“People have the power.” “Youth are the future.” Any English speaker will not think twice before using the words people and youth in plural. This happens because both words are thought as plural, even though they are singular in construction.
However, don’t even think for a second about writing «Ժողովուրդը ուժը ունին» (Zhoghovoorte oozhe oonin) and «Երիտասարդութիւնը ապագան են» (Yeridasartootioone abakan en). As we have said in other opportunities, the rules of Armenian are not the same as the rules of English, and naturally, the result of thinking in English and writing in Armenian is not... Armenian.
What happens in this case? As in Indo-European languages other than English (for instance, Spanish and French), the words zhoghovoort (“people”) and yeridasartootioon (“youth”) are singular in construction and must match a singular verb. (It is true that in certain cases, you can use youth with a singular verb, but there is not a choice in Armenian.) Even more: the word yeridasartootioon, unlike its English counterpart, cannot be used in plural.
Then, the right way to translate the two sentences is:
«Ժողովուրդը ուժը ունի» (Zhoghovoorte oozhe ooni – “People have the power”)
«Երիտասարդութիւնը ապագան է» (Yeridasartootioone abakan eh – “Youth are the future”).
Of course, someone may think that both sentences are not true, and that neither do the people have the power (it is somewhere else) nor the youth are the future (they are the present). But this is a subject for a different discussion.
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