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Started by Ancilla Domini, June 17, 2014, 11:51:28 AM

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Ancilla Domini

I'm suddenly very interested in the Armenian language and culture. It's not a place I know much about or had ever given much thought until recently. But it was the first nation to officially adopt Christianity in 301 AD. Its national church, the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church, is Oriental Orthodox, meaning non-Chalcedonian. The Armenian ethnicity stretches far beyond the borders of the state of Armenia and has long constituted minorities in countries throughout the Near East and more recently throughout the world. The culture shares many features with the Mediterranean countries that I so love, including its food, music, hospitality, value of family, and general friendliness.

The language is very interesting. It has its own branch within the Indo-European family, though some scholars believe that it shares a common ancestor with Greek. At the very least it shares more vocabulary with Greek than any other language, though due to its history, the language shows lexical influences from many languages including Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Russian, Greek, Latin, and even Old French! (the Crusades, I presume?). The language is inflected with six cases and multiple tenses, moods, and voices, but it lacks grammatical gender. It has its own alphabet, which was created by Mesrop Mashtots, a linguist and cleric, in 405 AD and was used to translate the Bible into Armenian. Despite its long history, the language has changed little from this Classical period, and modern speakers of Armenian can still read and understand this first translation. The language has many dialects, but 2 are officially recognized - Eastern and Western - and these are mutually intelligible. I'm not yet sure which I prefer, though I used the Western variety in the thread title.

So... does anyone else here share my interest?   

MilesChristi

My grandfather is from Armenia.....
































Colombia

Enviado desde mi SCH-I545 mediante Tapatalk
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
    It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
    It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
    And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
    And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Ancilla Domini

Quote from: MilesChristi on June 17, 2014, 12:19:31 PM
My grandfather is from Armenia.....

Colombia

Miles...  ::)


I was going to ask if there was an Armenian population there, but according to Wikipedia:

The city was initially called Villa Holguín, in honor of Carlos Holguín Mallarino, the then-current president of the country. It is believed the name was changed to Armenia after a place of the same name, in memory of the Armenian people murdered in the Turkish Ottoman Hamidian Massacres of 1894-97 in Western Armenia. It is also known by its nickname "Ciudad Milagro" (Miracle city).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenia,_Colombia

Ancilla Domini

#3
Quta Der, an Armenian Requiem performed by Isabel Beyrakdarian and the Yerevan Chamber Choir

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EpBU8QG1Ag[/yt]

Isabel Bayrakdarian is a Canadian opera singer of Armenian descent. You might recognize her voice from the soundtrack of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

Ancilla Domini

Hahaha! This girl is expressing her frustration with certain aspects of Armenian culture. But she's making me like it all the more!

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRahAxp2Ia0[/yt]

Ah... these are my people!  :)

MilesChristi

Ancilla, the woman in search of a race...

Enviado desde mi SCH-I545 mediante Tapatalk

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
    It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
    It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
    And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
    And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Ancilla Domini

Quote from: MilesChristi on June 17, 2014, 02:07:06 PM
Ancilla, the woman in search of a race...

I'm not interested in race. I'm interested in culture. For the record, I'm perfectly happy to be of Northern European ancestry. But I certainly don't feel limited by that. The world is a very interesting place, and I plan to make as much of it my home as possible. :) 

MilesChristi

Think of it as the old poétic use of the term. But yeah, I get your drift.

Enviado desde mi SCH-I545 mediante Tapatalk

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
    It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
    It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
    And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
    And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Ancilla Domini

Quote from: MilesChristi on June 17, 2014, 02:24:54 PM
Think of it as the old poétic use of the term.

I figured that was probably what you meant. :)

Ancilla Domini


Mono no aware

#10
I don't know much at all about Armenia or Armenian culture.  But I do know two things.  First, Armenian Christians still practice animal sacrifice.  They are probably the last holdouts among Christians in this regard.  It is called matagh.  The patron saint of the Armenians, St. Gregory the Illuminator, performed a mass animal sacrifice as an offering of thanksgiving when he converted them from paganism.

More importantly, though, one of my favorite movie directors, Sergei Parajanov, was Armenian.  His style can be poetical and difficult at times, but visually he is not to be denied.  It's a real tragedy that none of his movies have been given a good transfer or remaster.  Most of them are available on YouTube, in their extant flickering, bleached-out, color-drained state, but the artistry is still there.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzNOrHe97hU[/yt]

LOL.  This YouTuber seems to have decided to keep the commercials in.  It looks like he or she was watching it on BBC4.

Ancilla Domini

#11
Quote from: Pon de Replay on June 17, 2014, 04:07:16 PM
First, Armenian Christians still practice animal sacrifice.  They are probably the last holdouts among Christians in this regard.  It is called matagh.  The patron saint of the Armenians, St. Gregory the Illuminator, performed a mass animal sacrifice as an offering of thanksgiving when he converted them from paganism.

Interesting!

It seems that this still persists, but more as a folk custom, among some other Eastern and Oriental Orthodox. I found mention of it in Greece, Bulgaria, Georgia, and Ethiopia.

Ancilla Domini

Regarding the practice in the Armenian Church:

QuoteMatagh, offering, is one of the traditions of the Armenian Church, its main meaning is giving a gift to God and giving alms to the poor.

Matagh existed in Armenia as early as in the times of St. Gregory the Illuminator. After having converted King Trdat to Christianity, along with all his people, St. Gregory the Illuminator offered a thanksgiving sacrifice to God in the Church of St. John the Forerunner, in Taron, killing numerous animals and distributing them to the poor.

Since ancient times the custom of offering sacrifice during great feasts, in the connection with the consecration of Churches or khatchkars (cross-stones), was practiced in the Armenian Church.

Offering is carried out for different purposes:

as gratitude to God for having saved the individual from misfortune or for granting health and well being
as plea for the peace of the souls of the deceased
One needs two elements for offering a sacrifice: an animal and salt.

The animal must be male. It can be a cow, sheep, chicken or dove. When a cow is killed, its meat is distributed to 40 houses, a lamb, to 7 houses, a chicken, to 3 houses. The meat must not be left until the next day. If the sacrifice is a dove, it should be set free. First, the salt must be blessed. The salt is the element which purifies the matagh and makes it different from the pagan sacrifice. The meat is cooked only in salted water.

The custom of the Armenian matagh is a profoundly humane, Christian custom, which gives an opportunity to the faithful to express their love towards God, show mercy by helping the poor.

The origin of matagh comes from Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and other patriarchs. Christ Himself during the Last Supper ate the meat of the Easter lamb, which is considered to be matagh, handed down by Prophet Moses.


From their website: http://www.armenianchurch.org/index.jsp?sid=1&id=5819&pid=2429&lng=en

Mono no aware

Yes.  It appears similar to the Islamic animal sacrifices, insofar as the meat is divvied up and distributed to neighbors or the poor.  It's not a burnt offering, where the whole thing is given to God.

Mono no aware

I just thought of another filmmaker of Armenian descent I admire: Atom Egoyan.  Usually.  His output is somewhat hit or miss.  One of the things I liked about devotedknuckles from Fish Eaters was that he considered Exotica an underrated minor masterpiece of a movie.  Which it really is.