Below is an article in Armenian language about the necessity of preserving our mother tongue and educating our children with the love of our language.
The author Armen Kurkjian complains that present day Armenians do not pay great attention to their language. Even during the days of the Red Sultan Abdul Hamid, he says, the Armenians used to pay much more attention to their language, despite the cruelty of that regime and the suppression mechanism that it had adopted.
Here is synopsis of the other parts of the article:
The difference maybe is in the fact that the Armenians at that time were living on their ancestral lands and had therefore direct contact with the land. Going away from the land means actually to become uprooted and to lose this important factor in shaping the national character.
In the Diaspora we tried to look like the “foreigners”. In the beginning we changed our names and replaced them with “easily pronounced” ones. Our children learned this practice from us and they have comfortably adopted it. Then we left our mother tongue aside and used instead (even in our households) the language of the host country.
In the recent decades a new wave of Armenians came to our society from Armenian speaking communities in the Middle East. As a consequence Armenian weekly and daily school were opened.
These schools help identify the students with the Armenian heritage, but it seems that the Armenian History lessons are not serving the point and they are considered as unrelated to the reality. Places like Khor Virab, Avarayr, Sartarabad, are mere geographical names. In order to revive the real meaning of these locations the students must visit the land and feel the rhythm there. We who know the dangers of assimilation and have read about the disappearance of different Armenian communities throughout history, what have we done for our generations? Have we succeeded in opening considerable number of Armenian daily schools? Have we managed to convince the parents to send their children to these schools? Have we managed to make the school tuition affordable for them?
The parents of young students have many financial difficulties. They usually are inclined, at least for economic reasons, to send their children to public “free” schools. It is a fact though that nothing is free in life. What is branded as “free” drains actually our Armenian identity.
We who have been so concerned about the Armenian language, have we managed to send big number of students to Armenia, so that they can see how the language is spoken there lively 24 hours a day, in the streets and in the media as well?
Have we managed to show them our historical monuments and the locations of significant events in our history? Have we taken them to the tomb of Mesrob Mashdots, the inventor of the Armenian alphabet and the great teacher of all times? Have we taken them to the site of Khor Virab, so close to Mount Ararad that they would like to embrace the symbolic mountain? Have they seen the city of Yerevan from the heights of the “Mother Armenia” impressive monument? Have we taken them to the depository of the Armenian manuscripts, called also “Madenataran”? Have we given them the chance to taste the Armenian grapes and apricots?
If we have managed to do all these for them, we do not have to be worried.
Otherwise, we need to wake up from our numbness. The assimilation is the great danger that we are facing, worse than the physical annihilation.
Armen Kurkjian
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