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[Harut]

i also observed the Eastern part of this page and again found mistakes. some of the letters are not presented as they should have been.

 

i'll try to fix the mistakes and post revised one here.

the same goes for the page at cilicia.com

[Harut]

Pardom mon ami. bayts ho du fransiatsi ches?

[Harut]

thank you Domino.

 

hey, why are you being biased? why did you capitalized W. Armenian only?

just kidding.

[Harut]

shnorhakal em, Lala jan.

 

mer kazmakerpats ays tsragir@ indz apatsutsets, vor yes arden lurj qayler petq e anem im hayeren@ pahpanelu hamar:

[Harut]

i just recalled it.

paragraph in Armenian is "parberutyun".

 

and as you said, "paragraph" is used mainly in textbooks.

[Harut]

guys, i just found this site.

www.menq.am

it's a nice site. it doesn't have much information, but i will help you to pronounce the letters correctly.

[Harut]

i just found a discouraging thing in this site too.

they did a poor job pronoucing the words.

here is why.

 

the accent in Armenian falls on the last vowel.

but in this site they stress it in the beginning of the word.

[sen_Vahan]

Thank you, Harut jan, there ARE mistakes, for example, not "gtal" but "gdal". Chem haskanum, te ov e ashxatum ayd siteeri vra, bayz.... Sad,....

 

I think Erevan State University should have some useful stuff on its web page but I did not try yet. I will. If there are Armenian language Departments at the Universities in the US or Canada they should also have something good for us. Lets try.

[Lala]

Barev dzez, inchpes eq ? ))

 

Es mta www.menq.am, bajc indz mot bacec miajn aragin egy, u nranic heto porceci mtnel mjus egery, chkaroxaca, amboxgy eror er berum.

Dzez mot stacvel e mtnel bolor egery??? Isk vor indz mot chi stacvum, miguce im internet kapic e?

 

Bajc aragin egy Harut jan, shat gexecik er patrastats, iroq vor shat ashxatanq e tarvats ajd site-i vra. Shat kuzenaji mtnel tareri meg, tesnel te entex inch ka...bajc chgitem inchpes???

 

Lala

[MosJan]

HArout hoyakap Sita - Kaseyi Artakarg Ashxatanqa tarvats vran, mi qani poqer terutyuner sakayn iydqani mej klini.

[MosJan]

de lav hima voroshetsiq te vor mekn enq ogtagortselu asq imanam vor sksem parapel@ He HE

[Arpa]

To us the difference of Ra and Re is obvious. The latter, also known as the soft R is supposed to sound like the English R while Ra is supposed to sound like the Scottish one with a higher vibration of the tongue and deeper inside the mouth. Re is produced with the tip of the tongue next to the teeth. Re is generally reserved for transliterated foreign words and names such as Robert and Albert. It has very limitted use while most Armenian words that have R in them generally use the Ra, even the Re sometimes turns to Ra as in "aRyun" the Re turns to Ra in "aRRnanman". As proof of this open an Armenian dictionary and see how many words begin with Re as opposed to Ra. If any they would be foreign words or names.

 

Vahan, as to your concern about the lack of uniformity and standards, it is a serious concern, that technology runs way ahead of bureaucracy. However when it comes to Armenian language and orthography there may be more than that. The following news item may give us some idea about the problem.

=========

 

ARMENIAN INTELLECTUALS AGAINST DIMINISHING THE ROLE OF ARMENIAN LANGUAGE

 

ArmenPress News Agency

April 2 2002

 

YEREVAN, APRIL 2, ARMENPRESS: The Union of Armenia's Writers, the

National Academy of Sciences affiliated Institute of Language, the

government Language Inspection and several Yerevan-based higher

educational institutions voiced their concern over a bill that is

supposed to widen the boundaries of Russian language application in

Armenia.

 

Speaking at a special conference, convened to look deeper into the

problems of the modern Armenian language, the keynote speakers at

the conference called on parliament members to prevent passage of

any legislation that would diminish the role and application frames

of the Armenian language.

 

The meeting, attended by prominent experts in the Armenian

language, condemned various innovations and experiments, which are

imposed on the Armenian education system by, as they said,

"foreign and alien" forces.

 

The participants of the gathering also condemned the struggle that

was started against the Russian language and literature in the

early 90-s, which they said was "unacceptable." But they argued

that "allocation of broader space for Russian language should not

be done at the expense of Armenian language." "Every citizen should

speak today at least two foreign languages, Russian and English and

others. However, we speak these language, but we are born and live

with Armenian," it was stated.

============

 

There seems to be a consciousness about the sorry state of the language yet, due to prevailing conditions there are also much more urgent problems. Beside that Armenians have been without central leadership for so long have fogotten how to listen and heed to authority. In other words, at the present there are 8 million "linguists" each with their own opinion, each with their own system and each with their own internet site promoting their own version of the Ay Ben Gim, or Ayp Pen Qim, as the case may be.

Vahan, if even there were such a thing as an official version by the Academy of linguistics in Yerevan- How many would really adopt it?

 

Harut and Lala thank you for your input. Of course your version is the correct version as Mashtots had intended. There are a couple corrections. First the name of the "U" is supposed to be "hyun" and not "vyun". More importantly though, it was news to me whwn I learned that "yev" is considered as part of the Aybbenaran. I first became aware of the concept when I downloaded the NLS Fonts and found out that they had assigned a single key for it. Before that, all along, I took the concept at its face value, i.e. to mean "and" to separate and distinguish between the original Mesropian letters from later additions. When we recite the Ayb Ben Gim, towards the end we say "Hyun Pyur Qeh" yev "O Fe" since the latter two were added during the 11-12th centuries, in Kilikia. The O was added to simplify as before that we used "AybHyun" to sound like O. Or/day was written as "aur", this is still evident when we decline the word specially in the classical (grabar) style, "or/day" becomes "avur" to mean "daily" or "of the day". The story of Fe is kind of amusing. The first recorded use of the letter was in 1270 AD, it was used to write the name of King Hethum's daughter Fimi.

 

It may be time that we have a single standard. It is kind of frustrating when one thinks of a language like English that is sopken by almost 5 billion people(5 thousand million) with one standard orthography and universal system while the Armenian which is written and spoken by less than 4 million has as many (non)standards and systems.

 

Sometimes we seem to carry our "free and independent spiritedness" a bit too far to the point of anarchy. The last time I looked "independence" and "anarchy" were not synonymous in any dictionary, not even in an Armenian one.

[sen_Vahan]

Shnorhakalutyun, Arpa!

 

"There seems to be a consciousness about the sorry state of the language yet, due to prevailing conditions there are also much more urgent problems. Beside that Armenians have been without central leadership for so long have fogotten how to listen and heed to authority. In other words, at the present there are 8 million "linguists" each with their own opinion, each with their own system and each with their own internet site promoting their own version of the Ay Ben Gim, or Ayp Pen Qim, as the case may be.

 

Vahan, if even there were such a thing as an official version by the Academy of linguistics in Yerevan- How many would really adopt it?

 

I agree about millions of "linguists", and unfortunately the work of linguists (not "linguists") does not have any influence. (If there are such works) Any Interent site gives different approach and that's stupid. It will probably be easier if here we use only Eastern Armenian, but the thing is that many people know the Western Dialect. As for how many would adopt the official version I do not know, I think not many.

Vahan

[Twilight Bark]

Dear Arpa, Vahan, and others,

At the risk of moving the discussion further away from its official subject (which probably wasn't meant to be a discussion), I would like to add a few points. The Armenian government and what is left of its intelligentsia must show strong leadership in the cultural arena. They have shown none. None. In an ideal world, the standard language would merge elements from the Eastern and Western dialects. The "new standard" would be based on the Eastern dialect (for obvious reasons) but would be more readily intelligible to Western Armenian ears. This becomes more relevant when we pay attention to another glaring lack of leadership on part of the Armenian "establishment": We have no widespread beaming of Armenian TV and radio into the diaspora. One can get a channel via sattelite in the middle east and Europe, but not elsewhere (unless I am mistaken). No internet TV broadcasting, and the mainstream "normal" radio stations are either absent from the internet broadcasting or are under my radar screen. Armenia is too aloof; and that is inexcusable. It should have been beaming multiple channels of TV and radio to the distant corners of the diaspora in a "special" east-west-fusion dialect that would in time form the nucleus of a united language. Similar arguments can also be made for unifying the syntax and vocabulary. It is not that hard; we make it hard. "Hyper-realist", "pessimist", "oh, it would never work", start echoing in my head as soon as I dare think of anything remotely resembling "initiative". Pity.

TB

[Twilight Bark]

Count me in that category.

But the financial requirements are probably not so huge (i.e. more than a few million dollars) that the state budget cannot accomodate it. Heck, it may even be obtained as some sort of a "grant". All I know is, there is enough money sloshing around in foreign bank accounts and Mercedes Benzes to make the excuse of "no money" invalid. Forget that; even the current pathetic state budget probably can squeeze out enough money for internet broadcasting. Despite what our traditional hyper-realists may think, this is not a "luxury item" at all. It is part of the basic survival as Armenians, when the dust settles.

 

Thanks for being one of the voices of reason.

[Boghos]

I don't think money is the problem at all. It is priorities and organization. They are in the wrong order and in short suplly, respectively.

 

By the way have you tried www.radiohay.com ?

 

[ April 10, 2002, 04:56 PM: Message edited by: Boghos ]

[Twilight Bark]

It should be near the top of priorities. The diaspora needs an organic connection to the homeland. In contemporary culture, broadcast media are the threads weaving the culture and identity together.

 

As for radiohay.com, yes, I did listen to it for quite some time. It has been silent lately. It had a random mix of music genres. I wish they had more conversation (which was almost completely absent) though. Anyway, it seems to have evaporated.

[Boghos]

Dear TB,

 

I share your views but, as you know, regretfully most Armenians in Armenia proper and many elsewhere are still concerned with making a living at the most basic level. Indeed I think that a concerted effort in many fronts would not just help consolidating the national institutions biut also provide a living for the intelligentsia proper. Language is but a part of it, albeit an important one.

 

After reading a few of the most recent posts by some illustrious members, I came to the conclusion that there is one cause for all our maladies. Hint: it is not US.