Email a copy of 'Reflections on Armenian Language Learning’s Impact on the Armenian-American Experience' to a friend
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Email a copy of 'Reflections on Armenian Language Learning’s Impact on the Armenian-American Experience' to a friend
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Copyright © 2021 | The Armenian Weekly
Hi, I’m neither Armenian nor of Armenian descent and during my first visit in 2001, used my basic/limited Russian, as no-one outside of Yerevan seemed to know any English. I liked the country and its people, and after several annual visits spent one winter in London learning Armenian every day whilst commuting on the train. The next year, I told my friends (in Armenian) that I no longer wanted to use Russian, and it went up a notch from there.
OK – it’s not brilliant, but I could hold a conversation with a taxi driver, for example, on a 4 hour journey to reach a monastery, which was the main idea – communication. I ended up writing my first book in 2012, which is 70% about Armenia and NKR – ” The Last of the Argonauts” by John Brenson, published a few years ago.(available on Amazon if you’re interested!!!)
I’m really worried about forgetting my Armenian, as I haven’t been there for 4 years, but thanks to the internet and satellite tv I still have the opportunity to read and hear the language.
I might also add that I seemed to “click” with local Armenians more than some of the Armenian speaking Americans arriving in Yerevan for the first time. I guess it’s because I learnt my Armenian in Armenia and my travels around the country made me aware of those little idiosyncrasies that help to form a nation or a people. I was often asked if I had Armenian heritage, which they presumed, and when I responded in the negative they were either impressed or sometimes even a bit wary!
John Brenson
Richmond, Surrey
For those who wish to pursue this grave subject further,I suggest that they read the following that can be accessed online:
http://www.armeniapedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Culture_in_America:_Dead_or_Alive%3F
Thank you, Georgi-Ann, for articulating a lifetime’s worth of experience. I too am the third generation in the US … if we count the survivors who came to the US in their teens.
On one hand, I recall in the 1970s how non-Armenian speaking classmates were given a class of their own with which to learn Western Armenian as a second language. The majority did not wish to be marginalized in this way and would have preferred staying with the Armenian-speaking students — but only if the unified class could be held in English for everyone! Thus began a schism in which this American-born Armenian student felt far more at home with the foreign-born Armenian students…culturally as well as linguistically.
On the other hand, I vividly recall many learned adults, the parent of a close friend included, angrily and exasperatedly correcting my grammar with every sentence I uttered, effectively silencing me. We have to let our young make their mistakes or we will lose them.
Language immersion is a method that should be more widely employed. Anyone interested can look up the Concordia Language Villages to learn more. There is no reason why we cannot create such “villages” in a summer camp or throughout the year in 3+ week stretches.
Very well done, Georgiann.
Does this mean you’re going to write regularly now?