Speaking Armenian a matter of choice

by Tom Vartabedian

Published: Monday March 29, 2010

Haverhill, Mass. - My friend Joe laid matters on the line prior to our trip to Armenia. He was wearing his staunch Armenian face.

"When we're in Armenia, we have to speak nothing but Armenian," he told me.

Joe Dagdigian doesn't fool around when it comes to exercising our Mother Tongue. Unlike a lot of others I know, he has so much respect for the language that it's become part of his everyday vernacular.

The trip to Armenia took place around the genocide commemoration last April. Unlike my first visit in 2006 with a tour group, there were just the two of us, shooting pictures and gathering stories to our heart's content.

And speaking Armenian with the townies.

I didn't know what to expect during that initial junket in 2006, whether my household Armenian would be good enough to communicate with the Hayastanstis. To be quite honest about it, I was intimidated before I even began.

I heard about the different dialect and the Eastern-Western differentiation. I heard about them speaking with authority and that a commoner like myself would be relegated to a holding tank.

It wasn't until I had arrived in Yerevan that year when I started communicating. The more I spoke, the better it got. I found myself perfectly capable to handle a conversation and put my knowledge to a supreme test one evening when I chatted with a hotel owner in Stepanagert for 45 minutes without balking.

"How long have you been living in America?" he asked, thinking I was an immigrant.

"I was born there," I told him.

"You learned your Armenian well," he replied, boosting my ego.

And here we go again, for a second round.

In my American world, the use of Armenian is unfortunately rare. I seldom utilize the language, unless I am in the presence of Armenian-speaking folks, especially survivors. I speak English with my Der Hayr, my mother, but Armenian with the Serpazan.

I have my grandmother to thank for this. She lived with us the day my folks got married and Armenian was a household word. When I started kindergarten, my English needed a boost to keep up with the other kids.

Like a lot of youngsters my age, I retaliated against Armenian School, preferring instead to hang out with my friends and throw a baseball around. My instructor, Father Luke Arakelian, was a taskmaster. He drilled the language into me and taught me the badarak.

Two of my children were deprived of this benefit. The older one received a heavy dose of Armenian from my mother-in-law, who shared the same home after our marriage. But like anything else, "use it or lose it." And lose it she did.

I must confess, we didn't do much to assuage the problem, using English as our principal language and Armenian for special occasions. Perhaps we would have been better off reversing that trend.

We have a language that's 1,600 years old and refuses to die. I'm afraid that as American-Armenians, we're helping mortality along. In my constant search to exercise the language, I look for opportunities.

I also converse with the grocery shop owner in Watertown, another priest or two. On a recent Mediterranean cruise with the ARS, it was nothing short of being in Armenia. Armenian was the language of choice, given the international flare, and even us American-born were woven into the net.

We would sit around the dinner table onboard ship and converse in Armenian, sometimes forcing ourselves to find the logical words. If it came out awkward, we would laugh.

I am thoroughly amazed at how proficient some others around me are with the language, American-born people like Antranig and Lucine Kasbarian who are essential scholars when they address an audience. I attribute their knowledge to caring and dedicated parents.

Another family --- the Steve Dulgarians --- insists on hearing and speaking Armenian whenever the family gathers. You should hear the bilingual grandchildren singing songs, reciting poetry and conversing.

Language is supposed to be a vehicle of thought but all too often, it is just an empty car full of gas. It needs to be accelerated now and then.

My advice is to get Armenian into cruise control. Take a class. Learn from books. Whatever little you may know can increase with a little self-indulgence. Look for opportunities to exercise your language and don't be timid.

Like my friend Joe says, let's shift gears. History tells us that Poland, Hungary and Romania were once prominent Armenian communities. But once the language retreated, so did the race.

Let us hope that America doesn't follow that destination.