Western Armenian

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Western Armenian
Արեւմտահայերէն Arewmdahajeren
Աշխարհաբար Ashcharapar

Spoken in

(see Armenians in the Diaspora )
speaker 900,000
Linguistic
classification

Indo-European

Language codes
ISO 639-3

hyw

Armenian dialects of the early 20th century; -gë dialects in yellow (after Adscharjan )

Western Armenian ( Armenian Արեւմտահայերէն also Աշխարհաբար Aschcharapar ; until the first half of the 20th century Turkish-Armenian Թրքահայերէն T'rkahajeren ) is one of two standardized forms of pluricentric Armenian language ; it was spoken until the Ottoman genocide of the Armenians and the expulsions in 1915 in the eastern and southern parts of what is now Turkey . Since then it has only been spoken in the Armenian diaspora ; however, the Armenians of Iran are excluded from thisand Russia , who speak Eastern Armenian , which is also the official language of the Republic of Armenia .

Western Armenian was based on the Armenian dialect of Constantinople , which was used there by the Apostolic Patriarchate , while Eastern Armenian was based on the dialects of the Ararat highlands . A dialect of Western Armenian that is still spoken in Turkey today is the Hemschinli Homschezi .

As a diaspora language and as a language that has no official status in any country, Western Armenian is on the verge of linguistic death , as its native speakers lose their knowledge of Western Armenian due to the pressure to assimilate in the host countries. It is estimated that those who speak Western Armenian fluently now make up less than a million.

history

Western Armenian developed among the Armenians indigenous to Anatolia (now Turkey ). State and political instability of historical Armenia affected the development of the language. With the loss of Armenia's independence as a state, the various language regions were isolated. The classical language of late Armenian antiquity, the Grabar , served in its unifying function until the early 19th century. The differences between the dialects were emphasized more strongly when the country was divided into the three successor powers: Persia , the Byzantine Empire or Ottoman Turkey and Russia .

From the 12th century, following the establishment of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia and collaboration with the Crusaders , Armenian took over administrative, economic and social words from French . The letters o and f ( օ , ֆ ) found their way into the traditional Armenian alphabet .

During the early 20th century, with the extermination and displacement of almost all Armenians from Anatolia, western Armenian was robbed of the land in which it was indigenous. Until then, it was spoken in the Six Armenian Vilayets of the Ottoman Empire. For the next 100 years, Western Armenian was degraded to a language that is only spoken in the diaspora - by Armenians who had to find refuge in various countries in the Middle East , Europe ( Armenians in Germany ), North America , South America and Oceania .

Relationship between the forms of Armenian

Western Armenian was the dominant Armenian dialect until the early 20th century. A high proportion of Turkish loan words is characteristic . Eastern Armenian and Western Armenian are easy to understand for educated Armenians. This is mainly due to the high proportion of common vocabulary, while the effects of the Western Armenian sound shift can lead to certain comprehension difficulties. In the area of ​​grammar, however, Western Armenian often has more archaic features than the Eastern variant. Both forms of language share the common ISO 639-1 code hy . The ISO 639-3 code for both is hye . The Armenian Wikipedia is coded with hy and mostly written in Eastern Armenian, but a Western Armenian version now also exists for many articles. Some commercial translation agencies advise that translations from English should normally be to East Armenian.

Although the Republic of Armenia does not legally differentiate between the two forms and simply declares “Armenian” to be the official language, Eastern Armenian is in fact its official language, and this form is also used in all areas of life.

Spread and situation

Western Armenian is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian diaspora, mainly in Europe , North and South America, and most of the Middle East (by the Armenians in Syria and Lebanon ) with the exception of Iran , Georgia , Nagorno-Karabakh Republic in Azerbaijan and Armenia . Only a small percentage of the remaining Armenians in Constantinople are spoken as their mother tongue, 18 percent of the entire community and 8 percent among the younger generation. Western Armenian was the dominant Armenian dialect until the massacres of the Armenians in 1894–1896 , the Adana massacre in 1909 and the genocide of the Armenians from 1915. Since then, Western Armenia (in the eastern part of what is now Turkey) has been "cleansed" by the Western Armenians . The descendants of those who fled to Eastern Armenia (then part of the Russian Empire ) speak Eastern Armenian today.

On February 21, 2009, International Mother Language Day was marked by UNESCO with the publication of the Atlas of Endangered World Languages , where the Western Armenian language in Turkey is identified as a "clearly endangered language ".

See also

literature

  • Zareh Melkonian: Practical Grammar - For Modern Armenian (Intermediate and Advanced Course) . 4th edition. Los Angeles 1990 (Armenian: Գործնական Քերականութիւն - Արդի Հայերէն Լեզուի (Միջին եւ Բարձրագոյն Դասընթացք) .).
  • Dora Sakayan: Modern Western Armenian For the English-speaking World: A Contrastive Approach . Arod Books, Montreal 2000, ISBN 0-9699879-2-7 .
  • Thomas J. Samuelian: A Course in Modern Western Armenian: Dictionary and Linguistic Notes . Ed .: Armenian National Education Committee. New York City 1989, ISBN 0-9617933-2-5 .

Web links

Dictionaries

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ UNESCO Culture Sector, UNESCO Interactive Atlas of the World's Languages ​​in Danger, 2009
  2. ↑ Zareh Melkonian: Գործնական Քերականութիւն - Արդի Հայերէն Լեզուի (Միջին եւ Բարձրագոյն Դասընթացք) . Fourth edition. Los Angeles 1990, pp. 137 (Armenian).
  3. ↑ cf. Artasches Abeghian, New Armenian Grammar, Berlin and Leipzig 1936, p. 10 *
  4. ^ Western Armenian & Eastern Armenian - Pronunciation Differences on YouTube
  5. ↑ If you need a translation into Armenian this information will help you better understand what you can expect. ( Memento of March 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) pipoyan.com
  6. ^ Ruben Melkonyan: “Review of Istanbul's Armenian community history”. Panorama.am, September 29, 2010, accessed on December 14, 2010 (English).
  7. ^ Tolga Korkut: 15 Languages ​​Endangered in Turkey. Bianet, February 22, 2009