Only Right Guides Admitted

The word arachnort (առաջնորդ) has several meanings in Armenian: “guide,” “leader,” “chief,” “head,” and by extension, “head of an ecclesiastic division.” It is, obviously, a composition of the word arachin (առաջին “first”) and the suffix ord (որդ): arachin + ort = arachnort. Interestingly, one of its English equivalents, primate (“head of an ecclesiastic division”), is a French word that came from Latin primat (“of the first rank”), a derivation from Latin primus (“first”).

It is interesting to compare the roots of both words: primus is related to Latin pre (“before”), which has generated a lot of English words (predict, prescribe, prevention, and so on and so forth), while arachin literally means “towards the right.” It is another compound word: ar (առ) + ach (աջ) + in (ին). The prefix ar is a Classical Armenian term that means “towards” (today we use tebi-դէպի in Modern Armenian) and ach is, of course, the side contrary to the left.

An arachnort, then, was the person who guided, led, or headed correctly (“to the right”), be it a tourist guide, a political leader, an administrative head, or a primate or prelate.

As the reader probably knows, anything related to the left (ձախ-tsakh) had a bad press until recent times: left-handed people were forced to become right-handed, for instance. The verb “to fail” is tsakhoghil (ձախողիլ) in Armenian, whose root is, indeed, tsakh. Left was synonymous with inaccurate and incorrect, anything that was not... right.

This is why the word achaguits (աջակից “assistant, supporter”) is formed by the combination of ach (աջ) and gits (կից “to join, to attach”). The person who assisted or supported someone was supposed to help from the right side. Nobody would have dared to call her tsakhaguits; it would have probably attracted bad luck from the very beginning.

People and Youth Are Not Plural

“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.

Why “Organ” and “Crocodile” Are Slightly Different?

Languages constantly borrow words from each other. Sometimes, the words remain the same as in the original, or slightly changed, and sometimes there are other factors that make them change. We have a couple of words in English that have remained essentially the same:

- English organ, “musical instrument,” borrowed via French and Latin from Greek organon, "organ, instrument, tool"

- English crocodile, borrowed via Latin from Greek krokodilos.

However, the same Greek sources gave a different result when Armenian borrowed from them. 

The word organon, with the meaning of “organ,” should have been transliterated as որգանոն (organon) in Classical Armenian; as we all know, the letter օ did not exist in the Armenian alphabet in the fifth century A.D.

Instead, it became ergion (երգիոն) or ergehon (երգեհոն), which today we pronounce yerkion or yerkehon in Western Armenian. How the root changed? The reason has to be found in the influence of the well-known word erg (երգ) that meant “song” and “poem” in Classical Armenian, but also “musical instrument.” (Today yerk only means “song”).

Something similar seems to have happened with the Armenian for “crocodile.” The Greek krokodilos became kokordilos (կոկորդիլոս), which today we pronounce gogortilos in Western Armenian. Crocodiles have big mouths and the word kokord/gogort (կոկորդ) means “throat, gorge.” Perhaps whoever used the Greek word for the first time wanted to make sense for the Armenian speaker that the crocodile, actually, had a big throat.

You Always Call Someone

Imagine the following dialogue in Armenian: “The boy is outside.” “Call him now!”  How would you write it down?
- Dghan toorsn eh (Տղան դուրսն է)
- Hima .... gancheh (Հիմա ... կանչէ՛)

The ellipsis is your problem. What word should go there?

Most people would say Hima iren/anor gancheh (Հիմա իրեն/անոր կանչէ՛). Yes, the words iren and anor mean “him” and “her” (we will speak about their difference another time), but in this case, the use of either one is basically wrong. Why?

Because ganchel (the same as “to call”) is a transitive verb that requires a direct object, and both iren and anor are used to indicate indirect objects. In Armenian, as in English, you call someone, you do not call to someone.

Our problem, therefore, would be solved by writing Hima dghan gancheh (Հիմա տղան կանչէ՛), instead of the grammatically incorrect form Hima dghayin gancheh (Հիմա տղային կանչէ՛). We do not want to repeat dghan, since our interlocutor already used it. Then, the correct pronoun would be zink (զինք), and the sentence above should be Hima zink gancheh (Հիմա զինք կանչէ՛).

Someone may argue: “What about zayn (զայն)?” Indeed, zayn is another pronoun that accompanies transitive verbs. For instance, you have been assigned a book report. Pointing out to the book, you would say: Bedk e zayn gartam (Պէտք է զայն կարդամ “I have to read it”).

It is true that in the early twentieth century, when Western Armenian was still in its phase of development, zayn was also applied, like zink, to people. However, in contemporary Western Armenian zayn is used only for objects (“it”), while zink is reserved for people (“him/her”).

In conclusion:
a) You have to learn by heart a few Armenian verbs that require direct objects (which, unfortunately for the learner, are not exactly the same as in English), in the same way that you have learned that you call or love “someone,” and not “to someone.”

b) Most importantly, you have also to learn not to confuse a person with an object.

From Paradise to Yettem, California

The word for “garden” in Classical Armenian was bardez (պարտէզ). It came from the language of the old Iranian sacred book, the Avesta, which had the word pairidaeza (“park”). This word has kept the same meaning in our current language. However, it is interesting to note that English paradise and Armenian bardez are actually first cousins, but with different meanings. The English word came from Old French, which at its turn had Latin paradisus as its source. The source for Latin was Greek paradeisos, and the latter came again from Avestan pairidaeza.

However, we do not say bardez in the case of the Paradise. The book of Genesis tells us that Eden was actually a region where God planted a garden and placed Adam (Gen. 2:8). The Armenian word corresponding to “garden,” in the translation of the Bible, was trakhd (դրախտ), which was borrowed from the Iranian languages, where it actually meant “tree.” In the same way that the “garden of Eden” became, over time, Eden (Paradise), its Armenian equivalent trakhd yetemagan (դրախտ եդեմական) became simply trakhd (“Paradise”), and gradually lost its meaning “garden.”

Nevertheless, we also have the Armenian word Yetem (Եդեմ), which is the same as the English Eden. You may recall that the Californian town of Lovell, at the beginning of the twentieth century, was renamed Yettem due to the overwhelming presence of Armenians there. Yettem, located 18 kilometers north of Visalia, has a population of 211, according to the U.S. Census of 2010, and few, if any, Armenians nowadays, but St. Mary Armenian Apostolic Church, founded in 1911, is still active there.

Please, Bear in Mind

We have spoken in the past about the risks of thinking in English and speaking in Armenian. Sometimes this creates impossible situations. For instance, when you try to use a very plain sentence like, “Please, sit down.”

We have to always remember that English has only ONE pronoun for the second person: you, both for singular and for plural. When we read the sentence “You’re right,” we cannot be sure whether the “you” in question is one person or a dozen, a family member or a complete stranger, and, therefore, how that “you” applies. However, in other languages, like French, Spanish, or Armenian, there is no such problem. They have TWO pronouns for the second person, and then it is very easy to understand to whom one is addressing. In the case of Armenian, we have tun (դուն) in singular and tuk (դուք) in plural, and each has a totally different way of conjugation.

To give only one example, if you want to say “please”:

a. When you address your friend, you say hajis (հաճիս);
b. When you address a stranger or a crowd, you say hajetsek (հաճեցէք).

This also means that you cannot mix the singular to address a friend with the plural to tell him what to do. For example, if you intend to say, “Please, sit down,” you HAVE to say Hajis, nsdeh! (Հաճիս, նստէ՛), you can NEVER say Hajis, nsdetsek, which is a very common mistake among American-born Armenian speakers. (Of course, you can also say Khntrem, nsdeh [Խնդրեմ, նստէ՛]).

Otherwise, if you want to address a stranger or a crowd, you HAVE to say Hajetsek nsdil (Հաճեցէք նստիլ), where instead of the imperative nsdeh we use the infinitive nsdil. Why? It is a matter of style. If you were to say Hajetsek nsdetsek (Հաճեցէք նստեցէ՛ք), it would sound utterly ridiculous. (Otherwise, you can say Khntrem, nsedetsek [Խնդրեմ, նստեցէ՛ք], which sounds perfectly normal).

Language is communication, but the better you speak a language, the better it reflects on you.

What Happens When You Misread a Word?

Greeks went up to Oriental Asia to get a very valuable fabric from the Seres, and called it Serikos. The Roman borrowed the name from them and turned it into sericum. As many other Latin words, this one also traveled up to the British Islands and entered Old English, where the sound r turned into l. The resulting name, seoloc/sioloc, later became the well-known silk of today.

The same Oriental source for silk also gave an Armenian word that, interestingly, does not mean “silk,” but “silkworm”: sheram (շերամ). However, it is assumed that the function of middleman was not carried by the Greek language, because Greek does not have the sound sh. It was probably Syriac, which has the word šeraya (š=sh) “silky material.”

The Armenian language, it appears, borrowed the word in the fifth century A.D. and applied it to the insect that produced the “silky material.” However, the Armenian word appears in all manuscripts until the eighteenth century as շերաս or շէրաս (sheras). The same word was also used in some Western Armenian dialects, such as Akn and Kharpert, until 1915. How did it become sheram?

Sometimes, new words (or old words with a different look) are created by human mistake. The first attempt at a complete dictionary of the Armenian language was undertaken by Mekhitar of Sebastia (1676-1749), the founder of the Mekhitarist Congregation, and his disciples. The massive, two-volume Dictionary of Classical Armenian Language (Բառգիրք Հայկազեան լեզուի) was published in 1749 and 1769. The first volume was authored by Mekhitar himself (it went off the press a few days before his death). The erudite monk, who collected much of his materials from unpublished manuscripts, appears to have found the word in a sentence where sheras was followed by the punctuation sign put (բութ)—ՇԵՐԱՍ՝—and misread it as ՇԵՐԱՄ (SHERAM).

Almost a century later, the New Dictionary of Classical Armenian Language (1836-1837), prepared by a new generation of Mekhitarist monks, superseded the work of Mekhitar. The second volume printed the word as sheras. However, for some reason, subsequent authors chose to follow Mekhitar’s dictionary and this is how the Modern Armenian word for “silkworm” was artificially created.

Of course, after two centuries, it is a little late to make changes.