30 November 2007

Each and every year should be considered 'The year of the Armenian language'


By Nishan Basmajian

Azad-Hye special

I refer to Catholicos Aram I's declaration of the year 2007 as "The year of the Armenian Language" and my subsequent comment*.

Recently I was reading an article in
Aztag daily newspaper (1st October 2007 issue) with the following title: "Vdankevadz lezounerou tej vayrer" (Location list of endangered languages), where Ms L.Guloyan-Srabian quotes and comments on the research about languages in danger. The research is done by two linguists, D. Harrison and L. Campbell.

As per Prof. Harrison, in most of the cases it is the children who decide to abandon a mother tongue. Children living in environments where two languages are spoken tend to use the higher evaluated language and they abandon the one which is given less importance (makes sense!). Read more.