Thursday, December 19, 2013

A Comic Word

For those of our readers who are into comics, particularly the series X-Men, there is a female character called Jubilee in them, whose actual name is Jubilation Lee. How do the English words jubilee and jubilation relate?

We do not know for sure. Jubilation comes from the Latin verb iūbilō (“shout for joy”). Hebrew yovel (= English jubilee) marked the year at the end of seven cycles of sabbatical years, which had a special impact on the regulations of property and management of land in the land of Israel, according to the Bible. The Latin translation of the Bible (Vulgata) translated the word as iobeleus, while the Greek translation (Septuaginta) rendered it as “a trumpet-blast of liberty.” The reason for the latter was that the Jubilee year was announced by a blast on a shofar (Armenian շեփոր, shepor), an instrument made from a ram’s horn (Hebrew yobhel “ram”).

The Armenian word յոբելեան (hopelian), which today means “birthday” or “anniversary feast,” is used to mark an anniversary of any kind (for instance, 2013 was the 95th hopelian of the creation of the Republic of Armenia on May 28, 1918), whereas the English jubilee is most commonly used to mark a twenty-fifth (“silver”) or a fiftieth (“golden”) anniversary. The Armenian word derives from Greek yobelos, where the Greek suffix –os was replaced by the Armenian եան (ian), which means “belonging to.”

However, there is an alternative explanation, after all. It has been suggested that Latin jubilo and Ancient Greek iuzo (“shout”) both come from a common Indo-European root *yu- (shout for joy) that predates the Bible. (There is also the Modern English word yowl.) If such were the case, then the Hebrew word yovel would be a borrowing from a neighboring Indo-European language rather than a derivation from another Hebrew word. And then the Greek yobelos, Armenian hopelian, and English jubilee would have an ultimate Indo-European origin, even if kept by the Bible.

Words can be fun and mysterious.

Thursday, December 5, 2013

How Do You Call Him?

You call someone. This means that you tell someone to come to your side, you give an invitation to someone, or you name someone.

These three meanings of the English word call are all covered by its Armenian equivalent կանչել (ganchel).

There is a fourth meaning, very common in English American usage, as a synonym of “to telephone.” Thus, if we mean to say “I called my brother” in Armenian, we should simply say «Ես եղբայրս կանչեցի» (Yes yeghpayrs ganchetsi) and end of the story.

It sounds perfectly right: English call, Armenian ganchel. But it is perfectly... wrong.

Why? The English word is the shortened version of “to call over the phone,” but we do not have this expression in Armenian: we do not say հեռաձայնով կանչել (herratzaynov ganchel), but ... հեռաձայնել (herratzaynel “to telephone/to phone”). This being the case, we are not allowed to shorten an inexistent expression in Armenian (herratzaynov ganchel) and turn it into... ganchel.

You will find yourself before amusing, and confusing, situations. For instance, someone might say in reference to a friend who has been missing for a long time:

«Թիւը գտիր ու կանչէ, խօսինք» (Tivuh kdir oo gancheh, khosink, “Find the number and call him to talk”)

How would you understand this gancheh? Would you phone him to talk or . . . invite him to come to talk? If your interlocutor had said հեռաձայնէ (heratzayneh) instead of gancheh, there would be no confusion.

Some people may think that this mistaken usage is only common in Armenian American speech, but, in fact, the same fourth meaning exists in other languages (French appeler, Spanish llamar, for instance). Therefore, you may find ganchel inaccurately used in many other corners of the Diaspora. Don’t think that because someone knows Armenian better than you, that then he necessarily speaks better than you.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Sweet in Every Language

There are words that have an ultimate common source from another language, but have found their way through different itineraries. Such is the case of the word sugar.
The sugarcane was originally from India. The soldiers of Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great, after reaching India in the fourth century B.C., brought back to Europe “honey bearing reeds” that produced a product called sharkara (“ground sugar”) in Sanskrit, which they transcribed as ζάκχαρι (sacchari). The Indian product spread to different Asian regions and reached Iran, where it was called shakar. The word was borrowed straightforwardly from Persian into Armenian, where it first appeared in the seventh-century Atlas ascribed to Anania Shirakatsi as շաքար (shakar). Another Iranian language, Kurdish, borrowed it as sheker, which is the likely source for the Turkish word sheker.
However, the actual expansion of the sweet substance to the West occurred when Arabs began to cultivate it in Sicily and Spain, while the Crusaders did their part too. The Arabic word sukkar entered Europe and spread through various languages: Medieval Latin succarum, French sucre, Spanish azucar, Portuguese açúcar, Italian zucchero, and German Zucker. The ultimate source for English sugre > sugar was, most probably, the French language.
One of the many Voskeporik (Ոսկեփորիկ, “Miscellanea”), collections of useful and not-so- useful material of various origins compiled during the Middle Ages, included  the following phrase quoted by the most important dictionary of Classical Armenian, the New Haigazian Dictionary of 1836-1837 published by the Mekhitarist Fathers: «Յիմաստուն ձեռացս ի՛նչ առնուս՝ շաքար է». Whether said in Classical Armenian or in Modern Armenian («Ինչ որ առնես իմաստուն ձեռքերուդ մէջ՝ շաքար է»), the phrase has not lost its eternal meaning: “Whatever you take in your wise hands, is sugar.” Sweetness comes with wisdom, at all times.

Why Is She the Queen of the House?

In Armenian the word “woman” has various meanings; կին (gin, pronounced kin in Classical and Eastern Armenian), can be used to mean either “woman” (հայ կին, hay gin “Armenian woman”) or, by extension, “wife” (կինս, gins “my wife”). It has the same double meaning as the Greek word γυνή/gyné (“a woman, a wife”), and both have a common origin: the Proto-Indo-European root *gwen (“wife, woman”).

By now, you may have intuitively grasped that gin/kin is related to the English word gynecologist and all other words compounded with gyn. But perhaps more unexpectedly, it also comes out that the Armenian gin has the same source as the English queen, derived from Old English cwen “queen, female ruler of a state, woman, wife,” which of course has its ultimate origin in the same Proto-Indo-European root. Thus, when they talk of the “queen of the house,” it is not only an honorific title, but also a literal meaning.

For those who are familiar with the intricacies of Armenian grammar, the word gin has an irregular declension (հոլովում, holovoom), which has its origin in Classical Armenian: nominative/accusative կին (gin, “woman/wife”), genitive/dative կնոջ (gnoch, “to the woman/wife”), ablative կնոջմէ (gnochme, “from the woman/wife”), instrumental կնոջմով (gnochmov, “with the woman/wife”).

This reminder is important, because colloquial Armenian has a very common word, կնիկ (gnig), which means “married woman” and “wife.” It comes from the combination of կին and the diminutive/affective suffix իկ (ik). The word was also used in most Armenian dialects. However, it is strongly advised not to use it in literary Armenian (Armenian writers have always used the word for literary reasons, not because of grammatical accuracy), as it has a certain derogatory flavor, and above all, it is incorrect to use the genitive/dative կնիկին (gnigin) or կնկան (gngan) in sentences like Ես կնիկին ըսի (Yes gnigin esi, “I told the woman”), instead of the accurate form: Ես կնոջ ըսի (Yes gnoch esi, “I told the woman”).

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Talent Weighs a Lot

People look for talent everywhere, starting with talent shows in elementary school. Interestingly, we have the same word talent in Armenian, only pronounced a little differently: daghant (տաղանդ). The use of gh instead of l shows that the word appeared in Classical Armenian when the Greek λ (l) was written down as ղ (gh).
Both English and Armenian, therefore, share the same ultimate origin: Greek τάλαντον (talanton), a word that meant “scale” and “weight,” and also indicated a certain amount of weight (26 kilograms or 57 pounds), as well as the monetary sum equivalent to a talent of gold or silver. When Carthago lost the Second Punic War (218-203 A.C.) to Rome, it had to pay the exorbitant amount of 10,000 gold talents (= 570,000 pounds)!
The Armenian translation of the Bible already showed the figurative meaning of daghant as “ability or skill.” But, while Armenian borrowed the word directly from Greek, English used an intermediary, the plural form of Latin talentum, and the figurative meaning was reinforced by the Old French talent (“will, inclination, desire”).
If you want to delve into the gradations of a talent, the Armenian language gives you several choices, from the bottom to the top:
անտաղանդ (andaghant) “untalented”
տաղանդաւոր (daghantavor) “talented”
տաղանդաշատ (daghantashad) “much talented”
մեծատաղանդ (medzadaghant) “of great talent”
բազմատաղանդ (pazmadaghant) “multi-talented”
However, the limit between a multi-talented person and a հանճար (hanjar “genius”) is a matter for others, not for this column.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

A Little Word and a Bigger Problem

The word որ (vor) in Armenian has several meanings; “that,” “which,” “who” are the most common. For instance:
-- Կը յուսամ, որ կը շահին (Ge hoosam, vor ge shahin, “I hope that they win”)
-- Այս գիրքը, որ շատ լաւ գրուած է (Ayt kirke, vor shad lav krvadz eh, “This book, which is very well written”)
-- Մանուկը, որ կը խաղար դուրսը (Manooge, vor gue khaghar toorseh, “The child who played outside”)
Like any substantive, vor is subject to declination (հոլովում, holovoom), something that various Indo-European languages do not have, like English or French, but others do, like Latin and German. Thus, we have three declined forms of vor, besides the root word vor itself: որու (voroo, “for which, for who”), որմէ (vormeh, “from which, from who”), and որով (vorov, “with which”)(*).
Our focus is on the latter, vorov. An example of its use appears in the title of a poem by the great Armenian writer Vahan Tekeyan (1878-1945). It is called «Լեզուն որով գրեցի» (Lezoon vorov kretsi). The title is literally translated as “The Language with Which I Wrote."
However, it appears that people have started to forget the meaning of some little words in the last years. Both in colloquial and written language, we may currently notice the use of vorov as a synonym of an apparently similar word, որովհետեւ (vorovhedev), which has a totally different meaning, “because.” Here is an example of such wrong use:
Wrong: Չեմ կրնար դուրս երթալ, որով կ՚անձրեւէ (Chem grnar toors yertal, vorov g’antsreveh “I can’t go outside, because it’s raining”),
Right: Չեմ կրնար դուրս երթալ, որովհետեւ կ՚անձրեւէ (Chem grnar toors yertal, vorovhedev g’antsreveh”).
We may even hear children who, asked why such and such happened, reply: “Vorov,” as if they answered in English with the laconic “Because.”
Even worse, sometimes vorov replaces ուրեմն (ooremn, “then”), as in:
Wrong: Անօթի ենք, որով կրնանք ուտել (Anoti enk, vorov grnank oodel, “We are hungry, then we can eat”),
Right: Անօթի ենք, ուրեմն կրնանք ուտել (Anoti enk, ooremn grnank oodel)
An affair to remember:
a)    Որով (vorov) = “with which”
b)    Որովհետեւ (vorovhedev) = “because”
c)    Ուրեմն (ooremn) = “then”
(*) You may ask why there is no mention of “with whom.” This is because the use of vorov is not applicable to persons. If one wants to say “the boy with whom I went to school,” he or she should say «տղան որուն հետ դպրոց գացի» (dghan voroon hed tbrots katsi).

Thursday, September 26, 2013

The “Apple” That Came from China . . . or India

You cannot compare apples with oranges, but of course, you can compare an orange and a նարինջ (narinch), because both refer to the juicy fruit used to make your everyday breakfast beverage and both have the same origin. And, as we will see, apples were somehow part of the origins of the English orange.

Oranges probably originated in Southeast Asia, and were already cultivated in China around 2500 B.C. However, the ultimate origin of both English orange and Armenian narinch (pronounced narinj in Classical Armenian) is India. The fruit was called naranga, which means “orange tree,” in the Vedas, the sacred books of Indian religion written in Sanskrit, although the origin of the word is unknown. It seems to come from a non-Indo-European language of the Indian peninsula, such as Telugu, Malalayam, or Tamil.

The fruit went from India to Western Asia with the Arabs as intermediaries. Along went the name: it remained as narang in Persian, turned naranj in Arabic (Arabic does not have a g), and became narinj in Kurdish and Armenian. According to German linguist Heinrich Hubschmann and his disciple Hrachia Adjarian, the Armenian word originated from Persian narang.

The fruit went to Europe through Portuguese travelers to China, and through Arabs. It received the name of “Chinese apple” in some languages: they are called sinaasappel in Dutch and appelsin in Low German, literally “China’s apple” (hence Russian апельсин apelsin “orange,” which you may hear sometimes in Eastern Armenian). Interestingly, “Chinese apple” is the name of the pomegranate in British English.

Interestingly, Spanish and Portuguese most probably adopted the word through Arabic influence in the Iberian Peninsula (Spanish naranja and Portuguese laranja), but Portugal helped spread the word to Southern Europe and the Middle East: Greek πορτοκάλι (portokáli) and Turkish portakal. Believe it or not, Arabs today call the fruit burtuqāl برتقال; the word nerinj is used for a different citric.

The name and the fruit reached England through a more indirect path. Old Italian borrowed the word from Arabic and turned it into melarancia (mela + (n)arancia “apple of orange”). The French calqued the word from the Italians and turned it into pome orenge (“apple of orange”). Finally, Old English borrowed orenge/orange from Old French, without the “apple” part. (In the end, the French dropped the word “apple” too.) And this is how English orange sounds quite close to Armenian narinch, only with the vowel o at the beginning.

There is one difference, though: orange in English means both the fruit and the tree. In Armenian, we have two different words, although close enough: narinch for the fruit and նարնջենի (narncheni) for the tree. The suffix eni is equivalent to the English “-tree,” as in khntzoreni “apple tree.”

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Where Is He? Here or There?

If you were looking for someone, one answer to the question above could be: “He may be either here or there.”
As anyone knows, these two adverbs are both related to the old axiom of realtors: “Location, location, location.” This is true regardless of what language we use, English or Armenian. In both languages, they mean exactly the same:

English   Meaning              Armenian                   Meaning
here       “in this place”     այստեղ /aysdegh    ays = this, degh = place
there     “in that place”    այնտեղ /ayndegh    ayn / = that, degh = place

There is a third word, այդտեղ (aytdegh), whose closest meaning in English is “that.” English has no exact equivalent, because the Armenian word actually indicates an object or a subject located beyond the place indicated by ayndegh/that. Those who know Spanish may figure out that exact equivalent: in Spanish, it is the word aquel (այդտեղ = aquel lugar)

The three Armenian words mentioned so far are equally used in Western and Eastern Armenian. Additionally, Western Armenian has three synonymous words, which can be used alternatively: այստեղ (aysdegh) հոս (hos)
այնտեղ (ayndegh) հոն (hon)
այդտեղ (aytdegh) հոդ (hot)
(As a matter of style, the word հոդ (hot) is less used in writing nowadays.)

Thus, you have two choices to ask the question of the title in Western Armenian
«Ո՞ւր են անոնք։ Այստե՞ղ, թէ՞ այնտեղ»։ (Oor en anonk? Aysdegh, teh ayndegh?)
«Ո՞ւր են անոնք։ Հո՞ս, թէ՞ հոն» (Oor en anonk? Hos, teh hon?)
However, it is very common—and very wrong—to hear people saying, for instance:

«Ես հոնտեղ գացի» (Yes hondegh katsi)
«Ես հոստեղ եկայ» (Yes hosdegh yega)

This is wrong for a very simple reason: the words hon and hos, unlike ayt and ayn, mean “that place” and “this place.” If you added the word degh, then you would mean “that place place” and “this place place,” which sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?

As a bonus, the same applies to the word ուր (oor) “where,” which indicates “in what place.” You say «Ո՞ւր ես» (Oor es?) “Where are you,” but, obviously, you cannot say Ուրտե՞ղ ես (Oordegh es?),(*) which would be the same as saying “in what place place are you?” in English. . .

In conclusion:
Use aysdegh, ayndegh, aytdegh, whenever applicable
Use hos, hon, or, less usual, hot as synonyms;
Use oor;
Never use hosdegh, hondegh, or hotdegh;
Never use oordegh.

(*) On a side note, Eastern Armenian utilizes the word որտեղ (vordegh), as in «Որտե՞ղ ես» (Vordegh es?), where որ means “what” and not “where”

Thursday, August 29, 2013

The Wandering Cat

English and Armenian share a very similar name for cats: the Armenian form is կատու (Western Armenian [W.A.] gadu [gadoo]; Eastern Armenian [E.A.], katu [katoo]). Interestingly, the former pronunciation is closer to Italian gatto and Spanish gato, while the latter mirrors English cat.

Where did the cat and its names come from? The word appears in most Indo-European languages, but also in Afro-Asiatic (Semitic and African), Turkic, and Caucasian languages. Linguists use the term “wanderword” to designate items and names that have gone together around the world and left their trace everywhere with an unclear origin.

As it happens with any other domestic animal, wildcats came first. Their origin seems to have been in Africa. Therefore, the ultimate source for English cat and other worldwide names of this feline should be in the same continent. English cat is derived from Latin cattus (“domestic cat”), indeed, but the Latin term appears to have entered the Roman Empire from North Africa, where we have words meaning “wildcat”: Late Egyptian čaute (the feminine form of čaus “jungle cat, African wildcat”), Nubian (spoken on the border of Egypt and Sudan) kadís, and Berber (spoken in Morocco) kaddîska.

However, the source of the Armenian word gadoo/katoo cannot be Latin cattus, despite the close resemblance. Why? Latin was in linguistic and political decadence by 500 A.D., after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and, interestingly, the word կատու (gadoo) did not exist by then.

In the Golden Age of Armenian written literature (fifth century A.D.), cats were not called կատու, but կուզ (Classical/E.A. kuz, W.A. guz [gooz]).(*) This Armenian word, now out of use, came from an Iranian reconstructed form *kuz, which has survived in Kurdish kuze “cat.” That old Armenian gooz, in its turn, has survived in the name of a wild feline, the lynx: կզաքիս (gezakis).

Gadoo entered the Armenian language after the fifth century. Where did it come from? It has been suggested that the source should have been Syriac, a major literary language throughout the Middle East from the 4th to the 8th centuries, quite influential in the first centuries of Armenian literature. Armenian must have borrowed the name from qattu, the Syriac “cat,” and, afterwards, loaned it to Georgian (katuni) and other Caucasian languages.

If you were wondering about that, Armenian and English cats also share their colloquial name: puss has its counterpart in Armenian փիսիկ (pisig); compare also Romanian pisica. Probably all of them have come from the sound we make to attract these furry pets.

*) Knowledgeable people will notice that gooz is the same as the modern Armenian word for “hump,” but has nothing to do with it, except that Armenian կուզ (gooz) is a late medieval addition derived from Iranian kuz “hump.”

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Show and Tell

It may sound unbelievable at first sight, but the English word show and its Armenian counterpart ցոյց (tsooyts) have the same root. Both come from the Proto-Indo-European (P.I.-E.) word *(s)ḱou-, *(s)ḱeu- (“to heed, look, feel, take note of”), and have the following evolution:

English Armenian
P.I.E. *(s)ḱou-, *(s)ḱeu- ("to heed, look, feel, take note of") P.I.E. *(s)ḱou-, *(s)ḱeu- ("to heed, look, feel, take note of")
Proto-Germanic *skauwōną, *skawwōną ("to look, see") P.I.E. *(s)ḱeu-sk
Old English scēawian ("to look, look at, observe, gaze, behold, see") ts-ooy-ts
Middle English schewen, schawen, scheawen,
King James English shew

Curiously enough, today the English word show (as in “I went to see a show”) cannot be translated as tsuyts; there is no exact word for that meaning. When we use the noun tsuyts, we can only mean “demonstration,” be it a proof or a protest meeting.

However, tsuyts has originated many useful compounds, such as ապացոյց (abatsooyts “evidence”), ժամանակացոյց (jamanagatsooyts “schedule”), նստացոյց (nsdatsooyts “sit-in”), ուղեցոյց (ughetsooyts “guide”), օրացոյց (oratsooyts “calendar”), ցուցակ (tsootsag “catalogue”), ցուցահանդէս (tsootsahantes “exhibition”), ցուցամատ (tsootsamad “index finger”), and others.

The reader may notice that, according to a standard rule of Armenian, all root words with uy turn it into u [oo] when adding one or more syllables to form a new word. For example: լոյս (looys “light”) – լուսաւորել (loosavorel “to illuminate”). This is why the first syllable of all words starting (but not ending) with tsooyts above has become tsoots.

This standard rule is also applied to the verb ցուցադրել (tsootsatrel), literally “to put into show,” e.g. “to exhibit.” Strangely enough, it does not seem to work for many people, old and young, who cannot pronounce or spell the verb . . . “to show.” Instead of the regular form ցուցնել (tsootsenel), we hear and, sometimes, we read time and again a “verb” that is plainly wrong: ցցնել (tsetsenel)

If you are not convinced that it is wrong, think for one second: the root of the “verb” tsetsenel, according to another standard rule (roots with oo and ee take the sound schwa when they form a new word), could only be ցուց (tsoots), a word that does not exist in Armenian, or ցից (tseets), which means “stake” (a piece of wood). What relation may exist between showing something and staking it out]

Therefore, show and tell: ցուցնել, not ցցնել.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Two Is Company

When you say, “We have company tonight,” one of the implications might be that one or more people are expected for dinner. (You’re Armenian; you can’t just serve coffee!). In this context, since you are having guests, you would express it in Armenian as «Այս գիշեր հիւր ունինք» (Ays kisher hyoor oonink). Otherwise, you would have used the word ընկերութիւն (ungerootyoon), and coined the phrase «Այս գիշեր ընկերութիւն ունինք», which sounds utterly un-Armenian.

The funny thing is that, when you use the word “company” in English in this context, you may be referring to the original meaning of the word (the actual meaning shifted over time). “Company” has been said to have its ultimate origin in the Late Latin word companio, “bread-fellow,” from companis (com “with,” panis “bread”; the Latin word entered English through Old French compainie). So, in the end, tonight’s company would necessarily mean making dinner!

Now, it is even funnier that the Armenian word ungerootyoon implies, etymologically, the exact same thing: “bread-fellowship.” Its root, the frequently-used ընկեր (unger), is actually a compound word, ընդ (unt) + կեր (ger), which etymologically means “[those] who eat together”; over time, the word * ընդկեր (untger) lost the դ (t) letter and also changed its meaning. This happened before the fifth century A.D., since the word already appeared in the Armenian translation of the Bible in its current form and meaning of “companion, friend.” (The word ընդ was a very ubiquitous term in Classical Armenian: it had more or less twenty different meanings, including “instead of,” “with, “though,” “between,” “against,” “below.” It is a cognate –has common origin—with the Greek anti “against” and the Latin ante “before,” which we use widely in everyday English.) Today, unger means a variety of things, according to its context: “companion,” “comrade,” “friend,” “partner,” “mate.” The suffix –ուհի (oohi) adds the feminine dimension to these words—for instance, ընկերուհի (ungeroohi “girlfriend”)—while the suffixes –ական (agan) and –ային (ayin) bring the adjectives “comradely” or “friendly” (ընկերական, ungeragan), as well as “social” (ընկերային, ungerayin). If you attach the suffix –ութիւն (ootyoon), you obtain the abovementioned word ընկերութիւն (ungerootyoon), which means “companionship,” “camaraderie,” “friendship,” “partnership,” but also “company” and “society.” There is a gallery of derived and compound words formed with unger at its core.

But the enigma remains: How come both the Armenian ընկեր (unger) and the English companion have the same original meaning? The possible answer is again in the Latin language. Bread was an essential staple in the diet of Roman soldiers, who apparently carried grain and made their own bread. Famous French linguist Antoine Meillet (1865-1936) suggested that companio went with Roman soldiers to Armenia, where there were Roman military permanent garrisons during some periods of the first and second centuries A.D., and became the model for the formation of our word ընկեր. If this was the case (this may have happened before the invention of Armenian writing), ger “food” never meant “bread,” but until today bread plays such a role in the Armenian diet, that it is common to hear the expression հաց ուտել (hats oodel, “to eat bread”) with the meaning “to eat food,” instead of ճաշ ուտել (jash oodel) or կերակուր ուտել (geragoor oodel).

Thursday, July 18, 2013

After Means Neither Then nor the End

After work, you may perhaps pick your car, then go home to have dinner and, at the end of the day, catch a movie on TV.

If we were to ask a hundred people to translate the last sentence into Armenian,
  1. They would probably agree that “the end of the day” is օրուան վերջը (orvan verche) (*), with verch meaning “end.”
  2. Most of them would probably come up with the words յետոյ (hedo)—or its synonym ապա (aba), in case they were talking in a slightly fancier style—to translate “then.” However, we would find quite a few that would replace the Classical Armenian (krapar) form hedo with the more vernacular (even if also krapar-based) ետքը (yedke)(**) or use the word verch as if it were another synonym of hedo.
  3. A few of them would use the word գործէն ետք (kordzen yedk) to say “after work,” with yedk as “after,” but an equal number would probably say kordzen hedo, and another equal number would say kordzen verch.
Items 2 and 3 already point to the existence of grey zones.

We know that:
  1. Վերջ (verch), the same as “end,” is a noun;
  2. Յետոյ (hedo), the same as “then,” is an adverb;
  3. Ետք (yedk), the same as “after,” is a postposition; unlike English, Armenian has both prepositions and postpositions, namely, words placed before and after their complement.
What is the reason for these disagreements? In Classical Armenian, hedo functioned both as preposition and adverb (there was even an adverbial form յետոյ ապա, hedo aba, “after”). It was kept as an adverb in Modern Armenian, and it originated the postposition ետք/yedk (both յ-ետ-ոյ and ետ-ք come from the same root ետ, “back”).

Can we turn these grey zones into black and white ones? Yes, we can.

It is wrong to use verch instead of hedo and equally wrong to use verch or hedo instead of yedk. Here are the reasons:
  1. The noun verch is only used together with a noun in genitive case of declension (սեռական հոլով, seragan holov). For instance: օրուան վերջը (orvan verche, “the end of the day”);
  2. The adverb hedo is only used accompanying a verb. For example: Յետոյ՝ տուն կ՚երթաք ընթրիք ուտելու (Hedo`doon g’ertak entrik oodeloo, “Then go home to have dinner”).
  3. The postposition yedk is used:
  • After a noun in ablative case of declension (բացառական հոլով, patsaragan holov). For example: գործէն ետք (kordzen yedk, “after work”)
  • After words that indicate time. For example: երկու ժամ ետք (yergoo jam yedk, “after two hours”).
(*) The widespread use of the declension -ուայ (-va), both in spoken and written language, is inaccurate in Western Armenian, even though it is standard in Eastern Armenian: in any circumstance, we can only say օրուան (orvan, “of the day”), տարուան (darvan “of the year”), ամառուան (amarvan “of the summer”), but not օրուայ, տարուայ or ամառուայ.
(**) In Eastern Armenian it is standard to use hedo instead of yedk, as in քնելուց յետոյ (kneloots hedo, “after sleeping”).

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Odd “Armenian” Words

There are many words in our everyday usage that we assume to be Armenian, and they come down from generation to generation. This is how we find those same words used by people who have never set foot in an Armenian school and those who have finished an Armenian elementary or high school, both by people who barely speak Armenian and those who speak it as their primary language.
In the end, when people hear the actual Armenian equivalent of those same words, they are prone to complain: “You speak very pure Armenian,” “That’s a hard word,” “Nobody can understand you,” “Where do you find those words?” One may even wonder whether they show the same self-respect for the level of their English vocabulary.
Children may even become defensive and say, “I have learned this word at home,” or, if confronted with a repetitive series of common words they believe are “Armenian,” come to the bitter and self-defeating conclusion: “Have we really learned Armenian?"
Here is a randomly compiled list of frequent words that people “think” they are Armenian, only because they do not care to look for their actual origin or to make a real effort to enrich their vocabulary. The list is indeed extremely short, and does not claim to be a representative sample. But it may give an idea of where we stand.

զէվզէկ (zevzeg)շատախօս (shadakhos)charlatan
թոմաթէս (tomates)լոլիկ (lolig)tomato
իշտէ (ishde) (1)ահա (aha)there
հէչ/հիչ (hech/hich) (2)բնաւ (pnav) / ոչինչ (vochinch)at all, ever, anything
մահանայ (mahana)պատրուակ (badrvag)pretext
մաղտանոս (maghdanos)ազատքեղ (azadkegh)parsley
չօճուխ (chojukh)պզտիկ (bzdig) / երեխայ (yerekha)child
պաճանաղ (bajanagh)քենեկալ (kenegal)brother-in-law (*)
պայաթ (bayat)օթեկ (oteg)stale
պէլքի (belki)թերեւս (terevs)perhaps
պիլէ (bile) (3)նոյնիսկ (nooynisg)even
սալաթ (salat), սալաթա (salata)աղցան (aghtsan)salad
տահա (daha) (4)դեռ (ter), տակաւին (dagaveen)still
րէզիլ (rezil), քէփէզէ (kepezeh) (5)խայտառակ (khaydarag)shame
փաթաթէս (patates)գետնախնձոր (kednakhntzor)potato
փիս (pis)գէշ (kesh), աղտոտ (aghdod)bad / dirty
քի (ki)  (6)թէ (te)/ որ (vor)what / that
օրթալըխ (ortalekh) (7)մէջտեղ (mechdegh)middle

(1) For example: Իշտէ քեզի խելք (Ishde kezi khelk, “There you have an idea”), instead of Ահա քեզի խելք (Aha kezi khelk).

(2) For example: Հէչ չեմ գիտեր (Hech chem kider, “I don’t know at all”), instead of Բնաւ չեմ գիտեր (Pnav chem kider); Հէչ մտածե՞ր ես այդ մասին (Hech mdadzer es ayt masin?, “Have you ever thought about that?”), instead of Բնաւ մտածեր ես այդ մասին (Pnav mdadzer es ayt masin); Հէչ բան գիտե՞ս (Hech pan kides?, “Do you know anything?”).

(3) For example: Չեմ գիտեր պիլէմ (Chem kider bilem, “I don’t even know”), instead of Չեմ գիտեր նոյնիսկ (Chem kider nooynisg).

(4) For example: Ռեզիլ եղանք (Rezil yeghank, “We were ashamed”) or Քէփէզէ եղանք (Kepezeh yeghank), instead of Խայտառակ եղանք (Khaydarag yeghank).

(5) For example: Տահա չեմ գիտեր (Daha chem kider, “I still don’t know”), instead of Դեռ չեմ գիտեր (Ter chem kider) or Տակաւին չեմ գիտեր (Dagaveen chem kider):

(6) For example: Ես չեմ գիտեր քի ի՞նչ ըսեմ (Yes chem kider ki inch esem?, “I don’t even know what to say”), instead of Ես չեմ գիտեր թէ ի՞նչ ըսեմ (Yes chem kider te inch esem?); Կը խորհիմ քի... (Ge khorhim ki..., “I think that”), instead of Կը խորհիմ որ (Ge khorhim vor...).

(7) For example: Կեցեր է փողոցին օրթալըխը (Getser eh poghotsin ortalekhe), instead of Կեցեր է փողոցին մէջտեղը (Getser eh poghotsin mechdeghe)

(*) The Armenian term – which has no exact equivalent in English – refers to the relationship between the husbands of two sisters. The sister of a man’s wife is his քենի (keni), which makes the latter’s husband a kenegal.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Some Armenian Words That Sound (Almost) Like English... Or Not

As Indo-European languages, Armenian and English share vocabulary that comes from the depths of history, from the time when a common grandparent was supposed to have existed someplace in Eurasia around 3000 B.C. Proto-Indo-European (P.I.E.)—the reputed grandparent of all Indo-European languages, from Farsi to Spanish—has not been attested in any ancient document and has been reconstructed on the basis of language studies. For this reason, scholars use asterisks, as a convention, to represent any of its words. This is why we will actually find a cluster of stars below.
Armenian and English have in common, for example, the words “father” and “mother.” Although the latter look somehow different to their Armenian counterpart հայր (hayr) and մայր (mayr), there is no doubt that both share the same ancestors: P.I.E. *pǝter and *mater.

P.I.E.  * pǝter > Proto-Germanic *fader > English father
P.I.E.  * pǝter> Proto-Armenian *hayer > Armenian hayr (հայր)
P.I.E.  * mater > Proto-Germanic *moder > English mother
P.I.E.  * mater> Proto-Armenian *mayer > Armenian mayr (մայր)

The replacement of *ter by yr (յր) in Armenian may look odd. Comparative linguistics has found out that most Indo-European languages have kept something closer to a *t, such as t, d, or th, to say “mother” or “father,” while it is only in Armenian where P.I.E. *t became y over a certain amount of time. Another example of this rule is seen in the word այրել (ayrel , “to burn”), whose root ayr comes from P.I.E. *ater.
It is not strange, then that Proto-Indo-European *p, after its division, yielded different sounds, such as a*f in Proto-Germanic and a*h in Proto-Armenian. This accounts for the relation between father and hayr (the first parts of mother and mayr are easy to relate). The same as its relatives, Dutch vader (it may well have inspired the name of the “dark father” of Star Wars, Darth Vader) and German vater, English father comes from their common parent, Proto-Germanic *fader.
This is not an isolated example. The oldest poem of Armenian literature, namely, the birth of Vahagn, god of storm, fire, and war, includes the following line in his physical description:
Նա հուր հեր ունէր (Na hoor her ooner, “Fiery hair had he”).
Today commonly used in poetic language, hoor (“fire,” hence “fiery”)—synonym to կրակ (grag)--has been or may have been the source for many proper and common nouns, such as the male names Հրաչեայ (Hrachya) and Հրայր (Hrayr), for instance, and standard words like հրշէջ (hrshech, “fireman”), հրաբուխ (hrapookh, “volcano”), and others. Both hoor and fire (< Proto-Germanic fōr) constitute another related pair, whose ultimate common source is P.I.E *puro.
Incidentally, someone might relate Armenian her and English hair; the latter is derived from Proto-Germanic *hera, which at its turn came from P.I.E. *k’er(s) (“stiff hair, bristle”):
  1. Both her and hair look alike and have the same meaning.
  2. Even though the standard Armenian word for “hair” is մազ (maz), we use her in compounds like շիկահեր (shigaher, “red-haired”) or հերակալ (heragal, “headband”).
However, this is an optical illusion. In the 1920s, Hrachia Adjarian had already stated in his etymological dictionary that the similitude between her—whose actual origin is unknown— and hair was just casual. Since then, it has been shown that the poem about Vahagn, where the word her is already present, reflected words and images belonging to the common Indo-European time (third millennium B.C.), probably long before the ancestors of the English language washed their . . . *hera.
The mysteries of language are still infinite.

Thursday, June 6, 2013

From Everything to Nobody

There are extremes, and there are middle points. This is how we have the words “everything” and “nothing,” but also “something” and “anything.” We have their equivalents in Armenian too, indeed, with two alternatives for the same word “thing.” The most common is բան (pan), which is a modern use of this word; the same word բան meant “word, speech” in Classical Armenian: «Ի սկզբանէ էր Բանն» (I sgzpane er Pann, “In the beginning was the Word”). 

Now, we have the following equivalences between Armenian and English
Armenian English
ամէն բան (amen pan) everything
բան մը (pan me) something
որեւէ բան (voreve pan) anything
ոչինչ (vochinch) nothing
The word vochinch mirrors its English equivalent: a combination of the words voch (“no”) and inch (“thing”). This reveals that we also have ինչ(inch) as the second equivalent of “thing.” This word already meant “thing” in Classical Armenian. It later evolved into ինչ “what” and the composite forms ինչպէս (inchbes  “how”), ինչո՞ւ (inchu?  “why?”), and others.
 You can use pan and inch interchangeably in the case of “everything” (ամէն ինչ, amen inch)and “nothing” (ոչ մէկ բան, voch meg pan, although stylistically vochinch is better), butit would be plainly wrong to say ինչ մը (inch me)for “something” or որեւէ ինչ (voreve inch) for “anything.”
 When we talk about people, we have the following equivalences:
Armenian English
ամէն մէկը (amen megue) everyone (*)
մէկը (megue) someone/somebody
ոեւէ մէկը (voyeve megue) anyone/anybody
ոչ մէկը no one/nobody

You can also say ամէն ոք (amen vok) for “everyone” or ոչ ոք (voch vok) for “no one.” It is less common, but it is still used, particularly in written language. The word vok is the plural of vo (ո), the Classical Armenian term for megue, from where the word voyeve is apparently derived.

The Classical Armenian ոմն (vomn, “someone”) is not used in Modern Armenian, except to note an anonymous donor, which until today is recorded as vomn). However, we often use the plural of vomn, which is ոմանք (vomank), to say “some people.” For example, «Ոմանք անօթի են» (Vomank anoti en, “Some people are hungry.”).

A final point that is the matter of much mistaken use: how do we use vochinch and voch megue in a negative sentence? The answer is: exactly as in English! 

You cannot use double negative in (Western) Armenian (except for understated affirmation). Therefore, you may say either Ոչ մէկը գիտէ (Voch megue kide) or Մէկը չի գիտեր (Megue chi kider) to mean “nobody knows,” but you cannot say ոչ մէկը չի գիտեր (Voch megue chi kider), which would be as grammatically correct as “Nobody doesn’t know.” 

Similarly, you may say «Ոչինչ ունիմ» (Vochinch ooneem) or «Բան մը չունիմ» (Pan me chooneem) to say “I have nothing” or “I don’t have anything” but «Ոչինչ չունիմ» (Vochinch chooneem) would be the equivalent of . . . “I don’t have nothing .”

 (*) In this collection, the word “everybody” stands out, as its Armenian equivalent is not ամէն մէկը (amen megue), but բոլորը (polore, “all”). If you wanted to say, for instance, “Everybody has fun tonight” in Armenian, the translation would be «Այս գիշեր, բոլորը կը զուարճանան» (Ays kisher, polore gue zvarjanan).

Thursday, May 23, 2013

How Did We End With 38 Letters?

It is common knowledge that Mesrop Mashtots invented the Armenian alphabet with 36 letters in the fifth century. The last of them was ք (k’). However, language evolved and made necessary to introduce two new letters; today, the Armenian alphabet has 38 letters. The first 36 letters also had a numeric value, still in use today, while the late newcomers did not have any such value.


O, օ (o, name “o”)

It is assumed that, in the fifth century, Armenians pronounced the diphthong աւ (aw) close to Spanish au (causa)or German au (sauerkraut), whereas the letter ո (currently vo)transcribed the sound represented by Greek omega (ω). Thus, the Greek name of Apostle Paul, Παῦλος (Paulos), became Պաւղոս (Paułos) in Armenian.

The eleventh century became a sort of watershed in the Armenian language. Krapar (Classical Armenian) ceased to be spoken and was confined to the realm of written language until its final demise for almost all purposes in the late nineteenth century.

Also about that time, the diphthong աւ started to be pronounced օ, similar to the English language (audit > ɔːdit). Such pronunciation was for “closed” syllables that ended with a consonant, for instance աւր (awr “day”), which continued to be written in the same way, but it was pronounced օր (or). To mark the difference in sound, they used conventional signs such as ^, ∞, or o over the diphthong աւ. The earliest transcription of the new sound with o appears to be the word փափագանօք (p’ap’aganok’ “with wishes”’), dated 1046.

The transition lasted around a century. In the meantime, the Armenian ո had adopted the sound vo at the beginning of words and ղ had become gh (like the r in Parisian French), instead of its past l-like sound. In the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, scribe Aristakes produced a work called «Գրչութեան արուեստ» (Art of Writing). The letter o entered officially the Armenian alphabet in the last chapter of this book, which became the oldest spelling dictionary of the language. It has been suggested that the letter was either derived from the Latin o or, which seems more plausible, patterned after the Greek omicron (ο), which was the actual source of the Latin letter.

Following these developments, a proper name like Պաւղոս started to be pronounced and spelled Պօղոս (Poghos, Western Armenian Boghos), and all closed syllables with the diphthong աւ changed their spelling. For instance:

Classical Armenian
Modern Armenian (Western Armenian phonetics)
հօտ (hod “flock”)
կարօտ(garod “longing”)
տօն (don “feast”)

There was one exception to this rule: աղաւնի (*aɫawni, Modern Armenian aghavni “dove, pigeon”). It is assumed that the word was pronounced *aɫawəni, with the ը (schwa) following աւ, and that’s why it did not become աղօնի (aghoni).


Ֆ, ֆ (f, name “fe”)

The case of ֆ was different. The Armenian language did not have a sound f in the fifth century. Mesrop Mashtots, thus, used Armenian փ, an aspirated p, to render the Greek letter φ (phi), like Greek φιλόσοφος > Armenian փիլիսոփայ (p’ilisop’ay, Western Armenian pilisopa), which is the English philosopher. In this way, all foreign words transcribed into Armenian with the sound f rendered the latter as փ. Medieval Armenian historians and chroniclers, for instance, used փռանկ (p’rank) to name Europeans in general, which was the transcription of frank (name of the Germanic people that originated the term France).

The letter ֆ appeared for the first time in the eleventh century: patterned after the Greek φ, it was recorded in the proper name Մուֆարզին (Mufarzin, an Arab military post in southern Armenia) in 1037. It started to be widely utilized in the Late Middle Ages, apparently to transliterate loanwords from European languages.

However, Middle Armenian, a form of colloquial Armenian particularly used in Cilicia at the time both in speaking and in writing, has shown that the loss of the vowel coming immediately after an intervocalic ւ (v) turned the pronunciation of the latter into ֆ (for instance, հաւասար [havasar] > հաւսար [havsar] > հաֆսար [hafsar]  “equal”) and, thus, created the possibility to loan words with the sound f. After observing this phenomenon, famous linguist Hrachia Adjarian (1876-1953) has pointed out that the sound f was based on Armenian and not European phonology.

In any case, the sound also appeared in proper names: one of the most famous poets of Medieval Armenia was Frik (Ֆրիկ, ca. 1230-1310).

Thursday, May 9, 2013

The Rule of One

An old joke says that, when there is no köfte (kufta) at home, you say: “Chi köfte” (No köfte).Of course, we all know that Turkish chi has nothing to do with “no,” since chi köfte is the raw variety of the meal (the name comes from the Turkish çiğ köfte).

However, Armenian չի (chi) is effectively an auxiliary particle derived from the negative չ (ch). It may become a little nightmarish for writers or speakers of the language, even fluent ones, when they tend to ignore that there are strings attached when it comes to its use.

Thus, chi may be used only once in Western Armenian. It renders the negative form of a verb that complies with the following three conditions altogether:
  1. Simple present (indicative mood)
  2. Third person of the singular
  3. Starts with a consonant
Here are three examples:

The boy/he does not receive letters: Տղան / ան չի կարդար // Dghan / an chi gartar
The woman/she does not speak: Կինը / ան չի խօսիր // Gine / an chi khosir
The dog/it does not bark: Շունը / ան չի հաջեր // Shoone / an chi hacher

As a follow-up, the contracted form of chi, namely չ՚ (ch’), is also used only once in Western Armenian. When a verb complies with the first two conditions mentioned before (simple present; third person of the singular), but starts with a vowel, the i of chi is dropped to avoid the collision with the initial vowel and an apostrophe replaces the i. Here is a set of examples:

The man / he does not work: Մարդը / ան չ՚աշխատիր // Marte / an ch’ashkhadir
The girl / she does not eat: Աղջիկը / ան չ՚ուտեր // Aghchige / an ch’ooder
The water / it does not boil: Ջուրը / ան չ՚եռար // Choore / an ch’erar

An unwritten schwa (as in English stay) before a consonant-starting verb does not count as a vowel. Thus, he/she/it does not receive can only be ան չի ստանար(an chi sdanar), but never ան չ՚ստանար (an ch’sdanar).

As a logical corollary to this rule, you cannot use either chi or ch’ in any other mood, tense, person, or number whatsoever.

In all other cases, you use չ (ch).
For instance:
Wrong: Եթէ ան չի սպասէ / Yete an chi sbase
Accurate: Եթէ ան չսպասէ / Yete an chsbase

Wrong: Դուք պիտի չի խաղաք / Took bidi chi khaghak (*)
Accurate: Դուք պիտի չխաղաք / Took bidi chkhaghak

Wrong: Չի սպասենք իրենց / Chi sbasenk irents
Accurate: Չսպասենք իրենց / Chsbasenk irents

Դուն չի գրեցիր / Toon chi kretsir
Accurate: Դուն չգրեցիր / Toon chkretsir

Ան չի կրցաւ գրել / An chi grtsav krel
Accurate: Ան չկրցաւ գրել / An chgrtsav krel

Եթէ անոնք չի լսեն / Yete anonk chi lsen
Accurate: Եթէ անոնք չլսեն / Yete anonk chi lsen

The conclusion is very straightforward: in this matter, the only rule is that there is one rule.
(*) The same as in English, where we say “I will not write,” in Armenian we say «Ես պիտի չգրեմ» (Yes bidi chkrem). You cannot say «Ես չպիտի գրեմ» in the same way that you cannot say “I not will write.”

Thursday, April 25, 2013

The Armenian Carpet

British polymath Sir William Jones (1746-1794) enunciated for the first time the existence of the Indo-European family of languages in 1786. It already comprised languages from England to India. In the early nineteenth century, the Armenian language was also incorporated into the family, and in 1875 German linguist Heinrich Hübschmann (1848-1908) demonstrated, contrary to generally held belief, that Armenian was not part of the Iranian branch, but was an independent branch.

For the past hundred and thirty years, extensive research has been carried to study the Armenian language and its relations with its relatives within the family. It has been shown that Armenian has the closest relation with Iranian and Greek, to the point that we may consider them first cousins.

Similar to other Indo-European languages, English is a distant cousin to Armenian. This would not be surprising, if we consider the geographic distance between the lands where Armenian and English were and are spoken. But it is surprising to find out that both languages, despite that distance, share a few words with practically the same phonetics and meaning.

One of them is our familiar term carpet. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, it comes from Middle English carpet “coarse cloth” (late 13th century) and was derived from Middle French carpite “heavy decorated cloth”(< Old Italian carpita “thick woolen cloth” < Italian carpire, Latin carpere “to pluck”).

Let’s go to Armenian. Classical Armenian (krapar) had a word, capert (կապերտ; the Western Armenian pronunciation is gaberd), which already appears in the Bible and means“piece of cloth.” It may or may not be related to the word cap “knot” (կապ, Western Armenian gab); the etymological dictionary of famed linguist Hrachia Adjarian (1876-1953) says nothing about that, which means that he did not consider it possible.

The colloquial form of capert was carpet, said Adjarian, and brought forward a collection of words in Armenian dialects very close to the English one: carpet (կարպետ) in Salmast, Van, Yerevan, and Tiflis, the same as in Kharpert and Sepastia (accented on the last syllable). They call it carpret (կարպրէտ)(accented on the first syllable) in Gharabagh, and called it garpet (կարբեդ) in Alashkert and Moush. The Armenians from Tigranakert (Diarbekir) used the word cârpit (գարբիդ), and the Armenians in Hamshen say carpit (գարբիդ). Interestingly, all of these words mean “rug without hair.”

At the turn of the twentieth century, the German linguist Erich Berneker published an etymological dictionary of the Slavic languages in two volumes (Heidelberg, 1908-1914). He noticed that the Armenian dialectal words were the same as the abovementioned European words, and also German karpet, Hungarian and Serbian karpit (“curtain”), and Serbian krpita (“rug to cover the table”). Adjarian took note of this and asked himself whether the source of these words was not, instead of Latin carpo “to knit wool or thread,” the late Armenian form carpet. In the end, the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia had been one of the main commercial venues for European traders in the Middle Ages, including carpets. Florentine merchant Francesco Balducci Pegolotti reported that carpets were imported from Sis, the capital of Cilicia, and Ayas, its main port, to Florence in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. What could have been a “thick woolen cloth” in Italian, if not a rug?

Thus, the ubiquitous carpet may have flown from Armenian, through Italian and French, into the English language, and centuries later, when Persian carpets were introduced in Europe, the word carpet went down to the floor.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Only One Way to Say All

“All peoples have the right to self-determination,” says article 1 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. How would you translate the beginning of this sentence into Armenian?

If you open Thomas Samuelian’s English-Armenian dictionary, you will find that the word “all” in Armenian is բոլոր (polor). Polor is a plural word, the same as “all.” Hence, the natural translation would be: Բոլոր ժողովուրդները ... (Polor joghovoortnere).

However, many people seem to believe that the word ամէն (amen) is a synonym of polor and, thus, we find, both in oral and written language, «ամէն ժողովուրդները» (amen joghovoortnere). This is grammatically incorrect. For starters, amen is a singular word. The root of this confusion is that amen actually means “every” and “each,” but just as you do not say “every peoples have the right” or “each peoples have the right,” you do not say «ամէն ժողովուրդները իրաւունք ունին» (amen joghovoortnere iravoonk oonin).

Therefore, the correct and indisputable use of both words is:
Ամէն ժողովուրդ (amen joghovoort)
Բոլոր ժողովուրդները (polor joghovoortnere)

Similarly, the word ամբողջ (ampoghch, “whole” is frequently mistaken with polor. Some English-Armenian popular dictionaries translate “all” as ampoghch and we have even come across one recently published English-Armenian student dictionary that translates “all” as amen, polor, and ampoghch. However, ampoghch is a singular word used only in connection with a collective noun (a singular word which indicates a plurality), such as աշխարհ (ashkharh, “world”), աշակերտութիւն (ashagerdootioon, “student body”), մարդկութիւն (martgootioon, “humankind”), and so on. You cannot say “polor ashagerdnere”and “polor ashagerdootioone,” and you cannot say “ampoghch ashagerdootioonnere” either.

You can only say, in conclusion:
amen ashagerd = “every student” / “each student”
polor ashagerdnere = “all the students” (or “all students”) ampoghch ashagerdootioone = “the whole student body”

Thursday, March 28, 2013

The First Letter of Christ and the Last Letter of Armenia

The letter ք (k’), called քէ (ke), is the last of the 36-letter alphabet created by St. Mesrob Mashdots in the early fifth century A.D. As it is well known, the letters o and ֆ were added to the alphabet in the late Middle Ages.

The pronunciation of this letter is a bit problematic in Western Armenian. The loss of aspiration of the consonants (the pronunciation of ք should be something like the k in kite) has led us to not differentiate between ք and գ (kim), a problem that is also present in the pairs փ (piur)-բ (pen) and դ (ta)-թ (toh). We will use the transliteration k’, which is utilized in scholarly texts, to show that phonetic difference in writing.

It was certainly fitting that the last letter of the alphabet was the one used to write the name of Christ: Քրիստոս (K’ristos). The passage of Revelation 1:8, “I am the Alpha and the Omega” (omega is the last letter of the Greek alphabet) was translated into Classical Armenian as the equivalent «Ես եմ Այբ եւ ես եմ Քէ». As a matter of fact, the letter Ք is equivalent to the Greek Χ (Χριστος) and, indeed, to the ch used in words such as Christopher (Քրիստափոր), chrysantemus(քրիզանթեմ), chronicle(քրոնիկ). When German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays in 1895, the equivalence between ք and the Greek Χ led to translate the word X-ray as «Ք ճառագայթ» (K jarakayt) in Armenian.

Most interestingly, this letter had a double function in Classical Armenian (krapar). It served as a plural suffix. For instance, the plural of the word գիր(kir) “letter” was kirk’ (“letters”) and this created in time the word kirk’ (“book”). In Modern Armenian (ashjarhapar), the function of the k’ was mostly taken up by the suffixes –ner and –er; thus, today we say kirk’er (“books”), where the root is kirk’ and there is no longer awareness of k’ being a plural suffix.

However, this does not always work. One way or another, krapar is always alive in our current usage of ashjarhapar. There are some words used in plural interchangeably with the suffix k’ or the suffixes er/ner; however, we cannot (we should not) use both of them together. For instance, we say dghak’ or dghaner (“boys”); it is grammatically incorrect to say dghak’ner.

This plural use of the k’ gave birth to its use as a suffix for place names. For instance, the plural of hay “Armenian” was hayk’ (“Armenians”), and this became the name of the country of the Armenians: Hayk’ (Հայք). Thus, throughout history we have used the words Medz Hayk’ (Մեծ Հայք) and P’ok’r Hayk’ (Փոքր Հայք) to designate “Greater Armenia” and “Lesser Armenia.” Additionally, we should remember that every time we use the word hayots (հայոց), as in hayots badmoutioun, we are using krapar: hayots is the declined form of hayk,’ and hayots badmoutioun is the standard way to say “history of the Armenians” (in krapar, it also meant... “History of Armenia”).