Zarchka, I hardly use English here - I mostly speak Russian with people, including almost all of my friends. In fact, my boyfriend is the only one with whom I speak English. I use English at work as well, but that is because my colleagues prefer talking with me in English s0 they get to use their English. But then, I also use Russian, Dutch and Armenian at work…

Armenians in the Diaspora have always impressed me with the number of languages they speak. My wife speaks Armenian, Arabic, English, French, Spanish and Italian.

The British and the Americans, in fact most English-speaking peoples, are terrible at other languages, and in an age of globalization this is a problem. English is so widespread that Anglos no longer make the effort to learn another language and consequently lose out on much of the richness and diversity of other cultures. There is a Turkish saying to the effect that each language is like a different soul. In my experience Anglos are overly self-conscious about making mistakes and looking silly.

There are rules of basic courtesy. In general a guest should not be excluded if there is a common language. Someone living in a country for an extended period should make an effort to learn the local language. The person making the effort should be encouraged not ridiculed.

As far as Georgia goes, the issue there is that the Georgians are fed up with the Russians for a host of reasons and one way to protest is to refuse to use the Russian language. There was a time not so long ago when many French-Canadians in Quebec would refuse to use English. Thankfully they are getting over that stage as the survival of the French language has become more assured and most non-francophones have learned French.

What refers using Russian words in our every day conversation, I think it’s normal if considered the long-termed influence of Russian language, it’s literature, after all news and films. Never forget that for a long period of time all the subjects in Armenian schools were carried in Russian and with Russian books. Though the words used in everyday conversation are mainly jargonizms or Russian slang or professionalisms. They are corrupted and foreign words though and will never enter the main stock of Armenian vocabulary. On the other hand I think it’s right to use Russian or international terms for technical words or new scientific inventions, instead of trying to create compound and composite Armenian coinages and neologisms, thus making the language even more difficult and non productive. For example what would you choose: the Russian word ‘plintuz’ for ‘plinth’ or ‘hatakapatatakayin tapakapayt’, which is the direct equivalent? Or would you prefer to say ‘pult’ (remote controller) to ‘herakaravarman vahakan’. I think even a foreigner who tries to study Armenian will rather choose the Russian variants, at least after several unsuccessful attempts to brake their tongue while uttering those words, which are not limited by these two. I wonder how those words sound in Georgian?

I totally back Gagik’s stand point about learning the language of the foreign country where we are going to live for several years. And It’s done first and foremost for ourselves and not the others. Even during my short visit to Georgia, I learnt several words and expressions and incidentally I also learnt the letters just by reading on the advertisement hoardings. And I didn’t learn them out of the fact that they didn’t respond to my Russian, just I think it is the usual case when you go to a foreign country, and besides, knowing several Georgian words would do no harm, would they?

And Myrthe, I think you are right trying to learn Armenian, because you need it in your every step, not everyone knows English, right?. Funny that I said this, because usually I advise the foreigners to study Russian instead of Armenian, knowing that they will need it more in the future. I admit that studying Armenian is far arduous a task, because Armenian is a very difficult language due to it’s morphological and phonetic structure. But after all the organs of speech of every person are the same, though they can be redeveloped when strongly desired. And why do you pay a hid to what people may say about your accent? Most Armenians don’t know pure Armenian. You think they don’t deride one another and laugh when they misutter the words? Especially when Western and Eastern Armenian speakers meet each other and they imitate each other. They still argue whether it’s ‘bambak’ or ‘phampak’. And though I like western Armenian and can speak that dialect, I must say that Eastern Armenian is structurally, syntactically and grammatically more correct and distinct. This is another problem which I guess will never find its solution like many things referring the phenomenon Armenia. But probably it shouldn’t, because every unit of the language is valuable and it shouldn’t be lost. In this case let’s not evaluate what is what. Once I had the audacity to tell one of my professors, who declared that she didn’t understand Western Armenian, that it was all because of her own fault, because she had never read a single book in Western Armenian. I expected reproaches on her part, but she admitted my word and said the only barrier was her Russian education.

A language net…!!!
Who wants to study Armenian?!
Okey, you can

On the positive side, the other day one of my bf’s friends accidentally called me instead of his girlfriend (he used redial without knowing that my bf had just called me from the same phone) and neither of us recognized the other’s voice. Later my bf told me he thought I was some local girl. Also, recently someone else who heard me speak Armenian on the phone, told me I spoke without an accent! Hah!

Of course, you’re right about learning the local language, and that should also include Armenians in Georgia. Incidently, I suspect that Zara’s experience in Tbilisi might have been because Georgians thought she was a citizen who didn’t know Georgian, although that doesn’t excuse it.

Nor does anything really excuse the attitude of Armenians who speak fluent English when they’re sitting with a foreign guest. Like I said, this German girl wouldn’t speak German to another in front of English-speaking people.

Or at least, that’s what she says, and that’s been my experience with the French and others.

As for those persons who talk down to those who don’t speak as well as a native, I would say that it is a lack of self-confidence, insecurities and their attempt to feel more superior to make up for something they lack. I too have noticed a few that will laugh or talk down to me if I say something wrong.

As for the the ts-, tz-, dz- and ds-, I never get them right it seems. A friend of mine originally from Turkey, myself, my wife and my truck driver Lavrent had a one hour conversation/debate while driving from Lachin to Stepanagert about dz- and ds-. The two of us non-native Armenians could not even hear the difference between the two letters.

Hardly an incentive to try harder.

The icing on the cake, perhaps. When I asked a local friend to help me with my Armenian she told me that she didn’t think I really wanted to improve my language skills. Can’t win, can we?

When I am with a group of Armenians, whethere they are colleagues from work, my friends or others, they will always speak Armenian. With my friends, I am usually able to follow the conversation and join in in Russian, and we usually end up talking a mix of Russian and Armenian. But in other groups I usually understand at least the gist of the conversation and often more, but the conversation goes too fast for me to jump in, so I tend to just sit and listen.

As for me learning Armenian, yes I would like to, but it is a difficult language for me. Not because of the grammar, but because of the sounds, the different k’s, t’s and p’s, r’s and all the ts-, tz-, dz-, ds- etc. sounds. While I understand the differences, my ears are just not trained to hear them and pronunciation is hard. And when I do my best to say something in Armenian, most of the time I will still get a “Huh? What are you saying?”-reaction. I noticed that the most common reaction to me speaking Armenian with an accent and with mistakes is noticing the mistakes I make, not being positive about at least trying or making an effort to understand me.

Once I really got into a fight about this with the man who was sitting next to me in the marshrutka to Spitak. He had started a conversation (where do you come from, what do you do here, the usual) and I answered, not wanting to be rude even though I didn’t feel like talking to him. Atone point he asked me if I knew Armenian, so I said, yes, a little - I am learning. Then he asked me to pronounce some of the difficult letters (ds, dz etc.) and of course I didn’t get it right. So he said: “Ah, you see, you can’t speak it properly.” I got really pissed at that point and said quite rudely: “Instead of pointing out all my mistakes, you could compliment me for my efforts to try to learn your difficult language.” Needless to say this was the end of the conversation.

This kind of reactions have for now put me off of making an effort to improve my Armenian. I know I should start to study again and take time for that, but at the moment I don’t really care, mostly because of the few encouraging reactions I get when I make an effort to speak Armenian. That is, not from my friends, they encourage me and love it when I speak Armenian, but from random people in the street, in restaurants etc. Then again, what those random people think, shouldn’t bother me in the least.