Hamshentsa

[DominO123]

BTW, hemsin basköylü, thanks for the link, I think I will visit that board and place some things in order.

[gamavor]

Domino, my friend, I'm always optimist even when I'm rude and sarcastic. I don't believe in anthropology and I don't believe in DNA, but I believe in the tickness of one's blood. When the blood starts talking anything is possible. That’s the beauty and the magic.

[hemsin basköylü]

BAREV CAN"S INC PES ES

 

 

 

Makale yazari: basköylü Tarih, gün ve saat : 23. Aralik 2003 02:25:21:

 

HOMSETZIHAY"EM YES

HOMSETZIHAY"EM YES

KAÇH VARTANIN YEV HAMAMIN TORNEM YES

HOMSETZIHAY*EM YES

(ayadıp'es e)

HEMSIN BASKÖYLÜ

 

HOMSHETZI PAGES--- HASZE

 

http://www.f20.parsimony.net/forum36933/index.htm

 

http://www.yaylayolu.info/

 

http://www.yaylayolu.info/forum/viewforum.php?f=14

 

http://www.yaylayolu.info/forum/viewforum.php?f=6

 

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

 

 

SATIRE FROM HAMSHEN )

 

 

Yiyek hadik enger tsaxutn ive kayýð enuþ gerton. Tsaxutin keloxn ive kellin kayýðe genin. Þad barak gelli; hemi inçetsnuþ kuzin. Andi inçetsnele erguse

uuþ compatsove compan iþnoðun meg al na satarin kelxan compan inçetsnoðum gasa. Daðin onune Temel gelli. Temele çvone cedin gaba gu. "Yes hemi

asdi inçetsenim" gasa. Andi engerdake compan kiçnun put genin martun vucude go keloxe çgo. "Yahu," gasin, "asu kloxe gar ta çgar ta? Ýnç enik inç

enik oç?" Yuuts put genin "yahu," gasin, "meg erta gasa genoçe harts enik balki genige kidena gu." Genoçe mode gerton, "yahu," gasin, "ku martun

keloxe vaan er ta vaan çer ta?" Genign a gasa. "As akvan a," gasa, "kahvalti hazýrlamiþ i," gasa, "bat marte giav ta giav oç ta çkidim," gasa.

[Arpa]

BAREV CAN"S INC PES ES

 

 

 

Makale yazari: basköylü Tarih, gün ve saat : 23. Aralik 2003 02:25:21:

 

HOMSETZIHAY"EM YES

HOMSETZIHAY"EM YES

KAÇH VARTANIN YEV HAMAMIN TORNEM YES

HOMSETZIHAY*EM YES

(ayadıp'es e)

HEMSIN BASKÖYLÜ

 

HOMSHETZI PAGES--- HASZE

 

http://www.yaylayolu.info/forum/viewforum.php?f=6

Tigran Bari Ekar.

Inchpes es?

Thank you very much for the sites.

The last one , above is fascianting and must be a must read for all of us.

 

Hosh geldin

Yine gel

[nairi]

Thank you Tigran! And welcome to Hyeforum! Huysov em aveli hatchakh gas!

 

Selams

[Arpa]

Tigran,

Kaj Vardani Tor, Grandson of Prince Hamam Amatuni,

You write in any language you feel comfortablbe, be it Armenian, German or even Turkish. We can translate them.

Du grir inch vor lezvov k'ouzes, @lla Hayeren, Germaneren kam Turkeren, menk karogh enk targmanel.

Sen yazabilirsin her hangi dil ile, Ermenice, Almanca ya Turkce, biz tercume ederik.

[Arpa]

This is more fascinating than I imagined.

A segment from the above site.

I may repost some more riveting segments.

We have recently heard of Abkhazian Turks from Cnetral Asia who were supposedly relocated during stalinistic times wanting to return to their so called ancestral homeland in Grorgia.

==========

 

"Beginning in about the sixteenth century, a large portion of the Hemshinli converted to

Islam. This trend assumed a significantly larger scale in the eighteenth century, and continued to

a lesser degree up to the beginning of the twentieth century. Those Hemshinli who converted to

Islam were allowed to remain in situ, and have essentially been left undisturbed since that time.

Those who refused to convert had in effect the choice of fleeing or taking their chances where

they were. The first wave of refugees fled westwards to Trabzon, Giresun, Samsun, and so on.

Their descendants successfully established new communities along the Black Sea coasts of

Georgia, Abkhazia, and Russia, and in the western Turkish provinces of Bolu and Sakarya in the

nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Some of the Hemshinli in western Turkey relocated to

Armenia after the First World War.

Throughout this sequence of conversions and emigration small pockets of Christian

Hemshinli survived in Turkey, until 1915. We have reason to believe that the eastern Hemshinli

in Cengiz’s area, isolated in the mountain fastnesses of northern Hopa subprovince, were among

the last to convert en masse, in the late seventeenth century. To the best of our knowledge,

though, there are currently no Christian Hemshinli left in Turkey.

We do not know when the eastern Hemshinli, the least studied of the various Hemshinli

subgroups, extended into the Hopa region and southern Georgia (Benninghaus 1989:482). We

6

do know, however, that the Hemshinli who had converted and then established themselves along

the Georgian coast fell victim to Stalins deportation of some 200,000 residents of Georgians

southern border to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in 1944. These Central Asian Hemshinli

communities remain distinct and alive up to the present day, and at least some members retain

Homshetsma (Robert Krikorian, personal communication; Kuznetsov 2001). It is interesting to

note that some members of the Central Asian Hemshinli community petitioned to relocate to

Armenia near the end of the Soviet period, and were refused on account of their religion (Robert

Krikorian, personal communication)."

[Arpa]

"The Hemshinli have also preserved a few isolated Christian items in their lexicon. For

example, unlike the Laz, who have replaced their original Caucasian word for god with Turkish

tanr¥ (Dumézil 1937), the Hemshinli have preserved the original Armenian word astuac

astuac in the form asbac (aspaj), which shows up in expressions such as asbac xentana

Ïeziki aspaj xendacna kezigi may god make you joyful. The form aspaj is only attested

elsewhere in the dialect of Akn, which as we have already seen must have once been in closer

contact with the Hamshen Armenians. Xendana is the causative subjunctive of the verb xenduß,

which preserves the original meaning of the Classical Armenian verb xndal xndal rejoice, be

joyful, unlike standard modern Armenian, wherein this verb now means specifically to laugh.

One can also notice in this blessing the dative suffix -gi, which is only found in Homshetsma.

Another interesting remnant of the Hemshinli's Christian past is the verb xaæuß xaçuß,

which means to nail an entrance shut with two boards in certain situations it can also have the

more generic meaning to close. Cengiz describes this verb as being based on the image of the

two boards nailed on top of one another in perpendicular fashion. This suggests that the verb is

derived from the Armenian noun xaæ aæ cross which has been lost in Cengizs dialect as part

of the general dechristianization of the lexicon.

So far we"ve seen that the conversion to Islam has resulted in a striking dechristianization

of the language and culture of the Turkish Hemshinli. However, as can be seen from the tale of

Temel's Head, the assimilation of the Hemshinli to their Turkish neighbors has had a more

general impact on their language and culture as well. The younger generation has assimilated

many of the basic characteristics of Turkish pronunciation, so that the Q("ghad"), which in most

forms of Armenian is pronounced as a voiced uvular fricative , is pronounced by the younger

Hemshinli in the same manner as Turkish @ (yumußak ge "soft g"), that is either as a barely

audible uvular approximant, or as nothing at all. The older Hemshinli, on the other hand, still

speak with what we can call an Armenian accent.

There has also been a massive influx of Turkish vocabulary, to a much greater extent

than we find in other Armenian dialects.

========

 

Related to this dechristianization is the Hemshinli's

loss of Armenian identity. For example, the Hemshinli have completely lost the word hay

Armenian and its derivatives, such as hayerên Armenian language ;, using instead the terms

homßei and homßema respectively. Similarly, as I mentioned earlier, the eastern Hemshinli

use the Turkish term for Armenians, ermeni, to refer to drunkards. One also finds amongst the

Turkish Hemshinli sentiments such as the following, which was expressed in a 1984 letter from

an eastern Hemshinli to Rüdiger Benninghaus: the Armenians are terrorists, and therefore the

peaceful Hemshinli cannot be of Armenian descent (Benninghaus 1989:486)"

[hagopn]

This overall Hamshen discussion is extremely interesting and informative. My brain is still buzzing from overflow--

 

There are a few points I want to address that were brought up during the discussion:

 

1. The Hamshenatsi are considered by Simonian as "western Armenians," but I am afraid that is a geographical attribute only. Below is the posting by Tigran in his native dialect. It sounds very unique to me, but the pronounciation seems eastern with the proper tri-consonant phonetics. Grabar seems to be the core of the dialect, and some of the morphology follows patterns found in Taron!

 

"Yiyek hadik enger tsaxutn ive kayýð enuþ gerton. Tsaxutin keloxn ive kellin kayýðe genin. Þad barak gelli; hemi inçetsnuþ kuzin. Andi inçetsnele erguse

uuþ compatsove compan iþnoðun meg al na satarin kelxan compan inçetsnoðum gasa. Daðin onune Temel gelli. Temele çvone cedin gaba gu. "Yes hemi

asdi inçetsenim" gasa. Andi engerdake compan kiçnun put genin martun vucude go keloxe çgo. "Yahu," gasin, "asu kloxe gar ta çgar ta? Ýnç enik inç

enik oç?" Yuuts put genin "yahu," gasin, "meg erta gasa genoçe harts enik balki genige kidena gu." Genoçe mode gerton, "yahu," gasin, "ku martun

keloxe vaan er ta vaan çer ta?" Genign a gasa. "As akvan a," gasa, "kahvalti hazýrlamiþ i," gasa, "bat marte giav ta giav oç ta çkidim," gasa."

 

2. the Hamsheni do number perhaps 3 million. The "ethnic Turk" is a Kemalist illusion that still holds due to the incredible control on the majority by the organized and supported minority. Most are not so thoroughly "nationalized" as Kemal would have liked, and this is especially true in Cilicia. You still have persecution to the tooth in that region for that precise purpose, but the irony is that the persecution is on behalf of a government supported minority against a majority. Witnesses driving from Syria attest to this constantly.

[Arpa]

barev can"s, pharigiseri

 

I do  see ; you  talk over uns.ich can not  well English. no problem??. Our souls are togetter.)). we are feeling hy. that is primery.)

yes, we are historicel-hayks from hayassa. we are the(i am) Grandchilds of Prince hamam h/amatuni.Wir are not destroyed. We live. We lost our language. We lost our religion. this no problem  for us.We have our Hy-Idendity. we have our power.we have our history from 4000 tausend years.

the homsetsi"s living  on historicel area hamsen-hemsin nord-east anatolian(west-armenian) many people from hamshen speeking grapar now.

its dangures for us, because the officels reaction states of turkey,of us is to agressiv, because we want our identity.

they are living ca. 5 millions converted-hays of west-hyastan(today on the turkey).

we are coming slowly, with a big power.

sorry for my english. i can good german. we are

 

yes hy em

yes hy em

kach vartanin tornem yes

homsetsi-hy em yes

i hopp ,you anderstand it

 

hemsin basköylü

grandchild of the Prince hamam hamatuni

prince tigran hamam hamatuni k.

Here is what Tigran wrote.

I will leave the post in its entirety. Pay specail attention to the sentence where he says this; '-east anatolian(west-armenian) many people from hamshen speeking grapar now.'

"grabar", and note his transliteration; "grabar", not "krapar".

 

Regardless of what Axel and his cohorts, blinded by the light/darkness of "mutavorich", we will shower the likes of Tigran with (Christian) LOVE and show them: How "blessed are those who profess to be Ermeni/Ne mutlu Ermeni im deyene". Religion(gehena erta) or not.

The likes pf Axel can go back to the monastery and play with thgemselves. We are here to enlarge our nation, not limit it to the state of a denomi-nation.

[bellthecat]

2. the Hamsheni do number perhaps 3 million. The "ethnic Turk" is a Kemalist illusion that still holds due to the incredible control on the majority by the organized and supported minority. Most are not so thoroughly "nationalized" as Kemal would have liked, and this is especially true in Cilicia. You still have persecution to the tooth in that region for that precise purpose, but the irony is that the persecution is on behalf of a government supported minority against a majority. Witnesses driving from Syria attest to this constantly.

What on earth do you mean by this? There are no Hemshinli in Cilicia. Nor are there (outside of the major cities) any Hemshinli anywhere else in Turkey except in and around their homeland in north-eastern Turkey, and in certain villages around Sakarya (Adapazar). And I'd think that they number in total a couple of 100,000 at most.

[Arpa]

All these from that same site in Hamshen.

 

Enjoy.

 

Ararat a unique view;

http://arcimaging.org/GeisslerRex/Ararat200001.jpg

 

Armenian remnants at Agri/Aghori;

http://arcimaging.org/GeisslerRex/KazanSag...iksuyu20002.jpg

 

An Armenian monatery in Trabzon; Click on the numbers and see Ararat over Kars

http://www3.telus.net/geoffieboy/turkey/turkey3.html

 

Boyajian; This corresondent writes under the synonym of Sebo. Now it may make sense? Se... Boyajian?

http://www.geocities.com/ericnpeters/boyajian.html

 

And finally. Stormy/Poochik, look! With all due respects to the Poochigian clan.

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ridge/6925/1895.htm

[Arpa]

Scroll down to the last frame and see if you can see me.

Shucks! I guess this photo was taken after I was gone.

The gorge is the Akhurian River and the hill to the right is Armenia from where we viewed the ruins of Ani. Look but no touch? Just like the legend says we were advised not to take pictures, but, don't tell anybody, we did, both still and video.

 

http://www3.telus.net/geoffieboy/turkey/turkey4.html

[DominO123]

What on earth do you mean by this? There are no Hemshinli in Cilicia. Nor are there (outside of the major cities) any Hemshinli anywhere else in Turkey except in and around their homeland in north-eastern Turkey, and in certain villages around Sakarya (Adapazar). And I'd think that they number in total a couple of 100,000 at most.

Do you have any information concerning Christian Hemshin population in the Ottoman prior to WWI?

[Arpa]

2. the Hamsheni do number perhaps 3 million.  The "ethnic Turk" is a Kemalist illusion that still holds due to the incredible control on the majority by the organized and supported minority.  Most are not so thoroughly "nationalized" as Kemal would have liked, and this is especially true in Cilicia.  You still have persecution to the tooth in that region for that precise purpose, but the irony is that the persecution is on behalf of a government supported minority against a majority.  Witnesses driving from Syria attest to this constantly.

What on earth do you mean by this? There are no Hemshinli in Cilicia. Nor are there (outside of the major cities) any Hemshinli anywhere else in Turkey except in and around their homeland in north-eastern Turkey, and in certain villages around Sakarya (Adapazar). And I'd think that they number in total a couple of 100,000 at most.

Steve,

Am I reading Hagop's quote correctly when I assume he is saying just the contrary. In fact as he states in another post that Hamshenahayeren is closely related to that of Taron. Not only that, it is so close to the Marash Hayeren with which I am somewhet familiar and by extension the Zeitun dialect which is understandably about 90% identical with the Marash one. To attest to that go to my post "Hayeren?" and see how I recognized that "yiyek" actually meant "yirek/three", where I also mention that the Zeituntsi glide their R's to sound like Y. Marashtsis don't, they do enunciate the R, another feature that I am familiar with is the "_dek" pluralizing ending, they would say "aghchindek" to mean aghchikner.

I may post a few sentences of Marash and Zeitun dialects if can locate them.

THere are those who trace the inhabitants of Marash to Taron, (and why not, to Hamshen), and they use the fact that Marashtsis are so fond of the word Vaspurakan that they name their every institutions such, including but not limited to their soccer team.

Is so uch similarity in their respective dialects just an acident? One must also consider, as Bert Vaux indicates, that most of these dialects are in their original sahpe, i.e. going back to Grabar days without being affected by modern Armenian that most of us learned at school rather than at home. If I were to learn Armenian at home I would be speaking in the Masarsh dialect now. Not really, since the link had been lost during the 1915s and all but totally forgotten and superseded with Turkish.

[Arpa]

Here is that link wher I almost successfully translated it.

Please not that at the time I was not aware that it was already transltade to English in that article by Bert Veaux which I so later as you can tell by my amazement that I had come so close.

 

http://armenians.com/forum/index.php?showt...t=0entry66219

Edited November 25, 2003 by Arpa

[Arpa]

Oops! Let me try again.

 

http://armenians.com/forum/index.php?showt...t=0entry66219

[hagopn]

What on earth do you mean by this? There are no Hemshinli in Cilicia. Nor are there (outside of the major cities) any Hemshinli anywhere else in Turkey except in and around their homeland in north-eastern Turkey, and in certain villages around Sakarya (Adapazar). And I'd think that they number in total a couple of 100,000 at most.

I should have been more clear:

 

Altough there are Hamshentsi who live in various urban centers in Cilicia, the "resistance to nationalization" I was referring to was in reference to those in Cilicia who have equally maintained their non-Turkish roots as "ges ges" muslims. This is especially true in Ayntab and vicinity where their "Turkish" dialect is inundated with Armenian words and grammatical structure. I will not even mention the numerous testimonies I have from Syrian Armenians who have found "cryptic" Armenians in the region. It is, by all accounts, as dense or more so than hamshen, but it is treated lightly by the various Armenian political entities and government due to the extremely explosive nature of this situation.

 

As to the 3 million, I think it is a fair estimate based on data that I have gotten from sources in Armenia (Armenian and non-Armenian.) In 1976 (?) there was a report published in "Garoun" in Yerevan that estimated their number (muslim and christian) to be around 1.5 million within Turkish borders, and I still adhere to that.

 

Where did you get your numbers?

[bellthecat]

An Armenian monatery in Trabzon; Click on the numbers and see Ararat over Kars

http://www3.telus.net/geoffieboy/turkey/turkey3.html

Not Armenian - it is Georgian: Dortkilise monastery near Yusufeli (near as in a 3.5 hour walk from it).

[bellthecat]

I should have been more clear:

 

Altough there are Hamshentsi who live in various urban centers in Cilicia, the "resistance to nationalization" I was referring to was in reference to those in Cilicia who have equally maintained their non-Turkish roots as "ges ges" muslims.  This is especially true in Ayntab and vicinity where their "Turkish" dialect is inundated with Armenian words and grammatical structure.  I will not even mention the numerous testimonies I have from Syrian Armenians who have found "cryptic" Armenians in the region.  It is, by all accounts, as dense or more so than hamshen, but it is treated lightly by the various Armenian political entities and government due to the extremely explosive nature of this situation.

 

As to the 3 million, I think it is a fair estimate based on data that I have gotten from sources in Armenia (Armenian and non-Armenian.)  In 1976 (?) there was a report published in "Garoun" in Yerevan that estimated their number (muslim and christian) to be around 1.5 million within Turkish borders, and I still adhere to that.

 

Where did you get your numbers?

You are galloping into the realms of fantasy now! At the most, 15,000 Hemshinli live in their two original valleys and in the neighbouring towns on the Black sea. Probably ten times that number now live in the major towns of Western Turkey.

 

I'm not sure how many still live in the villages around Adapazar - a few thousand at most, I'd guess. I don't know if anyone has investigated when and why they migrated into the Adapazar region. It must have been with the permission of the Ottoman Empire, anyway - which means that they must have been openly Muslim by that time or they probably wouldn't have been allowed to come. However, they were still acknowledged as being Armenian by the local Armenian population.

[bellthecat]

Do you have any information concerning Christian Hemshin population in the Ottoman prior to WWI?

There were no "Christian" Hemshinli - there were only Hemshinli who were Muslim in public, but who retained some Christian customs and beliefs in private. Any pre-1915 Christians who lived in the Hemshin valleys (such as in the village of Elevit) were Armenians who called themselves Armenians.

[bellthecat]

...and the adult population (up in the valleys) would have been about the same size as the present day. Well, maybe that would have been true until 10 or 15 years ago - there has been a lot of recent depopulation due to people moving to the cities. My 15,000 figure came from Turkish books - so that too is probably less now, since population statistics are always out of date. Actually, given the physical size of the settlements, I think maybe 6,000 to 8,000 is a better estimate for those still living in their original homeland.

[hagopn]

Where did you get your information?

 

1. There apparently were Christian Hemshinli since they still do exist on the Black Sea Coast and are alive and well. I would assume, since I don't have information, that their migration took place around the 1860's when the first north Caucasian exudos into the Ottoman Empire took place.

 

2. Russian intelligence sources and Georgian SSR sources claimed that the Laz were aruond 5 million, and the Hamshenli were arond 1.5 million in, I believe, 1976. I have read this in "Garoun" monthly. Perhaps it is exaggerated and perhaps it is fantastically high a number, but those are the only numbers outside of "Turkish sources" (sic) that I have. Where are your sources?

[bellthecat]

Where did you get your information?

 

1. There apparently were Christian Hemshinli since they still do exist on the Black Sea Coast and are alive and well. I would assume, since I don't have information, that their migration took place around the 1860's when the first north Caucasian exudos into the Ottoman Empire took place.

 

2. Russian intelligence sources and Georgian SSR sources claimed that the Laz were aruond 5 million, and the Hamshenli were arond 1.5 million in, I believe, 1976. I have read this in "Garoun" monthly. Perhaps it is exaggerated and perhaps it is fantastically high a number, but those are the only numbers outside of "Turkish sources" (sic) that I have. Where are your sources?

There can't be "Christian Hemshinli" since, by definition, a Hemshinli is a Muslim Armenian. If a Hemshinli was a Christian then he would be an Armenian. (I'm obviously talking about the pre-1915 situation here). Any Christian Hemshinli that exist today would be Christian purely as a result of individual personal conversion - and not as a result of any direct cultural or ethnic influences. Where (in Turkey, I have only ever been talking about Turkey) do the Christian Hemshinli that you speak of live?

 

If a valley system can only physically support 6000 to 10000 people then not even Soviet propaganda is going to make it support 100 times that amount. Even allowing for a century or more of economic migration, (and those migrants doing a hell of a lot of breeding and all their descendants still retaining a Hemshin ethnic identity) a figure of 1.5 million is more than fantastical - it is laughable. The 5 million figure for the Laz is also crazy. What on earth was the Russian purpose in producing such inflated figures? Modern Turkish population figures are accurate - but I don't think they record minorities like Laz or Hemshinli.

 

The Hemshinli didn't migrate from Caucasia - they have been living where they are living now for at least 1000 years. The Laz did migrate from the Caucasus, but that was a long time ago (can't remember exactly right now - 800 years ago?). Some Hemshinli from Turkey migrated TO the Caucasus during the end of the 19th century, for economic reasons.

[Harut]

Steve

Armenians living along black sea (Georgia, Abkhazia, S. Russia) are called hamshenahayer.

i don't know more than that.