Pride Of Armenian Language

[sarsher101]

So many people in the United states and Europe take pride in the Armenian language and claim to be armenians. However, they miss too many of the armenian attitudes that make armenians who they are. for example, the first simplest thing is that they speak in foreign languages with each other and even within the family which is a shame. also they forget that being armenian means being helpful and not materialist people. Most Armenians nowadays think if you say hi to them you are saying it for their money. I am a Baghdadahye and my message is directed to my kinda people who are out of Armenia. When our kind of people get together, they claim to be very nice and happy to see each other but after they are all alone they start talking about the bad habbits of their relatives and neighbors. However, they claim that Hayastantsi families and their people are unworthy. What they don't know is that those families still have their traditional Armenian family values and they appreciate each one of these values. So for those of you who oppose my view give me a logical reason why we call ourselves armenians if we don't talk armenian, we don't appreciate those values and most of all we don't help each other to seek better society and hopefuly a reunited armenia in the neer future.

[gamavor]

Armenia has long and complex history; rather Armenians have long and complex history. You also need to be mindful that there are different traditional values. I know that Armenians from Middle East are more traditional because they lived for too long in close society. Not the same in Europe. Actually, I may affirm that certain segments of the Armenian society in Europe were much more liberal in their approach to life than Europeans in general. If you look back in history, traditions and value system of Byzantine Armenians were very different from those living in Persia. After the annexation of portion of Eastern Armenia by Russia, despite heavy Russification, Armenia and Armenians found their way to their native culture and tradition, which seem to me are the balance of the two "extremes", however talking in general terms about individual values is wrong.

[shaunt]

What does this pride in Armenian language consist of? Is it being aware of the fact that the majority of words in Armenian are Parthian rather than Armenian? I saw some people on this forum suggesting that we should call our country Hayrenik instead of Hayastan, but what they did not realize was that the suffix "ik" also comes to us through the Iranian languages (Oh the irony, <_< ). I'll take pride in the language when it is fully our own, ie when we replace these words of odars with their proper Indo-European equivalents. The only other person I have seen suggest something similar is Teutonic Knight (I'm not sure about Arpa). Every Armenian should demand this of our linguists.

[Twilight Bark]

What does this pride in Armenian language consist of? Is it being aware of the fact that the majority of words in Armenian are Parthian rather than Armenian? I saw some people on this forum suggesting that we should call our country Hayrenik instead of Hayastan, but what they did not realize was that the suffix "ik" also comes to us through the Iranian languages (Oh the irony,  <_< ).

Why should -ik come from Parthian/Iranian? Armenian is an older language, and unless it is proven that it lacked -ik before an Armenian-Iranian interaction per se, it is more reasonable to asume that it always had it.

 

And I think the suggestion was "Hayk", not "Hayrenik".

 

I'll take pride in the language when it is fully our own, ie when we replace these words of odars with their proper Indo-European equivalents. .... Every Armenian should demand this of our linguists.

Hmm. Non-indoeuropean words like ardziv, khntsor, sur.

 

I submit that, before demanding Indo-European fabrications, we should stop characterizing Armenian words and suffixes that are common with other languages as "borrowed", unless they are proven borrowings.

[Arpa]

The only other person I have seen suggest something similar is Teutonic Knight (I'm not sure about Arpa). Every Armenian should demand this of our linguists.

I have also heard thate "ik/ak" suffixes are from the Iranian.

One can argue as to which came first the chicken or the egg. That is the reason why I often use the term "common" to both languages. As far as language is concerned, I had written before that the Armenian language is a "dialect" of the IndoEuropean family of languages.

As far as which comes first, we have had the "ik/ak" suffixes from times immemorial as in Astghik, Asoghik, Armenak etc.

 

As to what I think about "foreign" words in our language, I would first question why we advertise our cuisine using Turkish words like dolma, sarma, basterma and other disgusting words, words that are enough to make one throw up right at the dinner table.

 

:angry:

 

I will get back to te subject under another topic.

[nairi]

Who gives? Language is language. It's there for communication. Everyone speaks a language. What's there to be proud of? Besides, what is Armenian? Is there such a thing? Or are we talking about what is in common between all the dialects and varieties? Which is, believe it or not, spoken by no one.

[gurgen]

also they forget that being armenian means being helpful and not materialist people.

You been to Armenia lately?

[shaunt]

What's there to be proud of?

 

I cannot answer that, but I can answer the negation of that question; that we use the words of our subjugators. To use those words when we are no longer under the tyrannical rule of our neighbors bothers me. To most people it might seem like nothing, but to me these words have a ghastly connotation.

 

Tell me how this sounds:

 

Mer Hayrenik ghiber angakh

 

Ghiber, from Latin, liber, meaning free

 

[nairi]

Sounds as interesting as this sentence sounds to me.

[jgm1975]

Armenian words are of three origin:

 

- Loan words (or borrowed), i.e. Arabic, Persian, Russian, Turkish and other words that made their way into the Armenian language. This is an entirely normal phenomenon. For example English borrowed a lot from French after the Norman invasion of 1066.

 

- Indo-European, i.e. words derived from the common Indo-European root of the Armenian language with other Indo-European languages, such as Persian and Greek. A lot of words in Armenian resemble Persian words, not because one borrowed words from the other, but because the two are related. Even for the word Father you can see the phenomenon. Father in Latin is Pater. If you "evolve" the consonants, you get the Armenian version:

Pater-> Phather-> hather-> Hayer-> Hayr

 

- Urartu, i.e. a lot a Armenian words are of non-Indo-European origin and are a result of the assimilation of the Urartu people and language by the Armenians. One theory is that Urartu is related to Georgian and to the other languages of the Caucasus, which is probably the case since Historians have not classified the Urartu people as Indo-Europeans or Semites, the two most populous ethnic families at that time.

[sarsher101]

its pretty impressive when somebody has a strong back up for the response. thank you for your sharing.

[vava]

Welcome to HF jgm , hope you post often.

 

I entirely agree with your post, but I wonder if there exists one more 'origin' for Armenian words - and that would be 'Armenian'.

 

Armenians were the continuation/fusion of several peoples going back to the Thraco-Phrygians, Hurrians, Luwians, Hayasa-Azzis and (probably) lastly the Urartians. The languages, over much time, evolved and fused into one likely around 500 BC when the first references to 'Armenians' are found in Greek and Persian records.

 

Since that time, two and half millenia ago the language has continued to evolve natually and adopt loan words etc. In all that time there must have been the development of 'native' Armenian words. One would think that the nature of life would necessitate the development of further vocabulary - and such 'new' development wouldn't necessarily have to be based upon loan words, but derived from within the language itself. Are there no 'native' Armenian words?

[Twilight Bark]

around 500 BC when the first references to 'Armenians' are found in Greek and Persian records.

I give up.

[jgm1975]

Welcome to HF jgm , hope you post often.

Thank you. I must admit that sometimes it gets difficult to follow. Since I do other things during the week and week-end, by the time I have time to post, there have already been many posts in many topics and I have diffculty following.

Armenians were the continuation/fusion of several peoples going back to the Thraco-Phrygians, Hurrians, Luwians, Hayasa-Azzis  and  (probably) lastly the Urartians. The languages, over much time,  evolved and fused into one likely around 500 BC when the first references to 'Armenians' are found in Greek and Persian records.

 

Since that time, two and half millenia ago the language has continued to evolve natually and adopt loan words etc. In all that time there must have been the development of 'native' Armenian words. One would think that the nature of life would necessitate the development of further vocabulary - and such 'new' development wouldn't necessarily have to be based upon loan words, but  derived from within the language itself. Are there no 'native' Armenian words?

style_images/master/snapback.png

Yes I agree. The problem though for linguistic scholars is the further you go in the past, the more difficult it becomes to classify words. To show you how difficult their job is, up until the end of the 19th century, scholars were still considering Armenian as a dialect of Persian because of the many Persian loan words. So it is only until recently that they established the independent nature of the Armenian branch.

 

The Armenians are derived from the Thraco-Phrygian branch of the Indo-European family. But not much is know about that branch, other than its languages, all now extinct except for Armenian, were spoken in ancient Western Anatolia and the Balkans of Antiquity. Some think that the native Macedonian language of Alexander the Great and his peers may have been a member of that branch.

 

For the Urartu words, it is still very difficult to identify the exact words. Scholars know well which words are of Non-Indo-European origin. They simply see that there is no pattern with other Indo-European words, and that's it. But the next step, identifying the origin of the words, is difficult. Since it is a known historical fact that Armenians and the Urartu people merged with one another, at least we know that Urartu words indeed came into the language. But it is very hard to establish which words are of Hurrian, Luwian, Hayasa-Azzis, or Hittite origin, even though probably such words indeed made their way in Armenian

 

As for "native" Armenian words, well I would say that the language spoken by the Armenians before they came in contact with the Urartu is probably the one that contains them, since this language was 100% Indo-European and had no loan words from Persian. But this is just an opinion. This language was a member of the Thraco-Phrygian branch.

[vava]

I give up.

style_images/master/snapback.png

 

 

Sorry TB, I presume by your response that I have gaffed. I was merely paraphrasing what I have learned in my (admittedly) limited readings on Armenian history and and the etimology of the language. If I am mistaken, please, by all means, do correct me.

[Hye_Acher]

Մեր լեզուն արյունն է մեր

Արյունից ավելի թանկ,

Մեր բուրմունքն ու գույնն է մեր

Մեր լեզուն մենք ենք որ կանք

 

Համո Սահյան

 

Բարի ժամանց!!!

[Harut]

...

[Twilight Bark]

Sorry TB, I presume by your response that I have gaffed. I was merely paraphrasing what I have learned in my (admittedly) limited readings on Armenian history and and the etimology of the language. If I am mistaken, please, by all means, do correct me.

style_images/master/snapback.png

It's not you per se Vava. I know you are just repeating what has become the "conventional wisdom" about the beginning of the Armenian nation. The problem is, that version has no more factual basis than what many would consider crazy or crackpot ideas, except that it struck the right chord with many "scholars". Nobody recorded "Armens" coming with the Phrygians. Furthermore, Armenians themselves don't call themselves with that name, and there is no proof that the "Armens" were the main, identity-forming component of the Armenian nation, or the most numerous. There is so little information on the Phrygian language that it is impossible to group it with any other language, other than saying that it is Indo-European and seems to have some distant relationship with Greek and Armenian. So what? Greek and Armenian already seem to have some "distant relationship" with or without Phrygian, which really doesn't bring in any new information, and certainly doesn't require an Armenian immigration from Thrace. We don't know what the ordinary people of Urartu spoke; only what the rulers or their scribes spoke or wrote. Armenians have been ruled by other groups for long periods, and many times. If we didn't have written records for the period before the Seljuks, that line of thinking could easily conclude that the Armenians arrived with the Crusaders, and formed a distinct identity after mixing with the local, indigenous Seljuk Turks, to form a new nation in Cilicia. And the ease with which the "Urartuan" people seems to have melted into one "new" people less than a century after "their state" had been overrun by non-Armenian invaders stretches reason. And all that with no record of any Armenian organized state, invasion, or anything of the sort. Poof! After Cimmerians and Scythians raze Urartu, Armenians somehow take over vast areas, assimilate the population, and basically erase the memory of the previous Urartian state and emerge as a "new nation" in a few decades, and all that without prior experience as an organized state, or a newly found zeal as invaders/plunderers? These questions need to be raised, but are often not because there are too many dumb Armenian "scholars" who are all-too-happy to classify Armenians as "European colonists", as if that elevates them to some Renaissance-making, science-creating, enlightened Europeans by virtue of "Thraco-Phrygian" genes, whose carriers by the way initiated a couple of centuries of "dark-ages" in Anatolia before absorbing what was left of the local civilization. Just a few thoughts that I wanted to get off my chest. Sorry if they are somewhat disorganized.

 

But yes, I realize that it would take too much effort to reverse the damage done by parrot "scholars", some of whom are not guilty of stupidity but simple bias in favor of making Armenians as recent an advent as is conceivable, however unlikely or absurd it may be in a logical analysis.

Edited August 31, 2004 by Twilight Bark