- Language is the undeniable condition of our existence. On the map of the world and in the huge area of the country, this small land and the people have conquered their place in the language. Language is a way of living, language is the world, food and a means of struggle, a way of self-expression and self-presentation.
- What is language for you?
- Language is homeland. I think that different approaches are imposed for me and for any rural woman, that I feel strong in the language with the knowledge of Vahan Teryan, Movses Khorenatsi, epic, rural and cultural, but we also cannot forget that the enjoyment of the language is experienced by, if not the whole people, then at least many who perceive the language as music, theater, as a game, painting. For them, the language also has the cultural layers of Vahan Teryan, Khorenatsi, for them, the language is also their homeland.
Language is a world. But my attitude today must be different from yesterday. In the conditions of yesterday's joint life of the peoples of the Union, the loss of language and the decline of the languages of small nations, my speech took on a completely different tone. I was in a combative mood with my aggressive appeals to the authorities to return to the linguistic homeland, to bring foreign and Russian language schools to their linguistic homeland amid the proliferation of foreign and Russian language schools. I used to feel that way, now I don't. Although my status as a citizen at that time was more favorable, there was a certain platform, the status of a citizen of a great Soviet country also ensured me to become an opposition force and fight for something, now my foundation is a bit shaky. It seems that the Union has neither the stability nor its danger. After all, the union of different linguistic marzes is the complete language: administrative, army, factory, street, various slangs. You don't have a military industry, so you don't have the vocabulary of that region, your offices work in other languages, so your whole language becomes poor. I am envious of the tendency of Georgians and Estonians to Georgianize and Estonianize all marzes in the face of severe competition. I had moments of jealousy. A small number of nations, such as the Georgians and the Estonians, even at that time were pulling their forces from themselves, sitting them down and translating Joyce, they were trying to transfer the peaks of world culture to their small linguistic areas. Stronger among them was the consciousness that the loss of language is the loss of race. That danger is not over with us yet. Today, the Armenian language, intellectuals and people live in other dimensions. Living with the language, enriching the language, putting it into operation for a small part of the nation. The rest are for other purposes and, in fact, are not the sons of Armenians. Will it be possible to invite our intellectuals to return to writing and language, as a small group of Armenian clergy did in the 1500-year history? By keeping the grip, he actually managed to call the nation back to himself, to the language, within the limits of the church and the language.
Like our ancestor, ours will be the same if we can make that invitation. We have many people in the Diaspora world who are not in the fields of our culture. This is one of our difficult times. But the largest detachment of the intelligentsia is here. The potential is here. If in today's conditions Armenia could become the Mkhitaryan Congregation and its light on the four origins, the letter would send...
The existence of a large region, the rural language, is under threat. One day, I entered the house of Lusohogi Sahyan, I saw sweat on his forehead, papers were scattered around him, the place was probably not suitable, he is sitting there panting. He wrote 500 words related to bread: agos, yoke, sami, ox, milegh, hask, tsanks, kal, eran, go to herants, dez, jahlats, flour, so it came, it came... and at the end he says that today's child knows only two words instead of so many words: kopek and bukhanka. This is how much the Armenian reader departs from the biblical texts, alienating the rustic, rural, agricultural Armenian. But isn't Christianity developed in the market as well as in the rural environment? And most of the vocabulary there is related to rural work. Being alienated from this great language period, he alienates from himself the light brought by the Bible and medieval culture. And if we say that the medieval, world and our literature are mostly woven with it, then this literature becomes difficult to digest and requires annotations.
- Language has its own biography, which is also created by writers.
- One should not forget the biography of the language. You see, even Tumanyan did not have a puritanical attitude towards the Turkish language, he was not a purist towards the language. Well, the peoples lived together, the languages mixed, and here the biography of the language was made. See what the history of literature teaches us. All masterpieces arose on the living language of the people. Then remember Abovyan's "Wound", Sundukyan's titanic presence in the language with the taste and smell of Tiflis. On the other hand, what did the purists do? Yes, it seems to work in poetry. In short-breathed affairs, the pure language lies. Varuzhan, Metsarents, Teryan...
- And the bifurcation of the language... The conflict between the Western Armenian and the Eastern Armenian is a necessary reality, but it took away many colors.
- There will be a great, unified Armenian language based on Eastern Armenian. However, it is the Eastern Armenian language that will preserve the memory of the language and dialects, the Western Armenian culture. I understand our Armenian brothers in the diaspora. They know that language is a world, that the author cannot be removed from his language, just as it cannot be transferred from one language to another without loss. Even if you bring any world author, say Shakespeare, into Armenian and have no losses, bring Pushkin into Armenian and have no losses, remove Tumanyan from Armenian, Sundukyan from his dialect. However, this is the way. The Eastern Armenian language should include the created lasting values. The big ones, the titans, become the laws, they bring the tartam mist into shape. Papazyan did, didn't he, he gave the example of brilliant assimilation? Goethe did, didn't he, create a unified German, Bismarck and Goethe did, didn't they? Pushkin brought the Russia of fleeing, disappearing dialects to the Russian language. I remembered a beautiful thing: the saying of the great Firdus. "Through thirty years of effort, I revived Persia in Persian." Armenia would not exist without Teryan, Tumanyan, Metsarents, that's right, they brought the real content of the homeland.
- What is the value of the word for you? What weight and measure does the word have for you?
- When I was still sensitive, the author was revealed to me on the first, second, third page. Another thing I saw was that the page woke up thanks to the word I found. The word would fit correctly on the object, and...the object, the movement, the adverb, the reality, the thought would come off the page, and the text would emerge as such. Remember how you read your Maharu. A little bit of dead, lifeless text, then a little bit of flashing, like there's a short circuit. His is not the peaceful, equal warmth of Tumanyan, he is the author of sparkles and flashes.
- Who else do you consider the author of fireworks of words?
- Mushegh was like that, Mushegh Galshoyan. The word was his secret. The same word does not save other people's texts. No, it doesn't save. At that time I told Mushegh. "What a big and beautiful store you have." Sasno dialect, the epic is a popular symbol, a treasury. That's how you read Mushegh, as if you had entered a treasury. But see that for others it is not. Here, adults make their own laws.
- The word fattening is also used in your literature. Where do the sparks of your language feel come from?
- From the beginning, I had the love of Maharu, Bakuntsi's prose. They saved my youth, they gave me Armenian language texts. But the way to a peaceful prose story is Zoryan. Does not have bright color adverbs.
The presence of literary greats Teryan, Tumanyan, Charents, Varuzhan pushed me towards the language of literature. After having had enough of them, there was a return to the life-giving source.
- Not wanting to compare with the picture of decades ago, I cannot but say that today on the lips of a large mass of our people, our language sounds like the silent sawing of a sunflower. Like the rewinding frames of a movie tape, our clean and pure Armenian rolled onto the shelves, fell asleep on the pages of closed books. The market towns and villages burst into conversation with beer-smelling conversation, hawkers tangled in the streets, the sounds of our taste-smell language fell into stone... Is it a tremor caused by an alien bacillus or a magician's trick?
- An era is closing, a humanitarian era. Not only the 70-year-old communist past, but also the two-hundred-year-old past of the borders of our vision is being closed. After all, Russia of the tsar and Armenia of the Catholicos were also ideological communities. It was the time of an idea, the components of which were painting, song, theater, language, language... the march from the tsar to the muzhik people was a march towards the idea and beauty of humanism, as opposed to the pragmatism of the new era. That era is closing. The language with all its attributes is facing a difficult situation. Public life with all its components is facing a test. But no matter what, the instinct of self-defense will push us to the path of self-differentiation, self-preservation. Etchmiadzin never became Byzantine, never became Muscovite. It was yesterday, wasn't it, there was resistance, self-awareness spoke. I must have my own national religion. And so it is today. The path of self-differentiation will be opened: my letter will not be uglier than your letter, my poem will be better than yours. This is the condition, this is the path. Being behind in our time, teaching the nations that came before our time, we will nevertheless "betray" them. We are not in their procession. We will "betray" as we always have, we will not always assimilate. It will be back to ourselves.
- You say, we also say that language is homeland. Today, we all know that, rightly or wrongly, many people leave their homeland. That said, we are leaving the language. Does the feeling of the language being theirs die in their soul and under their skin?
- Of course. As much as the school taught me Armenian, so did our house and the street. He will be impoverished in a foreign environment. Armenia will be our cultural center, our St. Lazarus. Because here is the head of the nation.
- And what is the fate of the one who was born and raised in another land, what is his native language?
- Language compulsion, dictation exists. Nevertheless, Saroyan is the son of American and English. American writers fought against English because they knew that the culture created in English does not enter American life, does not reflect American life. They wanted to create their own American English.
The imperative of our language will force us here to have a real Armenian culture, the homeland of Armenian culture, to which there will be those who come and aspire from alienation.
The interview was conducted by Vardanush Torosyan
"Armetyun", No. 6, 1996