Jump to content

Help W/ Learning Eastern Armenian


lehtinen

Recommended Posts

Hi, I'm interested in learning Eastern Armenian, which from what I understand is spoken by Armenians from Iran. Is that correct? Does anyone have suggestions about the best audio course or books that I could get in order to learn? I'm more interested in being able to speak it than actually writing right now. Thanks for any help! I'm American & English is my sole language.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Barev Lehtinen,

 

Yes, 'Parska-Hyes' (Armenians from Iran) speak Eastern Armenian. I know of a few good courses - but only two that specialize in conversational Armenian.

 

One of them is no longer available - it is very good, though:

 

Spoken East Armenian by Gordon Fairbanks, & Earl Stevick

Published by Spoken Languange Services. 1958 - revised 1989.

I am personally trying to get a copy, so if anyone has this, or know where to get one (including the tapes of course!) Please let me know.

 

Another which I do not know very well is still available at THIS LINK.

It's from the Speak-A-Language series I believe there is even a 'compact' course for beginners. From what I understand, it will only give you a rudimentary knowledge of conversational Armenian.

 

Anyway, Good luck and welcome Hye Forum!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Grazias Gam! :huh:

Armenians will spare no distance to avoid saying SHUN ORHAKAL YEM. I have not said it in emorable time, I never liked it. It makes no sense, it is too long and convoluted, yet some may use it to show off their mastery of the language.

We'll have to find a shortr more meaningful word. Besides it is not native Armenian, it seems like Armenians did not have the concept of gratitude until they met the Latins and they translated ""grazia" verbatim except that the Armenian version turned out to be ten miles long and lost its intended meaning.

Merci, thank you, shukran, grazias, but no SHUN-orhakal-yem... No Thank you.

I wish we would use all that "wind" for better ends.

Hey Seap! Is it considered "shnutyun" to be grateful?? :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Vava, I managed to find a copy of Spoken East Armenian (the tapes) from Amazon.ca. The US site didn't have it in stock but it looks like the Canadian site had one remaining so I ordered it. It looks like the book is much easier to find though. I'd suggest trying to find it on one of the international Amazons - hopefully you'll find it. Good luck!
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Just in case they have copies available, you could try looking at:

 

www.spokenlanguage.com

 

The Fairbanks book/tapes are listed under 'courses' on the website (the link was broken when I first tried it but worked later on.) My tapes should be coming this week from Amazon.ca so I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully that website has some available & ready to go...good luck!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...

:huh: Isn't it also the language spoken in Erevan??

 

I used A. V. Gevorkian's book "East Armenian Course" which I found for sale under a bridge in Armenia (no kidding), but frankly I learned more by speaking to people there. If you speak Russian there are some other books you can get. In the USA you could enroll at UCLA and take a class in it. If you have relatives you can ask them to bring you some childrens' books from Armenia. Try emailing Armbook@ysu.am which was in 2000 the email of the author.

 

Good luck.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...