"In this world, there is a fairytale country that is called Lebanon and in there, there is a unique city (maybe a town) that is called Bourj Hammoud.
In reality, Bourj Hammoud is unique for many of its characteristics; among them is its demography. During its formative years, sometime between 1933-1934, its population was 99.99% Armenians. Among the 30-40,000 inhabitants, there were a few Arab families, such the mukhtar’s, the priest’s and a few more and that was all.
After the 1946 repatriation to Armenia, Arab fellow countrymen, natives or Palestinian refugees, bought vacant houses left behind. Consequently, its demographic uniqueness gave way to another Armenian inhabitant enclave, Anjar whose birth took place 4-5 years after Bourj Hammoud’s. Anjar continues to maintain unique Armenian features while Bourj Hammoud loses its, day by day. But, that is not what I want to write. I wrote this introduction to write about something else about Bourj Hammoud.
In spite of what I noted above, Bourj Hammoud continues to maintain unique features in different aspects. Among them is the Armenian grasp of the Arab shopkeepers who have settled there. Yes, this is such a unique feature that there is no other place in this whole wide world – save in Armenia of course – non-Armenians learn Armenian in an all too natural way, without ever being asked or expected to do so.
Just imagine that Arab young men mostly from South Lebanon, as well as foreign nationals such as Syrian, Egyptian, Jordanian, Sudanese and others, who have never met a single Armenian in their lives, come to Bourj Hammoud where they open a grocery store or stall, and start selling their produce to Armenians or to non Armenians as well. And because the Armenians have great difficulty learning Arabic, they start leaning Armenian to make a livelihood.
The first month they learn the numbers and the measures ‘Meg kilo” (one kilogram), “meg our ges kilo” (one and one a half kilogram), “yergoo voski” (two Lebanese pounds), ‘Chors’ (four), “hink” (five), ‘yote voski gam dollar” (seven Lebanese pounds or dollars). Then they learn the name of the produce, “narinch” (orange), ‘varounk” (cucumber), ‘hazar” (lettuce), “poghg” (radish).
In the third to the fourth month, they start putting rudimentary sentences together such as “shad lav e” (it's very good), “hamov e” (it's tasty), “tarm e” (it's fresh), “ajan e” (it's cheap). Or “hema chga) (not available presently), “Meg jamen ge hasni” (it will be here in an hour), also “anoush ella” (enjoy), “noren yegour” (come again) and so forth. By the sixth month or at most before the year is over, they have already started speaking a little bit Armenian about everything.
Slowly, slowly they become Armenians.
I know someone among them. He is a veritable giant, at least 2 meters tall, weighing 200 kilograms, wearing an Arab or middle eastern wool hat that extends over his eyes. His mustache reaches his earlobes and his beard is mostly unkempt. He would be someone whom our writer Toumanian would have likened to a rough fellow. But he is a very polite and a likable man who speaks fluent Armenian. It would be impossible to exit his store without having bought something and not wanting to linger a bit longer just to listen him.
I also know someone named Ghassan. He is a self-contained, quiet young man with whom its possible to carry a lengthy conversation (in Armenian). I gladly converse with him about everything. He has mastered the Armenian language so well. I think that he has had a love affair with an Armenian girl, either as a fiancée or girlfriend. He often emotionally alludes to the Armenian girl and to the language she spoke.
At one time, well before I got to know him better, I had asked him why he was named with a “foreign” name. !
He is not an exception.
Another story.
During this past December Christmas celebration, a Catholic friend of mine had invited us and four other families, to Christmas Eve dinner. Those from the other families had come with their Ethiopian servants. As the evening dinner was coming to its close I wanted to end it with a beer. Since their house was very familiar to me and I felt comfortable in their home, I headed towards the kitchen for self-service and what did I see? In the kitchen, sitting around a table, I saw the four Ethiopian servants animated and giggling in an impeccable Armenian!
There also is the other astonishing thing, the Armenian learned by these foreigners is devoid of the blemishes commonplace with our Armenian editors, intellectuals, teachers and ecclesiastical fathers against whom for long I have been waging a losing battle without succeeding in correcting them. I have not heard from these foreigners the wrong use of the commonplace Armenian words whose wrong uses seem to have become the daily bread for those of our own.
“well”, you might say, “who are their teachers?” So that they can also visit the classrooms in our schools, our homes, offices, far away prelacies and the editorial boards of our newspapers (without forgetting “Armenpress in Yerevan) to teach them also the proper use of the Armenian language.
Do not ask me who their teachers are because I do not know who they are.
Many years ago, I used to take care of a patient with whom I also had become intimate, as it customarily happens with long-term faithful clients. I had served him for some 20-25 years when he asked for an appointment for his wife. After a few days, he came to my office with her.
As if a bucket of cold water was splashed over me when I set my sight on her for the very first time. She was wearing a head-to-toe black coverall. She was a veritable Muslim woman. I got confused and felt disoriented at the sight but tried to regain my composure. I asked her to take the seat and I positioned myself next to her and started doing what needed to be done as her husband remained seated in the room following silently to all that was taking place.
It suddenly dawned on me that the bond of our long amity had suddenly snapped. An oppressing silence, at least for me, seemed to have descended in the clinic. Every now and then I tried to find a topic to reaffirm our bond, but I did not succeed. At the very last, a bit clumsily and surely wrongly, if not unjustly, I asked him as if I were a judge.
- “You have married a Muslim”, I said.
- “What?.” He responded as if not grasping my question.
- “Why have you married a Muslim”. I repeated, this time around with the tone of someone who has been unjustly robbed.
- “What are you talking about?” He said, shifting his position as if he was seated on a bed of thorns.
- “Brother, what is that is so incomprehensible to you? Why did you marry a Muslim?”
- “But, hakim (doctor), I also am a Muslim”, he said. This time around it became my turn to attempt free myself from the thorns bothering me.
- “Friend, thus far you were a clean Armenian. Is it now that you are playing a Muslim game?” I said
It was then, with a broad smile on his face and calmly he told me his story. As a young teenager, he had become an Armenian tailor’s apprentice and had learned the trade. Over the passing decades the business had grown up and he had become a manager in the firm supervising many Armenian workers. Speaking Armenian and dealing with Armenians had become second nature to him.
Yes, that is the way it is in the fairytale Bourj Hammoud."
Note: The Original: http://vhapelian.blogspot.com/2022/12/blog-post_18.html
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