NORAYR EBLIGHATIAN
In our modern history, we have had 2 waves of reforms (in Istanbul & Tbilisi) by the end of the 19th century. These reforms coincided with our enlightenment age. The Western Armenian language reform was halted by the Genocide, while the Eastern Armenian language underwent another ‘reform attempt’ during Stalinist times primarily with Russification in mind. The objective was the assimilation of all Soviet languages into a common usage vocabulary.
In the Diaspora (especially, in the Middle Eastern countries and France during the 1920/30s and later by mid 1960s) there was a concerted effort to integrate the different Anatolian & Cilician dialects into a common one and revive the Western Armenian language/literature.
Armenian Language reform can be divided into 3 sections:
- Simplification.
- Purification.
- Integration.
- Simplification is relatively the easiest one of the three. It covers areas like:
- Spelling Reform: Getting rid of complex spelling rules and eliminating spelling exceptions dictates. In other words, reducing the spelling rules to a minimum set of easily understood and followed guidelines.
Spelling reform is usually implemented in a top-down approach by a specialist body, which proposes these reforms for adoption.
- Syntax Reform: This is the domain of sentence structure (sequencing Subject, Verb and Object commonly referred to as the SVO sequence) and grammar rules. There are numerous theories about the discipline of syntax, but the main objective of this post is to suggest the reduction & simplification of Armenian language syntax rules.
- Vocabulary: This is a set of words that each person learns and this set gets larger with age until it reaches a plateau. There are some studies that have concluded that this plateau is between approximately 20,000 and 35,000 words, the difference being active vocabulary vs passive vocabulary.
Vocabulary size is a controversial subject, as they are ‘purists’ that insist on translating every used word into a native language. For example, during a recent course lecture (about Python programming), my esteemed instructor started referring to “popokhagan” in every other sentence and I had no idea what she was talking about. Finally, after 10 minutes of this agony, I realized that she was referring to the term “variable” (a common term in programming). The rest of the lecture reminded me about a movie where the sound dubbing gets all messed up and you hear (in my case understand) the words 10 seconds after a person utters them. The reason I mention all this is because (according my opinion) there is no value add in teaching Armenian translations of technical terms that are not going to be used in real life. The markets that these students will eventually work in is Europe, Russia or the USA. In none of these markets, they use the technical term “popokhagan”.
- Purification is the process of identifying loanwords and replacing them with ‘purer’ or intrinsically higher quality ones.
Western Armenian has lots of Turkish words that need purification.
Eastern Armenian has lots of Russian words that need purification.
In this domain, we are blessed because the Armenian language has a robust compound word formation rules and we can purify our language with the usage of compound words. In this domain the study of word roots is crucial.
- Integration of the two main Armenian dialects (Western & Eastern), is the most sensitive issue because it can easily shift into a political dialogue. And since Western Armenians do not have centralized authority, it is assumed that Eastern Armenian will prevail. Case in point is the myriad of articles in the Western Diasporan press where authors have started using the Eastern Dialect.
Integration can be the last process of our linguistic reforms. Simplification and purification can take precedence.
I am going to confine my comments about macro-linguistic reform to these topics and move to micro-linguistic projects.
Armenian Textbooks: For me the litmus test is my granddaughter Sosi (age 7), who has a notepad of her own. She plays games on it, learns her lessons using it, watches educational videos and does much more. If I can install Armenian language lessons on this device, at the same level of quality and attractiveness as the other software, I am sure that there will be no need to ‘convince’ her that learning Armenian is essential. She has already been indoctrinated by her parents and the school that learning is important.
Dictionaries: We have paper-based dictionaries from the 1950s/60s, but they are not updated on a regular basis. If we want Western Armenian to be a living language, we need to use the latest technologies and have e_dictionaries. These can be online (like Google Translate), desktop stand-alone dictionaries and imbedded ones in MS WORD, LibreOffice Writer, Apache OpenOffice Writer and others.
Thesaurus: is a system that groups synonyms, related words/concepts and antonyms. Thesaurus can also be online, standalone and embedded.
Spelling Tools: especially embedded spelling tools that would detect dictation errors.
Grammar Tools: Tools that would spot and correct syntax errors (or at least suggest alternative sentence structure).
Translation Tools: We need a huge infusion of literary works that can ignite the imagination of our youth with modern ideas. Even though Daniel Varoujan is sacred for us, early 20th century literature should be complemented with contemporary works.
Book Scanning Tools: There is an enormous amount of western Armenian literature that will be lost because we just do not have the means to reproduce them. However, there is inexpensive technology to digitize these works and collect them in central repositories. Furthermore, there is an efficient distribution channel (e.g. Amazon e-books) that would reach to anyplace in the globe.
This is not an exhaustive list; however, I hope that it indicates the enormous amount of work needed to resuscitate Western Armenian.
I would like to end this post with a mea culpa. I need to get back to writing in Armenian. It is one of my pressing goals. BTW, that reminds me about the need for Armenian physical keyboards.