Weekly Columnist Discusses Dikranagerd Vernacular Handbook with Infowelat

Armenian Weekly columnist C.K. Garabed (Charles Garabed Kasbarian) discussed his recently-published Dikranagerd Vernacular Handbook with the Kurdish website Infowelat.

“Sometime about 1970, I began recording whatever I knew from speaking to my parents and members of the Armenian community at large. After all, the Dikranagerdtsi dialect is my native language. I made entries in a notebook in my spare time,” he said. “As the years went by, I realized that a written record of our dialect was an important undertaking, and therefore took my task more seriously. With the advent of personal computers, I transcribed whatever I had recorded, until it grew to a size that was feasible to pass on to the public.”

The interview is accompanied by a letter, photographs, and a brief history of the author’s family in Dikranagerd prior to the Armenian Genocide.

Concluding, C.K. Garabed poses the following questions on Kurdish-Armenian relations to the interviewer and Kurdish readers: “Have any of your Kurdish colleagues touched on this subject? What is the thinking among rank and file Kurds, especially in the Dikranagerd region? It’s all well and good for Abdullah Demirbaş, mayor of Sur in the province of Diyarbakir, to invite Armenians back. But does that reflect the thinking of those Kurds who are currently occupying property of the ancestors of those very same Armenians? Would your Kurdish colleagues like to see the forming of dialogues and alliances with Armenians of the Diaspora? If so, to what extent?”

The full text of the interview can be read here.

3 Comments

  1. CK Garabed’s comment to Infowelat that we develop an Armenian census is essential and overdue. A great interview.

  2. The Infowelat website was down for over a year….but now it is back up and the URL is working. Apologies for the prior entry.

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