What kind of armenian are you

The philosopher Plutarch described amphitheater performances 2, years ago. One of the oldest Armenian dances—which is still performed today—is the kochari , which was originally about bravery but which more broadly addresses the relationship between mortals and the divine. Special dances are performed at weddings, funerals, military occasions, and other important events. Their movements are symbolic. For example, dancers circling a bride and groom may move to the left and then to the right.

The circle represents infinity, while the shifting directions represent the vagaries of life and fortune. Scholars have catalogued over 30, folk songs from the Armenian Highlands. Traditional music is modal and often has a strong, lyrical melodic line; each of the 60 language dialects has a distinct folk style.

Many songs serve express purposes, such as worship, planting, funerals, romantic love, patriotism, and other acts of daily life. Over musical elements are sung during Armenian weddings alone. Instruments include the duduk a double-reed pipe , oud a short-necked lute , zurna a woodwind instrument , and kopal a large, two-headed drum. Carpet making is an ancient Armenian handicraft that is still practiced today. Traditional rugs have bright colors and decorative motifs such as dragons, stylized geometric shapes, and other ornamentation that can be highly symbolic.

Rugs decorate more than the floor in Armenian homes; they may rest on tables, chairs, and beds. Khachkars are an ancient form of Armenian sculpture. PLINK 11 was used for data management and quality control. The two runs were identical, suggesting good convergence.

The effective population size of the Armenians was estimated from linkage disequilibrium LD and the time of divergence between the two major groups was calculated using NeON 16 with default parameters.

The function uses Ne and the genetic distance Fst between populations to estimate their time of divergence. Fst was calculated using the software 4P.

We used f3 statistics 18 f3 A; B,C , where a significantly negative statistic provides evidence that A is derived from an admixture of populations related to B and C. The reference populations consisted of samples and 53 populations reduced from the original data set by removing populations that are themselves highly admixed Supplementary Table 1. Sardinians appear to have a distinctive admixture pattern from other West Europeans and are therefore shown separately.

Sardinians have a European component but appear to have been less affected than other Europeans by the post-Neolithic demographic changes in Europe. For tests of genetic affinity to Neolithic Europeans, we merged our samples with the genome of the Tyrolean Iceman.

We generated bootstrap replicates by resampling blocks of SNPs to assess the stability of the tree topology. In the absence of admixture with Yoruba, deviation from 0 will be a function of the shared genetic history of the ancient Europeans and the non-African population.

We observe that Armenians form a distinctive cluster bounded by Europeans, Near Easterners, and the Caucasus populations. The position of the Armenians within the global genetic diversity appears to mirror the geographical location of Turkey. Previous genetic studies have generally used Turks as representatives of ancient populations from Turkey.

Our results show that Turks are genetically shifted towards Central Asians, a pattern consistent with a history of mixture with populations from this region. Armenians individuals were projected to the plot and therefore did not contribute to the observed global structure. These diversity patterns observed in the PCA motivated formal testing of admixture in Armenians and other regional populations.

To formally test for population mixture in Armenians, we performed a 3-population test 25 in the form of f3 Armenian; A, B , where a significantly negative value of the f3 statistic implies that Armenians descend from a mixture of the populations represented by A and B , chosen from the 78 global populations. We found signals of mixture from several African and Eurasian populations Table 1 , Figure 3. The most significantly negative f3 statistics are from a mixture of populations related to Sardinians and Central Asians, followed by several mixtures of populations from the Caucasus, Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Europe, and Africa.

We sought to date these mixture of events using exponential decay of admixture-induced LD. Later, several mixture events occurred from to bce involving diverse Eurasian populations Table 1 , Figure 3. Genetically inferred source populations for Armenians, admixture times and genetic structure. Admixture events were estimated using decay of linkage disequilibrium with regional populations as sources for Armenians.

Each horizontal coloured line indicates an admixture event and its width reflects the estimated date of admixture and SE. The plot also shows the estimated date of establishment of genetic structure within Armenians — CE. Major historical events and cultural developments in the Near East are shown at the bottom. We compared the patterns of admixture in Armenians with those of other regional populations and detected signals of recent admixture in most other populations. For example, we find 7.

To investigate the presence of genetic structure within the Armenian population, we performed model-based clustering on the values of the Armenian samples from the global PCA. We observe the following: 1 Armenians in the diaspora that trace their origin to historical Western Armenia modern-day East Turkey form one group Supplementary Figure S1 , Cluster 1.

We then constructed a tree that infers population relationships and similarities Supplementary Figure S2. We found, similarly to our previous clustering results, a fine genetic structure that splits Armenians into two major groups that are more similar to each other than to any other global population.

The node containing most Armenians is deep compared with many other nodes containing several diverse regional populations. This probably reflects a prolonged isolation of the Armenians from their surrounding populations as suggested by the LD-based admixture tests. We estimate from the LD patterns that divergence between the two major Armenian groups started — years ago Figure 3. We used TreeMix 19 to construct a tree of genetic relationships using representative regional populations plus Armenians and Turks from the Near East.

TreeMix uses a model that allows for both population splits and gene flow to better capture historical relationships between populations. We obtained a tree that recapitulates the known relationships among population groups.

Furthermore, the tree shows that the Iceman shared drift with Sardinians, as previously reported. The graph structure appeared robust in bootstrap replicates with the first migration highest weight and lowest P -value , always leading from the Iceman to Armenians Figure 4.

Inferred population tree with one mixture event. The graph was inferred by TreeMix allowing one migration event. The graph is stable in bootstrap replicates. This structure was further investigated using outgroup f3 statistics. The origins of the Armenians and their cultural uniqueness are poorly understood. However, this would make it hard to explain the close relationship between the Indo-Iranians and Proto-Armenians, if the latter would have been in the Near East around the 3rd millennium BCE.

Besides, even more impressive lexical correspondences between Armenian and Greek, both shared innovations and substrate words especially in the domains of agriculture and technical activities, imply a long and multistage stay of Proto-Armenians in the regions not very far from the Black Sea. The linguistic evidence enables the following preliminary conclusions on the place of Armenian in the Indo-European language family to be drawn.

Armenian, Greek, and Indo-Iranian, and possibly also Phrygian and Thracian were dialectally close to each other, and may even have formed a dialectal group at the time of the Indo-European dispersal. Within this hypothetical dialect group, Proto-Armenian was situated between Proto-Greek and proto-Phrygian, etc. On the northern side it might have neighboured, notably, Proto-Balto-Slavic. After the Indo-European dispersal, Armenian developed isoglosses with Indo-Iranian on the one hand and Greek on the other.

The Indo-Iranians then moved eastwards, while the Proto-Armenians and Proto-Greeks remained in a common geographical region for a long period and developed numerous shared innovations.

Therefore, even if one accepts the Near-Eastern origin of the Indo-Europeans, it is hard to claim that the PIE dispersal took place in the Near East, and that the Proto-Armenians stayed there all the time.

Efforts have been made to reconcile the two theories within a chronological framework implying two phases: an earlier stage in the Near East and a later stage north of the Caucasus mountains and the Black Sea. We have written documents at our disposal for examining the cultural history of the Armenians during the last two and a half millennia, both in Armenian as far as the period from the 5th century CE is concerned and foreign sources.

As for the period from the origin of the Proto-Armenian language to the first millennium BCE, we have no concrete historical data whatsoever. The only systematic tool to explore early Armenian culture during this period of over 2 or 3 millennia is historical linguistics. After the Indo-European dispersal, as we have observed, Proto-Armenian, Proto-Greek, Proto-Italic and some contiguous language-branches may have remained in contact somewhere in the Pontic or Mediterranean Balkan areas probably in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC.

It is remarkable that in some cases there are also comparable forms in non-Indo-European languages of the Caucasus and the Near East. On the other hand, Armenian shows a considerable number of lexical correspondences with European branches of the Indo-European language family, a large portion of which too should be explained in terms of substrate rather than Indo-European heritage.

Subsequent stages in the development of the Armenian language are characterized by a great number of borrowings from neighbouring languages: Caucasian, Anatolian, Semitic, Iranian, and so on. Armenian is the source of a large number of words in various languages of the Near East and the Caucasus. Note, for example, a few ancient Armenisms in Kartvelian languages such as:. The Iranian element is the largest layer of the Armenian lexicon.

It comprises a period of more than 2. The high number of Iranian loans led scholars in the midth century to conclude that Armenian belonged to the Iranian group of Indo-European languages. The first two layers belong to prehistoric times, whereas the third belongs to the most recent period and is partially elucidated by historical records. At this stage of research, we have no solid positive evidence but it is more than probable, however, that the pre-Christian Armenians used some signs for ritual or magical purposes.

Some ethnographic materials indirectly testify that prehistoric Armenians might have used birch bark for writing magic signs. In the Armenian district of Basen, they made amulets hmayil out of birch bark, put them into a triangular cloth, sewed and hung from the neck of beautiful children and animals to keep them away from the Evil Eye.

It is not specified whether there were written signs on these birch bark amulets. Nevertheless, there is some indirect evidence which makes one believe that those triangular amulets, at least originally, should have contained magical writings. This practice finds parallels, either genetic or typological, in other Indo-European traditions, namely Indic and Slavic. Period of immigration to the United States by region or country of origin for foreign-born Armenian Americans, — Table 1 indicates that Armenians from the Middle East were the single largest sub-ethnicity among foreign-born before ; however, after that date the majority of immigrants came from Armenia and former Soviet Union, though they may have reported Republic Armenia in the survey.

The Census numbers confirm the waves of immigration discussed above. As a result, the future of Western Armenian in the United States cannot count on new arrivals from the Middle East as in the past; more seriously, Eastern Armenian speakers from Armenia are increasing table not shown. At-home language use and English proficiency of native-born and foreign-born Armenian Americans by region or country of origin, — The decline of at home usage of the language contributes to the daunting obstacles activists for the survival of Western Armenian in the United States have to overcome.

At the beginning of the 20th century, assimilation was the guiding policy in the US and most new immigrants, including Armenians, were short on resources, thus, ethnic schools were not established.

Nonetheless, mothers — many who had survived the deportations — taught the Armenian language to their children. Eventually, Armenian political parties [7] offered Saturday Armenian classes. Concurrently, Armenian American newspapers started to publish English-language sections and eventually issued separate papers see also Alexander When the second wave arrived from the Middle East, they clashed with the Americanized Armenians over language.

What kind of Armenian are you? The newcomers had attended Armenian schools in Lebanon, Syria, and other countries and wanted to educate their US-born children in that tradition.

Consequently, specific historical contexts explain the changes between the second generation in the s and those in the s. Today, there are 24 Armenians schools in the US see Table 3. Although all Armenian day schools in the US host a diverse student population with regard to family background and linguistic form and dialect, all of them offer Western Armenian as their standard track.

There are three schools in Los Angeles one kindergarten, one 1st through 8th grade, and one high school that offer both Eastern and Western track to their students. List of Armenian all-day schools in the United States: location, year established, enrollment in , and highest grade level.

In addition to all-day Armenian schools in the United States, there are numerous part-time schools and institutions that support Western Armenian. C, and Young Professional clubs that are likely to maintain Armenian networks, but do not necessarily reinforce the language, especially among the US-born.

While Armenian language and history have been offered sporadically in colleges and universities in United States since the turn of the 20th century, the establishment of the National Association of Armenian Studies and Research NAASR in generated momentum to endow chairs and programs Mamigonian — While Harvard, Columbia and UCLA had the first chairs for Armenian Studies in the s, the number of universities with endowed positions in a variety of topics and institutes has increased over time.

In the last decade, UCLA has been the foremost institution to offer instruction in Armenian language, in both Eastern and Western tracks.

Private Armenian day schools provide the space where Western Armenian is taught to a new generation of speakers and where it can potentially become institutionalized or standardized. In the past four decades, Southern California allowed Western Armenian speakers and Eastern Armenian speakers to interact and develop a new hybrid colloquial Armenian speech. However, cultural institutions have not been able to cultivate the evolving linguistic forms into a literary language Jinbashian Consequently, the result is more detrimental to Western Armenian for two reasons.

As discussed above, Western speakers are dwindling in the US by lower immigration rates from the Middle East, by aging and death of the Western speaking cohorts and by the assimilation of the second and third generations. Second, Eastern Armenian has validity as the official language of a nation-state, but more importantly, the Republic has the power to maintain the language adaptive and vital through its institutionalized infrastructure.

In contrast, Western Armenian is a state-less, exilic language facing the threat of assimilation not only from other languages, but also from its Eastern counterpart. One of the overarching phenomena affecting Armenian day schools today is the rapid shift in student demographics, which challenges the existing Armenian language curriculum and mode of instruction. Whereas this model may have been appropriate for the children of first generation immigrant families, it does not cater to the needs of the current student body, whose overwhelming majority is comprised of third generation immigrants, who use English as their dominant language.

Another issue impacting Armenian schools is the influx of Syrian refugees. These children are Western Armenian speakers who have attended Armenian schools, but their English is weak or non-existent. These students make up a small percentage of the student body e. A school in Southern California where the majority of parents come from Soviet or Post-Soviet Armenia serves as the exception to this experience, claiming that the home language of the majority of their students is Armenian.

Yet, regardless of familiar background and at-home practices, all of the educators in our survey unequivocally claim that English is the preferred language of communication that students use during recess periods.

Teachers and school administrators seem to have resigned themselves to the lack of language vitality within their schools and do not recognize it as an arena where they can intervene and bring about change. When asked about recess language use, a principal of a K—8 school justified why it is important not to force a particular language of preference onto students, and shared an alternate strategy. She said:. My strategy is that depending on who the teacher is, every adult at my school has one designated language.

We never say, Hayeren khosetsek [Speak in Armenian! Language has to be part of the context. Same goes for the French teacher, for example. Inside or outside of the classroom, when they see her, they know they need to address her in French.

In other words, the Armenian language is relegated to the classroom in Armenian schools across the United States. The majority of Armenian day schools offer two class periods of Armenian instruction per day, including corollary subjects like Armenian history and religion, which amounts to an average of eight to ten hours of instruction in the Armenian language per week.

When we asked our respondents about the time allocation for Armenian class, some principals remarked that the background and training of their faculty often allows for some flexibility in expanding Armenian language instruction to other subjects like music, dance, and art. For instance, one principal noted:. We are lucky to have one of our Armenian language teachers teach also art to grades 1st through 8th.

She uses both languages during art classes. Similarly, our computer teacher in middle school is Armenian, and she uses both languages in class instructions more English when it comes to technical words. It would be ideal if we could also use Armenian during Physical Education; however, our teacher is not Armenian.

Other administrators expressed a similar sentiment about tapping into faculty background to offer more expansive Armenian language instruction. Yet this bilingual flexibility was never extended to core subjects such as science and math, and was discussed only with regard to extracurricular creative arts classes.

The immersion model has gained popularity as the most effective means of teaching a second language and has been adopted by university programs and public school systems. By the end of the academic year, students receive equal instruction in both languages on a variety of subjects. These programs are developed in Eastern Armenian and use the federal, reformed orthography.

By contrast, in private Armenian schools across the United States, Armenian is taught as a second language through a curriculum that is developed based on first or dominant language standards. This discrepancy is the biggest challenge in the classroom for Armenian language teachers. As a result, they lack the very basic vocabulary necessary to hold a conversation. Subsequently, the second most mentioned challenge that teachers say they face in the classroom was accommodating to different levels of language skills.

Schools with smaller student population often regroup their students for Armenian class, according to level of competence. For instance, one K—8 school divides their 6th through 8th graders into three levels of Armenian rather than offering one Armenian class per grade.

Language standards enable a curriculum to advance progressively across grade levels and provide quantifiable objectives with which language acquisition can be measured. A group of teachers belonging to a cluster of affiliated schools explained that their Board of Regents had developed Armenian language standards for 1—8 grade levels [10] a little over ten years ago.

Yet all of them alleged to have modified the standards to better fit their student needs or abandoned them altogether.