Dedication to Language: Petizians Release CD

In Canada, brothers John and Frank Petizian have come together to teach Armenian youth their native tongue.

“We were asked to be music teachers at the Halton Peel Armenian Saturday School in Oakville, Ontario around three years ago,” said John Petizian. “So in 2007 while we were there, we saw that we could contribute in other ways.” Like creating a workbook for those Armenian children who didn’t know any Armenian at all. In some cases, Petizian explained, “one parent knows Armenian and the other doesn’t, or in many cases, both parents don’t know Armenian. So we decided to have this workbook but to teach it from an English standpoint—meaning a lot of english translation.

Since they were music teachers, the brothers discussed putting together a CD as well, one that would keep the kids, in all three levels of the Armenian school, entertained and wanting to come to school every Saturday.

“We wanted to write original music for the kids, but we wanted a more mature arrangement. So we demoed the songs to the children and had them participate in the CD process. We asked the kids to help us write some words down and we put music behind the words. The song that is on our first CD “Ararat” is “Sorveenk Meeaseen” (in English, Let’s learn together) and is an example of this process,” said Petizian.

They produce and compose the music with little difficultly.  “I am a piano player and my brother is a self-taught guitarist, but we are not professional musicians so we brought in someone to help us, Aram Moosakhinian.”

Moosakhinian, an award-winning artist, has released Armenian CDs and written music scores for TV. “[He] lives in Canada now and [we] have worked well together since the first album because he created the arrangement and we recorded the music. We even came up with a band name, ‘Enguerner’ (Friends),” added Petizian.

They are now in the process of putting together a second CD which, according to Petizian, will be nothing like the first one.  “We have two songs released now, ‘Hayr Mer’ and ‘Arevig,’ both on YouTube. The focus is more on working with the children, so children are singing, they have the lead parts and we hope to get the whole CD done and out by late Christmas 2010, with both original and cover songs.”

The brothers have their hands full with the CD and the book, but things are progressing well. “It has taken us three years to get where we are, both with the book and CD. It is hard to sell books, especially workbooks, but we are doing our best. With Armenian workbooks, I think, if you sell 1,000 it is called a success and we are close to that level. I think people want workbooks like this one, but the problem is that when you print in such low quantities, it makes the book very expensive. And when the people see the price, they get turned off from getting the book,” Petizian said. “We decided to enhance the value of the book by putting more online content to go along with it for more help, and with letter pronunciations. For example, if the child is on a certain page, the page will say, “Go online and use this password,” and it will help them more with actually pronouncing the words and letters.”

Petizian does admit his weakness with the Armenian alphabet before having written the workbook. “The question became, why am I writing a workbook about learning Armenian when my Armenian isn’t that great to begin with?” he asked. “But writing the book has strengthened my knowledge of reading and writing Armenian. I spoke with many teachers before the workbook’s release, like Sarkis Hampoyan, who edited the book for me because of his expertise in the Armenian language—not to mention the teachers at the Halton Peel Armenian Saturday School. So it went through intensive care before I decided it was ready,” said Petizian.

The book, which is for understanding and comprehending Western Armenian, is also for building vocabulary. “The book uses easy words for children to quickly identify the words and letters they are saying and reading,” he added.

To learn more about the book or CD, visit www.gametillects.com.

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Antranig Dereyan

Born and raised in New Jersey, Antranig Dereyan graduated from Rowan University with a bachelor’s in journalism. He contributes frequently to the Armenian Weekly with sports pieces. He also freelances for other online sites and newspapers.

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