A Particular Way to Enjoy

Western Armenian has an interesting couple: վայելել (vayelel) and վայլել (vaylel). It is interesting because both words derive from Classical Armenian vayelel, and also because . . . the couple does not exist in Eastern Armenian, which has only adopted the latter.

What is the difference between them? One has kept the original meaning, while the other has turned into a specialized meaning. Thus,

1. Vayelel means “to enjoy.” For instance, «Ես ընթրիքը վայելեցի» (Yes entrikuh vayeletsi – “I enjoyed the dinner”).
2. Vaylel means “to suit” (which may be regarded as a certain way of enjoying). For instance, «Խօսելու այս ձեւը քեզի չի վայլեր» (Khoseloo ays tsevuh kezi chi vayler – “This way of talking does not suit you”).

This is not an isolated case. We may recall the Classical Armenian word աշակերտ (ashagerd, “student”), which in both branches of Armenian also gave birth to a second word: աշկերտ (ashgerd, “apprentice”).

It is common to confuse vaylel with vayelel. In any case, you cannot say «Ես ընթրիքը վայլեցի» (Yes entrikuh vayletsi). How could you “suit” the dinner?

What Do You Prefer to Pick Up?

How many people out there are not afraid of picking and reading weighty tomes? (Users of Kindle and Nook, so-called “tree huggers,” and the like are excused). But probably any of them will gladly pick up a couple of տոմս or տոմսակ (Western Armenian doms or domsag, Classical/Eastern Armenian toms or tomsak). Otherwise, they would not be able to set foot in a theater or board a plane without a “ticket.”

(The same as French billet “ticket,” both Armenian words have also another meaning: when you scribble a short message to someone, you say that you have written a doms or a domsag.)

Interesting, tome and doms/domsag “ticket” come from the same place, even though they are so different in size and weight. How come?

We know that a tome is a book, especially a heavy one. The word comes from French tome (equivalent to English volume, as in “two-volume book”), but its ultimate origin, via Latin, is Greek τόμος (tomos “section, roll of papyrus, volume”).  The diminutive of this word is τομαρίων (tomarion “small volume”). In the fifth century A.D., Armenian had borrowed both words from Greek

1. The abovementioned տոմս (toms), with the meaning of “section,” which later evolved into a piece of paper to mean a “ticket” or a billet, and the addition of the diminutive suffix ակ (ag/ak);
2. The word տոմար (tomar, Western Armenian domar), with the meaning of “section, volume,” but also “calendar.” That’s why today we use domar both in the sense of “registry book” (a bookkeeper is called a տոմարակալ /domaragal ) and “calendar” (Հայ Եկեղեցւոյ տոմար /Hay Yegeghetsvo domar “calendar of the Armenian Church”).

You will be surprised to learn that tome, doms, and domar are also related to another little English word: atom.  Atoms were thought to be indivisible, hence the name (a-tom “non-divisible”), even though they found out that they were actually divisible at the turn of the twentieth century! Incidentally, Armenian, unlike English and other Western languages, has a word of its own to say “atom,” which, by the way, is also... of Greek origin: հիւլէ (hiwle).

Love Is a Tricky Thing

If you hear the phrase “He married a girl,” you will understand that some man tied the knot with a woman. But what will you get from the literal translation «[Ան] ամուսնացաւ աղջիկ մը» ([An] amoosnatsav aghchig me)? You can only understand that . . . “a girl married”!

This is the risk of thinking in one language when talking or writing in another. Sometimes, you fall into amusing traps. In this case, you can solve it by using the proper expression «[Ան] ամուսնացաւ աղջկան մը հետ» (which literally would be “He married with a girl” in English).

Since we are in the field of sentimental issues, let us remind our readers of another troublemaker:

• “I fell in love with him”
• “I fell in love with her beauty.” 

It does not matter whether it is a physical person or a non-physical quality. In Armenian you don’t fall in love with someone or something. There is no “with” (hed) there: «Ես սիրահարեցայ անոր/իրեն» (Yes siraharetsa anor/iren), «Ես սիրահարեցայ անոր գեղեցկութեան» (Yes siraharetsa anor keghetsgootyan).

But not everything is different.

English love has a direct object: “I love my wife,” “I love my dog,” “I love soccer.” Armenian love is no different; you love someone or something: «[Ես] կը սիրեմ կինս» ([Yes] guh sirem ginus), «Ես կը սիրեմ շունս» ([Yes ] gue sirem shoonus), «[Ես] կը սիրեմ ոտնագնդակը» ([Yes] guh sirem vodnakuntaguh).

But many people are fond of loving to someone or something. For instance, when they want to declare their love, they mistakenly say «Ես քեզի կը սիրեմ» (Yes kezi guh sirem), instead of «Ես քեզ կը սիրեմ» (Yes kez guh sirem). In this case, kezi means “to you.” Do you love “to” her? Or him?

Don’t Sit on a File!

You may have a long sofa without a back, probably with various cushions against the wall. The English language calls that a divan (the same as French and Spanish), and the word comes from Turkish divan. But, indeed, the nomadic Turks had come into the Near East and did not bring the sofa with them: they simply adopted it, as they did with many other things, from the Arabs (diwan), who, in their turn, had borrowed it from the Persians. The Armenian dialects also have the word տիւան (divan), borrowed from Turkish, which is used in colloquial language.

Strangely enough, the two ultimate source words for these words, and for many others spread from the Middle East to the Atlantic Ocean, are dēvān (“archive,” in Middle Persian) and divan (“tribunal, hall, court, council chamber, collection of poems,” in Persian). How did an archive or a tribunal become a cushioned seat? The explanation is quite simple: those seats are found along the wall in Middle Eastern council chambers.

The word divan “Oriental council of state” also entered the English language in the 1580s, but it is not the kind of word that you use on a daily basis. Instead, its counterpart դիւան (tivan, in Western Armenian pronunciation) is of quite common use, although not with that same meaning.

The word entered Classical Armenian from Persian already in the fifth century. Historians Koriun and Movses Khorenatsi used դիւան with the meaning of “school” or “library.” Today, in Modern Armenian, the word is used with the meanings of “archive” and “office.”

In its first meaning, it’s synonymous with արխիւ/arkhiv, a borrowing from German via Russian.

In the second, you may hear it used when you talk about the tivan of an organization, meaning the distribution of the offices in its executive board. It also designates the office of president and secretary of an assembly.

The word is particularly used in compound terms, such as:

• Դիւանագէտ (tivanaked) “diplomat,” hence դիւանագիտութիւն (tivanakidootyoon) “diplomacy”
• Դիւանապետ (tivanabed) “head of office / head of archive”
• Դիւանակալ (tivanagal) “bureaucrat”

As you see, seats and archives are related in Armenian. It is only a matter of being careful and avoid sitting. . . on a file.

Do We Always Go Together?

This is what the final song of the famous musical Grease says: “We Go Together.” However, two quite different languages like Armenian and English do not go always together. This is quite clear in the word... “together.”

The English words “together” and “gather” are somehow related, as their meanings point out, and it is logical to think that together has evolved from the combination of to + gather.

The Armenian equivalent, միասին (miasin), is also a composite word, but has an even deeper meaning. Its origin indicates a closer relationship: two people who have not only come to gather, but have been raised together. The first word, մի (mi), is the Classical and Eastern Armenian form of “one”—մէկ (meg) in Western Armenian—and the root of the word միութիւն (miootioon, “unity”) and the second word, սին (sin), is the result of the substitution of a vocal (this is technically called ablaut) from the original word սուն (sun, “to keep, to feed, to raise,” from which we have սնունդ/sunoont, “food, nourishment”). Thus, in the beginning, to be miasin meant that one had been fed and raised with someone else.

Now, while today miasin always implies “together,” this does not mean than every time we see “together” in English we should automatically think of miasin. Otherwise, we find ourselves in trouble.

One hears, for instance, “They live together.” This is, of course, Անոնք միասին կ՚ապրին (Anonk miasin g’abrin), and there is nothing wrong here. However, when we say “He has come together with his family,” the case is different.

Armenian has something that Latin had and, for instance, German still has, but the English language has lost: noun declination (հոլովում, holovoom). These are the little particles է (e), ի (i), ով (ov), with the particular cases that “torture” us when we learn the paradigms of declination of various nouns.

One of the six cases of noun declination is called “instrumental declination” (գործիական հոլով, kordziagan holov), which applies to the abovementioned sentence. The English with is an indication of instrument, and thus, you should forget “together” when you render the sentence into Armenian. You may either say,

1)Ան իր ընտանիքին հետ եկած է (An ir undanikin hed yegadz e = He has come with his family),

or

2) Ան իր ընտանիքով եկած է (An ir undanikov yegadz e = He has come with his family)

As we said in the beginning, yes, languages go together, but not always.

A Comic Word

For those of our readers who are into comics, particularly the series X-Men, there is a female character called Jubilee in them, whose actual name is Jubilation Lee. How do the English words jubilee and jubilation relate?

We do not know for sure. Jubilation comes from the Latin verb iūbilō (“shout for joy”). Hebrew yovel (= English jubilee) marked the year at the end of seven cycles of sabbatical years, which had a special impact on the regulations of property and management of land in the land of Israel, according to the Bible. The Latin translation of the Bible (Vulgata) translated the word as iobeleus, while the Greek translation (Septuaginta) rendered it as “a trumpet-blast of liberty.” The reason for the latter was that the Jubilee year was announced by a blast on a shofar (Armenian շեփոր, shepor), an instrument made from a ram’s horn (Hebrew yobhel “ram”).

The Armenian word յոբելեան (hopelian), which today means “birthday” or “anniversary feast,” is used to mark an anniversary of any kind (for instance, 2013 was the 95th hopelian of the creation of the Republic of Armenia on May 28, 1918), whereas the English jubilee is most commonly used to mark a twenty-fifth (“silver”) or a fiftieth (“golden”) anniversary. The Armenian word derives from Greek yobelos, where the Greek suffix –os was replaced by the Armenian եան (ian), which means “belonging to.”

However, there is an alternative explanation, after all. It has been suggested that Latin jubilo and Ancient Greek iuzo (“shout”) both come from a common Indo-European root *yu- (shout for joy) that predates the Bible. (There is also the Modern English word yowl.) If such were the case, then the Hebrew word yovel would be a borrowing from a neighboring Indo-European language rather than a derivation from another Hebrew word. And then the Greek yobelos, Armenian hopelian, and English jubilee would have an ultimate Indo-European origin, even if kept by the Bible.

Words can be fun and mysterious.

How Do You Call Him?

You call someone. This means that you tell someone to come to your side, you give an invitation to someone, or you name someone.

These three meanings of the English word call are all covered by its Armenian equivalent կանչել (ganchel).

There is a fourth meaning, very common in English American usage, as a synonym of “to telephone.” Thus, if we mean to say “I called my brother” in Armenian, we should simply say «Ես եղբայրս կանչեցի» (Yes yeghpayrs ganchetsi) and end of the story.

It sounds perfectly right: English call, Armenian ganchel. But it is perfectly... wrong.

Why? The English word is the shortened version of “to call over the phone,” but we do not have this expression in Armenian: we do not say հեռաձայնով կանչել (herratzaynov ganchel), but ... հեռաձայնել (herratzaynel “to telephone/to phone”). This being the case, we are not allowed to shorten an inexistent expression in Armenian (herratzaynov ganchel) and turn it into... ganchel.

You will find yourself before amusing, and confusing, situations. For instance, someone might say in reference to a friend who has been missing for a long time:

«Թիւը գտիր ու կանչէ, խօսինք» (Tivuh kdir oo gancheh, khosink, “Find the number and call him to talk”)

How would you understand this gancheh? Would you phone him to talk or . . . invite him to come to talk? If your interlocutor had said հեռաձայնէ (heratzayneh) instead of gancheh, there would be no confusion.

Some people may think that this mistaken usage is only common in Armenian American speech, but, in fact, the same fourth meaning exists in other languages (French appeler, Spanish llamar, for instance). Therefore, you may find ganchel inaccurately used in many other corners of the Diaspora. Don’t think that because someone knows Armenian better than you, that then he necessarily speaks better than you.