It is also important for Western Armenian to be protected in Armenia and services offered in Western in order to protect it, otherwise it will only be confined to a kitchen language as Eastern Armenian dominates the nation. It’s heritage (that of Western) is worth keeping alive even at the highest level institutions.

Many countries are bilingual and offer services in 2 totally different languages. It’s not a far stretch to offer simply 2 dialects in Armenia.

Is the Diaspora Haylur available off the internet yet for download?

And regarding the video sharing website in France, what’s the URL?

Here, I said it. Western Armenian is a ebonicized vulgar dialect. You want to understand Armenian ? Do yourself and everyone else a favor, learn a proper Armenian, as it is spoken in the country today, not 100 years ago.

You can’t bring back Western Armenia no matter how many wet dreams you have about it, and you sure can’t get people on streets of Yerevan start taking you seriously if you keep that little fantasy that somehow what you speak is understood or better yet, appreciated. People laugh behind your back, believe me.

I am not being negative here, just merely stating a commonly understood fact. Just how difficult is to say, look, Latin is a beautiful language but no one speaks it in Rome, so if I plan on a trip I may need to pick up on that new thing I heard they speak over there, called Italian I believe.

Ehh, why do I preach. I might as well go explain this to my car, will have the same effect I think.

I wanted to find out from you if you want me to generate all the Armeniapedia pages in audio format so you can put audio versions of each page (for Blind or just people that want to hear the audio version of the pages) for you.

Please let me know, we can do this quit quickly. There is no charge, I will do it as a service for the Armenian community.

Thanks,
Diran Afarian
http://www.BlueGrind.com

Listen to the California declaraton of the Genocide observance document from Arnold Schwarzenegger.(http://www.bluegrind.com/a47520/arnold.html)

To describe Western Armenian as as an ebonicized vulgar dialect only exposeS your ignorance of the facts. Sure eastern Armenian will remain the official state language of Armenia but that does not mean that the 2.3 million Armenians there should not acquaint themselves with the slight modifications that Western Armenian prsents so that they might BETTER UNDERSTAND THE 5 MILLION ARMENIANS WHO RESIDE OUTSIDE THE ROA, NOT TO MENTION UNDERSTANDING THE LITERATURE OF WRITERS USING THE WESTERN ARMENIAN VERNACULAR!!!

The grammatical differences between the two dialects are really not that great to be insurmountable for speakers of either side. So too is the basic vocabulary 95% the same, when you take into account foreign words and terms used by both. What remains are the artificial orthographic changes made to eastern Armenian in the 1930’s by linguists like Apeghian or Ajarian. This, indeed, makes reading the eastern somewhat tedious for western readers.

Just so you know, remenants of certain western Armenian local dialects survive today, in varying degrees, in parts of Armenia as a result of the influx of refugees and Genocide survivors who fled across the Arax River. Just go to areas around Gumyri and see what I mean.

You talk as if everyone in Armenia speaks the same standardized eastern Armenian as those who went to school in Yerevan and belong to the middle classes. What about people from Artsakh. Do you see them as speaking some “vulagar” form of Armenian. What about other local dialects? Should they be “cleansed” as well?

Variety is the spice of life. And a bit more tolerance on your part would go a long way to welcome those in the diaspora who don’t have the opportunity as you and others do to “polish your perfect eastern Armenian” 24/7. Sorry, but some of us still speak a vulgar, plebian form of Armenian that the bulk of Armenians once did in the Armenian highlands. Sorry if that offends your sensibilities… But get over it..You’ll feel better.

When I’m in Yerevan I too sometimes hold back laughing when I hear what passes as the Armenian spoken on the streets of Armenia’s capital..

The URL is : http://www.yesoudo.com

Best regards.

Does your concept of the “proper Armenian, as it is spoken in the country today” also include all the Russian lexical perversions?

I never proposed to bring back Western Armenian so it takes over, but simply to preserve it. The funding could come from the diaspora itself if it is indeed interested in preserving it, not the Armenian tax payer (or lack there of as the case may be).

Again, you should read the post properly. I never said NOT to learn Eastern Armenian, (eg. if planning a trip), I said that both sides should learn both.

What you are proposing is ignorance: don’t learn something, or turn a blind eye to it. How could you possibly put forward an argument that less education is better? What village are you from?