Paka (Goodbye) Russian!
Ever since visiting/moving to Armenia, one of the interesting things around me has been this Russian language. It's everywhere. Many Diasporans hate it, get pissed, etc (many of them complain about this in English, rather than Armenian), but I have always just shrugged. Russian was a big deal here, transitions don't have to be abrupt, but as time goes on, it is crazy how strong the Russian influence remains. I have had this arguement with locals who strongly defend Russian as "more important" here than English. Its time has past was my arguement - now the strong emphasis needs to be in teaching English. In 10 years young Russians will be speaking to other youth in English. Well this past week I saw a great live demonstration of my arguement. I was at a party with over a dozen youth from all over Eastern Europe, and the lingua Franca, even for them was English. There were a number of Armenians there who just couldn't speak a word to them, because they'd never learned the international language properly. It was just a perfect illustration of how provincial things can be here - and how Russia has held influence on Armenia too long, without giving much in return.
A great sign of what appears to be a big turnaround in this trend was written about in an RFE/RL article today. There is a huge increase in those wanting to study English or in English. All I'm saying is it's past time. TV stations need to start running cartoons in English rather than Russian, movies on TV need to have Russian or Armenian subtitles, rather than Russian dubbing, etc, etc... but it appears that the inevitable is happening, and the pace is quickening. :-)
A great sign of what appears to be a big turnaround in this trend was written about in an RFE/RL article today. There is a huge increase in those wanting to study English or in English. All I'm saying is it's past time. TV stations need to start running cartoons in English rather than Russian, movies on TV need to have Russian or Armenian subtitles, rather than Russian dubbing, etc, etc... but it appears that the inevitable is happening, and the pace is quickening. :-)
posted by Raffi K. at 1:50 AM
10 Comments:
All well and good, Raffi, but I say we ought not to just dismiss Russian. It's still an important language, and there still are millions of Armenians whose first language is Russian. So, it would be great if we could have English side-by-side with it, and not lose out on it entirely.
Any 2nd language that broadly penetrates a society is its asset I think. Admittedly you can't argue that English, by whatever historical accident or background, hasn't become the most pragmatically useful foreign language. The more that people in Armenia can learn it the better. of course. But if there's the historical inertia of an established presence of Russian already there, with people around who actually use the language live, gosh don't let that piece of good fortune die away. Maybe the inverse relationship between learning these 2 foreign languages is loose, so that you don't have to view it that the society as a whole can only learn one at the expense of the other. Here in L.A. Spanish is widespread among us but is the low-class tongue, supposedly. I learned it by just living here, never formally. Then after some years I unexpectedly had a job doing business with South America. I discovered there's nothing low-class about it. That fiction is purely a borderland distortion limited to this region. Spanish is a tool and an asset, it helped make my living. The more languages the merrier. By all means get English, and by all means keep Russian please. You got Spanish? You got Russian? More power to you. You're so lucky. (I'm going to learn Armenian, for pleasure, when I retire. Find out if I practice what I preach by looking for me on the Hayastantsi blog in a few years.)
Cartoons and films need to run in Armenian as the official language is the Armenian. Maybe with the subtitle of the original language.
English has always been taught in schools and in universities (unless the school has French or German orientation), it is another question that in what quality.
I agree that more emphases should be given to English as it is now the international language, however Russian shouldn’t be scraped as we are in closer ties with Russia, it is unfortunate to see that many young people can not speak in Russian.
I also think that Turkish should also be taught in schools.
Ayo, aytbes e boss
The non-armenian speaking friend that came in Armenia with me really got difficulties to communicate, all the most when she tried english, a pity for diaspora.
Tsorig, a colleague from France-Arménie(1), was telling me how she simply mostly spoke russian during her first trip in Erevan, more common for her than armenian, isn't it crazy ?
At the soviet times, strangers met in Armenia would only be from Sovietic Union (except minor cases), so it's simply an evidence for them, that foreign people of ex-Soviet Armenia do speak russian. To make a comparison, russian for them, is just as common as english for us occidental.... and they lived the major part of the last century in this configuration !
Plus, i just ended a book about the tragic story of french-armenians who left France in 1947 after the Sovietic propaganda for repopulate the only remaining hayrenic after the genocide ("Arménie 1947 : les naufragés de la terre promise " - Robert Arnoux).
Sooooo deeply a different world from what they knew in France, or even in Dead Armenia of the ottoman empire, or any other occidental country ! I hardly imagined it before reading the book.
In conclusion : looking toward future is good, but it's better not to under estimate russian. Even if this ancient hammer influence can seem anachronistic today, it was a hammer after all ! :o(
Jilda
(1)yes sir, you happened to meet her by coincidence in Erevan just the day i see her too in there - indeed small world, and small Erevan center ;)
Armenian first and foremost. Everything else is just extra. Russian is losing its influence even among the former Soviet republics and I've heard that in Georgia many people in Tbilisi will not respond to you if you speak to them in Russian.
Raffi, a dozen youth from all over Eastern Europe would hardly travel for parties out of Yerevan to the regions (to little towns or villages), where Russian is the only language connecting natives with the world. You try to make the life of people who visit Armenia easier by making it more difficult for thoes who live here for many years and whose life is not easy anyway. Do you think that they need one more stress like leaving them without their favorite Russian TV programs?.
All I'm saying is times are changing and the absolutely massive emphasis on Russian is both misplaced and usurping the resources needed to properly teach English. It's great to say people should learn three or four languages fluently, but in reality it probably ain't gonna happen.
I also have nothing against more emphasis on Armenian programming as well. There is plenty of space for more channels in Armenian and English (there is only one English channel, CNN, as of now). But the currently Russian emphasis on childrens programming should shift to English immediately - both for the children, and for adults who are just studying English and need some more basic dialogue to learn from.
Yes, in Georgia, many Georgians hate Russian, just like in the Baltics, but I think their emphasis on Georgian has just as much to do with assimilating their Armenian/Azeri/other minorities as it does to do with hating Russia.
During the Soviet times the "inteligencia" in Yerevan spoke to each other in Russian. Many hardly spoke Armenian. The best kindergartens, schools, colleges were all Russian. (These same armenians were a little confused when they'd see that their Georgian counterparts were actually NOT using Russian when speaking to each other).
Armenians were de-armenianized as much as possible. Everything was "Sovetski". Nowadays, it is mostly that older generation that still uses Russian when talking amongst themselves. Most young people interact in Armenian. It may seem strange, but it wasn't so just 15 years ago! With independence, we started hanging up Armenian flags EVERYWHERE and converting Russian schools to Armenian schools. It was a huge shock to people and there was definitely a tough adjustment period, but it worked.
Now, I am amazed at how well the youth speak armenian. Their vocab is pretty advanced and they do use Armenian as much as possible.
Maybe since you have nothing to compare to, you're not seeing the HUGE progress and you want things to move faster. But that's not possible. People don't change overnight and that anyone older than 35-40 has a HUGE attachment to Russian.
Let's focus on bettering our language for now. The armenian language fell behind during the eras that it was hardly used. Let's try to clean it up and allow it to develop.
When, after 10 years of absence from Armenia, I went back, I was surprised to see that people used the word 'sarnaran' instead of 'khaladzilnik' (the russian word for a refridgerator. The same was for 'herustatsuyts' instead of 'televizor'.
Before changing from Russian to English, let's focus on the omittance of Russian from an Armenian sentence. In the diaspora we are SURROUNDED by english day-in and day-out, and unless you live in Glendale -- you have no choice but to use English. Soooo it's somewhat justifiable to mix in English words here and there.. but in Armenia.. COME ON! Everyone's Armenian, everything is in Armenian.... why are 5 our of 8 words in a sentence Russian? :)
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