Hamschen

Homschezi / Homschezma (Հոմշեցի / Հոմշեցմա)
Spoken in	Russia , Turkey , Georgia ( Abkhazia ), Armenia and Central Asia
speaker	14,000 in Turkey
Linguistic ; classification	Indo-European Armenian Western Armenian; Hamschen ;

Homschezi (Հոմշեցի Homschezi lisu "the Hamschen language", Turkish Hemşince ) is an archaic West Armenian dialect spoken by the eastern and northern group of the Hemşinli , an ethnic group native to northeastern Turkey , Georgia ( Abkhazia ) and Russia as well Central Asia lives. Until the massacres of the Armenians in 1894–1896 and the genocide of the Armenians , it was spoken in a larger contiguous area.

It is easy to understand with the rest of the Armenian language . It existed only in spoken form until 1995, when the linguist Bert Vaux developed an orthographic system based on the modified Turkish alphabet , while the Armenian alphabet was used by Christian immigrants from Hamschen (Northern Hemşinli) to Russia and Georgia ( Abkhazia ) - the the Designate language as Homschezma (Հոմշեցմա).

Hemşince is spoken among the Eastern Hemschinli, also known as the Hopa Hemschinli, who live in small groups in villages in the Turkish province of Artvin and in Central Asia. The Western Hemschinli or Rize-Hemşinli, a related but geographically separate group in Rize Province , also spoke Hemşince until the late 19th century. Today you only speak Turkish , but keep many Hemşince loan words. A third group, the northern Homzhezik in Russia, Georgia (Abkhazia) and Armenia also speak Homzhezma.

Hemşince / Homschezma has linguistic peculiarities that show that it belongs to the West Armenian dialect group; the two are generally understandable to each other. Hemşince has close ties to the Armenian dialects that were formerly found in northeastern Turkey, especially in Hodortschur and to a lesser extent in Trabzon . Due to its long isolation, the Hemşince also contains many archaisms , which distinguishes it from all other Armenian dialects. The language retains forms that can only be found in Classical and Central Armenian, while at the same time incorporating foreign (especially Turkish and Kurdish ) grammatical and lexical components that removed it from modern Armenian during the twentieth century.

The UNESCO has Hemşince / Homschezma as a definitely endangered classified language.

Web links

Bert Vaux: Hemshinli: The Forgotten Black Sea Armenians . Harvard University . 2001. Retrieved May 3, 2013.

"Hemshinli: The Forgotten Black Sea Armenians" by Bert Vaux

"Ethnographic Materials from the Muslim Hemshinli" (PDF; 633 kB) Various samples of Homschezi

Gertak (We Are Going), a poem in Homshetsi, with Turkish translation ( Memento of March 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) from the Voice of Hopa website

Individual evidence

^ Uwe Blaesing, "Armenian in the Vocabulary and Culture of the Turkish Hemshinli", in "The Hemshin", 2007, edited by H. Simonian
↑ Bert Vaux, "Homshetsma, The language of the Armenians of Hamshen," in "The Hemshin" 2007 edited by H. Simonian
↑ "Homshetsma therefore gives us one of our only glimpses of Armenian in its 'pure' form" , writes Bert Vaux.
↑ United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), "Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger", February 2009.

[1] Uwe Blaesing, "Armenian in the Vocabulary and Culture of the Turkish Hemshinli", in "The Hemshin", 2007, edited by H. Simonian

[2] Bert Vaux, "Homshetsma, The language of the Armenians of Hamshen," in "The Hemshin" 2007 edited by H. Simonian

[3] "Homshetsma therefore gives us one of our only glimpses of Armenian in its 'pure' form" , writes Bert Vaux.

[4] United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), "Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger", February 2009.