Բառերը – the words

Vahe H. Apelian

 

“Բառերը – the words” is the title of an article in the “We Are All Armenians - Voices from the Diaspora” book, which is anthology of Armenian American writers. The article is written by J. P. Der Boghossian.

It happened that I am also reading a sequel by Dr. Armenag Yeghiayan titled “Ճանչնանք Մեր Բառերը – Let us know our words.” For the past three weeks, each week, on Sunday, calling it a Sunday reading, Dr. Yeghiayan has been presenting an article about Armenian words. Knowing him, I am sure that we will be seeing this sequel for the coming many Sundays. 

Dr. Yeghiayan also, every Wednesday, shares his week’s write up about the follies of the usage of the Armenian language in Armenian print. He calls the Wednesdays’ email “Հայերէնը կը Զուարճանայ – The Armenian is getting funnier.” He also titles the Wednesday emails “Ի պէտս զարգացելոց մանկանցն Թորգոմայ – For the benefit of educating the children of Torkom’s race (Armenian)” ( Togarmah is ancestor of the peoples of the South Caucasus and father of Hayk, the legendary patriarch and founder of the Armenian nation).

To make the point as for how long Dr. Armenag Yeghiayan has been doing his weekly mailing, please note that that this week’s mailing is No. 146. Divide the number by 52 weeks a year, you will have the number of years he has been doing his Wednesday’s mailings to his friends and readers with the punctuality of a clock  Along the week’s article he presents a linguistic quiz.  This week’s quiz is no 142.

Coming to the authors, they are:

I quote J. P. Der Boghossian’s biographical sketch presented in the book. It reads: “John Parker Der Boghossian founded and curates the Queer Armenian Library (queerarmenianlibrary.com), the first ever library of queer Armenian literature and media. He works in higher education as an equity and inclusion officer.  His book chapter “The Minnesota LGBTQ Standards of Inclusion” was published in The Routledge Handbook of LGBTQIA Administration and Policy”. He is working on essays about Soghomon Tehlirian’s epilepsy, the day he saw Matthew Shepard’s mom cry, and how a Ouija board led him to investigate the death of his youth pastor. To address the death of queer Armenian voices in fiction, he is writing a novel about the intertwined fates of an Armenian widow and Armenian graduate student at a family reunion. He lives in Minnesota with his two partners, Jim and Gordy.”

As to Armenag Yeghiayan, he is a retired dentist by profession and is recognized as an authority of the Armenian language. He was by math teacher in Sourp Nshan Armenian middle school, the year I graduated, in 1962. He was studying dentistry then and we knew that he was in love with  Houri, whom he would marry. Houri was a year younger to us and was in our immediate lower class. You may read about him in my blog titled “Armenag Yeghiayan's Opus: A Magnanimous Gesture”. I have attached the link below.

What do they write about?

Dr. Yeghiayan writes about Armenian language, be it grammar, sentence structure, words. He does not spare the editors of the Armenian press for the mistakes they make. My mother, who taught for fifty years, wrote that students are the harshest judges. We knew him as an outspoken person and that is who he is. 

As to J.P. Der Boghossian, as his biographical sketch reveals he is queer and wrote: “I wanted the right words, written in the right way, to describe what was happening to me in the ambiguous spaces of conjunctions and hyphen, a “Queer-and-Armenian American.”

There may be a disconnect in the lexicon of the Armenian and American English languages when it comes to words – բառեր that we may associate with homosexuality. In fact, I had always considered queer a derogatory term. But lately I came to the realization that the LGBTQ community, instead of fighting the traditional usage of the term, have embraced it to signify who they are; in its simplest way, a lesbian (L),or  a gay (G), or a bisexual (B), or a transexual (T), a queer (Q), which is “a term people often use to express fluid identities and orientations. Often used interchangeably with LGBTQ.”

Armenians have a word for homosexual, its “Meyaser – Միասեռ», which literally means "unixes", “unisexual”. Since Armenian language is genderless, there has not been need to give different terms whether the reference is made for a man or a woman. Both are “Meyaser”, which can be used as a root word.

As to the words:  lesbian (L),  gay (G),  bisexual (B),  transexual (T), and a queer (Q), I checked the Mesrob G. Kouyoumdjian, A Comprehensive Dictionary English-Armenian. Beirut: G. Doniguian & Fils (1981), listed in Nayiridotcom, to see their Armenian words. This is what it said:

Lesbian : ածական լիսբեան, միասեռական 

(an adjective which means lesbian and Meyaser. Apparently Lesbian has made in roads in the Armenian lexicon.

Gay: ածական զուարթ, ուրախ, պայծառ, նախշուն, թեթեւաբարոյ, սիրուն, պճնազարդ։

(an adjective that means everything that gay is meant to say in its traditional use, happy, jovial, etc).

Bisexual: ածական երկսեռ, որձ եւ էգ։

(an adjective that means of two genders, a male and a female. There is an Armenian word that just combines male and female in one word.)

Transexual – the dictionary did not least any word. It said “transexual” could not be found.

Queer: ածական այլանդակ, տարօրինակ։

(an adjective that means strange, odd).

Needless to say, languages are dynamic, they evolve with time, so is the Armenian language. It may not have caught up the American English lexicon for words used to describe sexuality. But that does not mean, it may not.

Note:

“Armenag Yeghiayan's Opus: A Magnanimous Gesture”

https://vhapelian.blogspot.com/2022/08/armenag-yeghiayans-opus-magnanimous.html