My abridged translation of Armenag Yeghiayan’s sequel (Լեզուական Փեթակ՝ Պուրճ Համուտ -3-). The original is linked. Vahe H Apelian
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| Courtesy Garo Konyalian |
The popularity of Armenian songs did not silence the Turkish songs, nor curtail the Turkish language in Bourj Hamoud. There was still a long road ahead.
Turkish song records were a steady and inexhaustible source that found their ways into our social customs, especially during our feasts. I did not know who and from where these records were procured, much like I do not know who procures Turkish supplies or goods to the Nor Marash shops just before the holidays; you may even say during the 12 months of the year. These Turkish records were many, diverse and were very popular both for individuals and especially for banquets that did not have to wait for any special occasion to take place.
During those happy-go-lucky years in Lebanon, a few people in Bourj Hamoud always found an opportunity to buy one or two bottles of oghi and organize a party. Chikofta or khyma, shish kebab, along with other trimmings were no exceptions, giving a special flavor to these impromptu banquets. In the absence of records, which rarely happened, singers would emerge. They were crooners who volunteered their talents and who, after a few cups, would sing like nightingales and brighten up the colorful days of Bourj Hamoud. Along with the singers came the dancers, at time of both sexes, who after moving their feet while seating down to the song’s tempo, gave free rein to their legs and arms and joined the singers with boundless movements stirring the jealousy of those who remained seated savoring the food.
Sometime later, television became common whose screens were flooded with Turkish film series, which the Armenian women adored
New phenomena appeared with time.
*****
One by one, Turkish pilgrims began to appear in our neighborhoods, who, on their way to Mecca for pilgrimage, came off the ship at the port of Beirut just to see the city. Some met old Armenian acquaintances and were hosted in their homes. On an occasion of such a hospitality, which I attended with my father in the house of one of our family friends, I saw a Turk for the first time. I was completely surprised to find out that he was an ordinary human creature like the rest of us. He also had two ears, two eyes and one nose. and a mouth, while I had a completely different visualization about the representatives of that monstrous tribe, who became the subjects of conversation around us for the twelve months of the year.
I found out from the ongoing conversations that this current Turk had used all his means to save the family who was hosting him. He had sheltered its members during the years of war, that is, during the Yeghern – genocide -, and after the end of the war, he had escorted them to a safe harbor to go abroad.
A more remarkable event also happened.
*****
We confirmed that we knew the family. Their apartment was a few steps further from ours. The husband was dead. His widow and their children lived there.
"Then, take us to their house," asked the visitor.
We escorted them to that family.
The foreigner was a Turkish pilgrim. He introduced himself and respectfully greeted the hostess. After expressing his condolences, asked a few names, made a couple of checks and asked very politely.
- Has your husband ever talked to you about a green handkerchief?
- Yes, - answered the landlady bewildered - he had told us how on the day of the deportation, they had given their gold in a green handkerchief to their Turkish friend asking him to keep it "until their return"...
The Turk put his hand into his pocket and took out a palm-sized green bundle.
- This is the bundle that I have never opened before. I thank you for removing this burden from my soul. Now I can continue my pilgrimage and die in peace.
Having said this, he handed the bundle to the stunned widow, who looked around, once at the person and then to the rest of us present, as if she was looking for words but could not find them.
*****
One day, one of my classmates, who lived next door to us and who was also a playmate, said:
- Do you know that in Turkey, I have a grandmother who is married to a Turk?
This was quite a complicated situation, for which I did not have a solution. How could an Armenian girl, born and raised here in Bourj Hamoud, with a well-known Armenian mother and father, have a grandmother married to a Turk in Turkey?
Little by little, later than sooner, I also understood the crux of the matter. My friend’s father, uncle Margos, was a five- to six-year-old child when the war ended and an armistice was signed in 1918. He was sheltered in one of the orphanages, and after a year or two, along with the rest of the orphans, he was also brought to Lebanon while his mother remained in Turkey, where she married a Turk and had children. But uncle Margos, for decades, had not known about the fate of his mother until one day he received a letter from a Turk, who had somehow found out his address as a stepbrother and had written to him letting uncle Margos know that their mother is old but is healthy and how happy she would be if she found him again and that her other children themselves would be equally happy if uncle Margos is willing to visit them Turkey so they could host him in their home.
The writer earnestly pleaded uncle Margos to respond to the letter.
One day, a nice Turkish-speaking old woman appeared at Uncle Margos's house. The resemblance between the two was striking. She was his mother. All us neighbors witnessed the loving care the old woman showed towards her son and her grandchildren. The cruel Armenian fate had deprived them of the joy.
She stayed in Bourj Hamoud for quite a long time. Slowly and to some extent she restored her broken Armenian, until one day she said:
- I miss my children and grandchildren.
She was referring to her Turkish children and grandchildren in Turkey.
*****
As to the third language, the dialect, its acquisition was conditioned by the presence of the dialect speaking elder in a given family. With the elder’s presence in the household, the rest became easier. The mother tongue and the dialect were equally absorbed by the younger generation. But it surely is tacitly understood that if there was no such elder person in the household, a neighbor’s, or a friend’s elder could not be useful to someone else, simply because the dialect the elder spoke was not necessarily the same dialect. A bouquet of dialects was spoken in Bourj Hamoud.
It would not be out of place to note the last linguistic feat of the residents of Bourj Hamoud, who are already endowed with a magnificent linguistic laurel wreath; their knowledge of Eastern Armenian.
Yes, Eastern Armenian.
Our first textbooks, including the "Aragats" series prepared by Onnik Sargisian and Simon Simonian, offered carefully, at least from 3rd grade and on, selected pieces in Eastern Armenian by Raffi, Ghazaros Aghayan, Kourgen Mahari, Stepan Zorian, Hovhannes Shiraz and others. No one would point out the difference between Eastern Armenian and Western Armenian. It thus became completely normal for us to come across a language that sounded different from our "known" Armenian and adopt it. And we would graduate easily reading and understanding their works.
Our generation(s) growing in Bourj Hamoud acquired all these languages without any difficulty, by hearing them spoken in the house, on the street, in the workplaces or in any public place. We learned aurally, without having the slightest notion of the theoretical grammar. The language was handed down by a generation and was transmitted by speaking and learning by hearing without attending a Turkish school and without having the slightest idea about theoretical grammar.
Weren't all the languages of the world transmitted in the same manner for thousands of years, in ancient times, when "writing" did not exist in any form?
*****
And what about Arabic, the official state language of the country?
E~h, it was the big absent from the unique mosaic of the Armenian, Turkish and the colorful dialects that constituted our life in Bourj Hamoud. Knowing the official language of the country did not serve any purpose for us, therefore it had no role in our daily life in Bourj Hamoud.
The state teacher who taught an Arabic class a day, with the attitude state teachers of those years had, was completely powerless to make us have any interest in learning the language, especially when outside of the school, there was no need for Arabic at all simply because in all of Bourj Hamoud there were no Arabs save only two families of state functionaries.
This was the situation until the 1950s.
The repatriation left behind many unoccupied houses in Bourj Hamoud which were bought by locals fleeing to the city from the south. That and the onslaught of Palestinian refugees completely changed the ethnographic situation of Bourj Hamoud which began to take on an Arab face, not counting other foreign nationals that fled there later. Kurds, Sri Lankans and Indians and many others in their colorful languages, all of which is familiar to the present-day residents of Bourj Hamoud.
Along with them, the dialect-speaking elders gradually passed away. A strong struggle against Turkish began. All these caused us to wrap up our Armenian identity, at times preserving it with difficulty, only to become Arabized with our newer generation rushing to attend public schools.
Արմենակ Եղիայեան
armenag@yeghiayan
Բնագիրը՝ http://vhapelian.blogspot.com/2023/01/3_29.html
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