all the existing writings you may already have in Armscii-8 can be easily converted to Unicode. Բարեւներ՝ Սարգիս (for some reason, this web site has a strange font, that makes the Armenian "r" bigger than the rest of the letters. I wonder if it could be fixed).

Hello, Friends, I see that some people express concerns about Unicode. It is very easy to write with Unicode. You can have any keyboard layout you like, with either KDWIN or the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator if you are using Windows, or with Ukelele if you are using Mac OS-X . KDWIN is very easy to use and very easy to customize to your liking. I have used all three of them without major problems, and I am not a computer expert. Anyway, the only caveat is that if you want to use Unicode you need Windows 98 Second Edition or later (98 SE, 2000, XP, or Vista) and on the Mac you need OS-X, and I am not sure whether the first version of OS-X can handle it, but I think from 10.2 on it is OK. You cannot use Unicode with System 9 or earlier. The sooner you get used to Unicode, the better it is, so that we end the anarchy and chaos of different font encoding systems that we have in our language. Sarkis11

Dear Arpa, Looking back at my first posting, it seems a little too aggressive. I am glad you did not explode in anger and responded in a civilized manner. I give you a lot of credit for that. However, we still disagree in a certain measure. The way I see it, those names are a part of our history, and you want to erase that part of our history. That they are a part of our history means they are a part of ourselves. Our parents went through the Great Massacre, some of them survived but many did not. And this is not just a small part of our history: it is a very essential part of it. In my case, I would not exist if that had not happened. I am not trying to justify the atrocities committed by the murderers, but if the Genocide had not happened, I would have never been born, because my father would have lived all his life in an obscure village in the mountains of Western Turkey, and would have never met my mother who lived in Ada Pazar. This is not an isolated incident. Many of us have similar life stories. If this had not happened, there would be other people in the world, with other stories, other names, maybe Armenian names instead of Bajakhsezian, Karabashian, Gueuzubeuyukian, Topalian, Barmaksezian, Karageuzian, Boyadjian or Svadjian, the same way that if there had not been persecution against the Jews there would not be Goldbaums, Rosenbaums, Silversteins, etc. And those other people with other stories and other names would not be us. They would be other people. Would the world have been a better place with them instead of us? We cannot speculate. All we can say is that this is the way it is now. Let me reiterate that I am not claiming the Genocide was good. Not at all. It was bad. My own paternal grandfather was shot to death by a Turkish death squadron. My maternal grandfather was almost shot by a squadron and was saved by miracle. What makes us ourselves, is not only our genes, but also our life stories and our names. Like it or not, I am not an Asadourian, nor a Sevag, nor an Anmahuni; those are not my names. People may change their names, but then their children will not ask, "What does our name mean, and why do we have a Turkish name?" And people would forget that there was a time when we as a people lived under Turkish domination, and that we were massacred, and many of us did not come out alive from the ordeal, and that it was a black page in the history of the world and we were the protagonists. And not only we were the protagonists, but we were the victors. The Turkish could not annihilate us. They could not make us convert to Islam. They could not obliterate our language. We were the ones who were on the side of truth and justice, while the Turkish government still tries to cover up their shameful deeds. All of this is an important part of our history, an important part of who we are. There are people who do not like to talk about the genocide. They say it makes them feel bad. It is difficult to get through to them, that, of course, we all feel bad, but it has to be talked about. For such cases, having a Turkish last name that will eventually force them to tell their children and grandchildren about the genocide may actually be a good thing. However, if you can change your name, if you have no worries about erasing your history and forgetting the past, or if you are independently wealthy and don't have to think about all those things, go ahead and change it. I imagine some people have enough patriotism that would change their names even against all those obstacles. You may have done that. You may have changed all your school records and diplomas, all legal documents, marriage licenses, insurances, social security, curriculum vitae, professional licenses, notified all your old friends and contacts, etc. Good for you. I admire you. In my case it would be too difficult. Everybody would think, "did he get into any trouble with the law?" or "did he get sued for something?" "Probably he did not pay his taxes," or "maybe he does not want to pay alimony," and who knows what else. I know it sounds escapist. It sounds like a betrayal. On the bright side, my oldest daughter married a guy with an Armenian last name, not Turkish, so that my grandchildren have Armenian last names. And I have no sons, only daughters, so maybe the other two also marry guys with Armenian names. On the other hand, I know lots of Armenians with Armenian names who don't like Armenians and cannot speak Armenian, nor want their children to learn it, while others with Turkish names have a great love for our nation, speak and teach our language, have founded schools and churches, and give generously to all Armenian causes. Which ones are the better Armenians? For the time being, I cannot think of changing my name. Sorry to disappoint you (but I am always willing to read your comments). Sarkis11

Even though I am late for this discussion, I would like to add my contribution to this thread. Arpa, I don't know you, but having read your posts, I cannot have any sympathy for you. I don't care if you are the wife of the president or the daughter of the richest man in the world. You may be a very valuable person, but talk garbage. You have the verbal demeanor of a spoiled brat. You are so unfeeling and inconsiderate! Our fellow Armenians (myself included) who bear a last name with a Turkish origin, do so only because they had to in the beginning; they were forced to. Many of them had no way of rebelling against it. They were poor and uneducated, many did not know how to read and write, many couldn't even speak Armenian, grew up in orphanages, barely escaped the massacre with whatever clothes they had on their backs, some of them not even with that, and could not go to any schools. These poor people grew up fighting with the world just to stay alive. If they did know Armenian and had some idea of what name they would like to have, they did not have the luxury of hiring a lawyer to change it. They moved from one country to another without money, without a job, without knowing the languages, with huge debts for the seafare that they had to pay back with obscene interest rates, working the next ten years of their new lives just to pay that, some having to feed families and small children, going to work at 5 in the morning and coming home at 10 at night. Even if they wanted to see a lawyer to change their last names, where would you find a lawyer who has office hours between 10pm and 5am? Besides, in many countries you just cannot change your name even if you want to. This is a luxury of the United States and perhaps a few other countries. Let's suppose after working like slaves for twenty years they still have the will and the desire to change their names, can you fathom what that entails? After having a whole life history with one name, change all your official records, all your family's records, your children's school records, degrees in your diplomas, if you have any, registrations for work, licenses for driving, for working, CVs, the tombstones of your dead relatives, marriage licenses, the list is endless. If you were lucky enough to arrive to the United States before you had all those things to worry about, and you knew the law in the US, that it allowed you to change your name, and you already had a plan for it, and you could do it for all your family, so that your brothers and sisters stayed brothers and sisters, and your parents, if alive, could stay your parents, and had the money to face all the legal consequences, then, you could have done it. But the great majority of people could not do it. They had no knowledge for it, no money, no means whatsoever. Many of our last names are the way they are because that is the way the immigration officer wrote them when we came to the new country. When we moved from Greece to Argentina, my mother's name was written in such a way by the immigration officer, that no one could tell what it really was. It took my parents fifteen years of hard work to be able to gather all the supporting documents, witnesses, and money for official translators and lawyers to change that name! Many of my friends arrived to new countries and ended up with different immigration officers who wrote their names any way they saw fit, with the result that brothers of the same family ended up with different last names. By the time they learned the language and earned enough money to pay a lawyer to fix it, it was too late. They already had a whole history with those names, marriage certificates, their children had school records, retirement funds, etc. It was more difficult to fix it than to continue living that way. So my dear friend Arpa, the story is not as simple as you think it is, or saying it in the words of Shakespeare, (Hamlet) "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." I know, now you are going to accuse me of using an English quote rather than an Armenian one. I love all my Armenian friends, whether they have Armenian names or Turkish names, and whether they can speak Armenian or not. Lots of Armenians could not speak their own language because they were punished if they did, and later had no opportunity to learn it. Armenians didn't spring out in posh neighborhoods of New Jersey or California. They come from varied origins, all of them marked by persecutions, poverty, suffering and a very uncertain future. They were not born with BMWs and Land Rovers. I only hope you can see things in a different light, Arpa. You will be much happier and a better Armenian if you can love your friends in spite of their Turkish names. Sarkis11