Everything Started with a Birth

The word “Christmas,” indeed, has Christ in its root. It is actually a shortened form of “Christ’s mass,” which was recorded in its Old (Crīstesmæsse ) and Middle English (Cristemasse) forms during the Middle Ages.

Interestingly, the feast was sometimes called by Anglo-Saxons Nātiuiteð, which originated the modern word “Nativity” and had its roots in Latin nātīvitās (“birth”).

Like in Latin, the Armenian word for Christmas is Ծնունդ (Dzunoont), meaning “birth” (dzunoont). Etymologically, the words for both languages are related. Nātīvitās combines the word nātīvus (“native”) with the suffix – tas , and nātīvus derives from nāscor (“I am born”), which comes from an earlier form gnāscor . This original form has its roots, indeed, in the Proto-Indo-European language (the mother language for both Armenian and Latin), where we find the root *ǵenh ₁ (“to give birth”). This is a very prolific root: it originated the Greek word γεννάω (gennáō , “to beget,” from which came the English word genealogy) and several words in Latin, like genus (“offspring,” from which came the English genuine) and natio (“nation”), among others.

Also, believe it or not, the same root produced the Armenian word ծին (dzin ), from which we have the verb ծնիլ (dzunil “to give birth”) in Modern Armenian and, also, the noun dzunoont. How is that? This is because the Proto-Indo-European *ǵ becomes ծ ( dz ) in Armenian.

Incidentally, the same word dzunoont is, logically, on the basis of the first biblical book. The title of the Book of Genesis was translated into Classical Armenian as Գիրք Ծննդոց (Kirk Dzununtots ), because it gave the genealogy (ծննդաբանութիւն / dzununtapanutiun ) of mankind.

As we see, the root dzin is a prolific one. It was not unexpected that in most recent times it would become a noun: it currently designates the word gene in Armenian.



From the birth of Jesus Christ to the study of genes in the third millennium, the Armenian language finds its way to keep pace with the times.

“Joyful Thanksgiving”­?

Thanksgiving is over. Among the myriad of “Happy Thanksgiving” greetings going all over the place, did you hear anyone saying “Joyful Thanksgiving”?
Of course not. Everyone said “Happy Thanksgiving,” because this is what the English language mandates to say. Happiness is a temporary feeling (and the celebration of a particular day is temporary), while joy has a lasting, more abstract connotation. Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” would have taken a different meaning if it had been entitled “Ode to Happiness.” Not by chance, the eighteenth-century Christmas carol says “Joy to the world, the Lord is come” and not… “Happiness to the world…”
Now, how did you say your wish in Armenian? Did you say Ուրախ Գոհաբանութեան օր (Oorakh Kohapanootian or)?
If you did, you were utterly wrong, because you were saying… “Joyful Thanksgiving.” You cannot use oorakh to say “happy” when you are giving good wishes, but only yerchanig.
It is true that some dictionaries may use “happy” to translate both oorakh and yerchanig (երջանիկ). Unfortunately, dictionary authors may be very skillful at putting words together, but very sloppy at thinking how those words are actually used in a sentence. The fact that Google Translate offers the same alternative is, of course, negligible: you are dealing with something called “statistical machine translation,” not a human translator sensible to language nuances.
The Armenian language offers yet another alternative: the word շնորհաւոր (shunorhavor), which indicates your wishes of grace (շնորհք/shunorhk) for a happy event; e.g. Շնորհաւոր տարեդարձ (Shunorhavor daretartz). You could have also used it for Thanksgiving, as in Շնորհաւոր Գոհաբանութեան օր (Shunorhavor Kohapanootian or).
Incidentally, you can still use shunorhavor during the forthcoming holidays to say “Happy New Year”:  Շնորհաւոր Նոր Տարի (Shunorhavor Nor Dari). It would sound awkward to say yerchanig for Christmas, even though we say Merry Christmas (and not “Happy Christmas”). Exceptions confirm the rule: we say Շնորհաւոր Սուրբ Ծնունդ (Shunorhavor Soorp Dzunoont) and not Երջանիկ Սուրբ Ծնունդ (Yerchanig Soorp Dzunoont). If you want to make your wishes in one shot, then it is Shunorhavor Nor Dari yev Soorp Dzunoont. As you see, it does not have more words than Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.