Language

 

Reflections on two months in Armenia.  

Language. Armenian is a very, very distant cousin to Latin, so trying to apply any words we know in English, French or Spanish to anything Armenian doesn't work.  And their written language was invented in 405AD and is used only inside of this country. Their neighbor Georgia has their own unique spoken and written language.  Another neighbor,  Turkey,  used to use written Farsi but changed to the Latin alphabet about a century ago and saw their literacy rate explode from 10-20% to 80-90% in a generation.  Another neighbor,  Russia, has their own written language,  but it's based on Greek, which Latin is also based on,  so that's not quite so strange. 

Proto-Indo-European began just north of here around 4500 BCE between the Caucasus mountains, the northern shore of the Black Sea, and the Asian Steppe. From here it spread southeast and became Farsi,westward to become Latin and Germanic, and east to become Russian, and some stayed local to become Anatolian. The story is vastly more complicated than this, but this is the root of most of the world’s languages. 

Armenia has been occupied by the Russians, Ottomans, Persians,  Mongols, Byzantines and more over the centuries.  Russia most recently,  and the language took hold.  

Kristen learned Russian back in high school,  so that has been invaluable in stores and government offices.  So I rely on her for communication.  Sure,  I can use Google translate,  but that's slow and cumbersome.  She also speaks French,  which is probably the fourth most useful language here.  My Spanish has no value at all. 

Many younger Armenians have learned English in hopes to connect better with Europe and the EU. But theirs is English learned from school, not lived in everyday life, as Russian was. So it's rare to meet anyone genuinely fluent.  So we connected with the Armenian Volunteer Corps (AVC) and were given a position as the ‘native speakers’ for an English club, to help them practice and expand their grasp of the language. AVC is part of the Hovnanian foundation, and we have access to all the resources therein, including twice a week class in Armenian. It's slow going.  I now know a dozen letters and a dozen words.  They do use many borrowed words  like 'supermarket' and 'photocopy' plastered across a storefront, so we can pick up on those quickly.  But in the case of photocopy,  'photo' is borrowed from Persian, so not as useful as one might think.

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