The best way to learn the Western Armenian alphabet

 
It took me FOREVER to learn the Armenian alphabet. I kept wanting to learn things I could put into practice right away, and brute memorization of shapes and letters felt super intimidating. Having not grown up Armenian, I was starting from ZERO on the alphabet. Didn’t even know the alphabet song. I tried a lot of different strategies and flashcards before it finally “clicked”.
 
What finally helped was a series of lessons I discovered through St. Nersess’ e-learning module. 

The lessons are structured so that you’re not learning the alphabet in alphabetical order, but from most to least familiar. First, you learn the letters that look similar to letters in the English alphabet. Then you build from there with “lookalikes” and “soundalikes.” There are still a few oddball letters that you might just have to memorize, but this strategy dramatically reduces that number.
 
The other thing I really appreciated about the St. Nersess’ PowerPoints is that it gets right to the point of learning the alphabet – reading! I confess, I still don’t know all the names of all the letters, or the numbers they stand for if you’re using them numerically… I still don’t know the alphabet song. But, proudly, I can now muddle my way through paragraphs of text and read Western Armenian out loud.
 
If you ARE interested in learning more about the letters — how to pronounce them, words that start with that letter, how to write the cursive, etc… you are welcome to use these Alphabet worksheets that I created.  They’re in the same order as you learn the letters in the St. Nersess lessons, so you can use them as you go along.

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As of 3/18/2024 (and probably way earlier), this link and e-learning thing doesn’t appear to be public anymore. A while back, with permission, I started a series of posts to accompany the St. Nersess Powerpoint lessons, referenced below. I am now updating them to include the original Powerpoints as well. Please see:

What was up with the church calendar last week?

I’m a big planner/calendar/doodler person. And for the last few years, I’ve written the church seasons, feast days, and fast days into my calendar every week.  Last week was a weird one.

It was the fourth week of Christmastide. It was the Fast of the Catechumens. There were no prescribed readings for Monday – Wednesday (the only days without readings in the whole year). There aren’t usually feast days during fasting weeks, but The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord was last Thursday. There aren’t usually saints days on Fridays, but there was a remembrance of the Prophet Jonah last week. The feast of St. Sarkis was on Saturday, and I’ve also seen the fasting week called the fast of St. Sarkis.

So, what’s going on?

  1. The Fast of the Catechumens is a moveable fast, and can take place anytime in the thirty-five days from January 11 to February 15. It is always three weeks before Lent, and ten weeks before Easter. The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord to the Temple is always on February 14th in the Armenian Church, 40 days after the Nativity. Sometimes, like this year, they overlap!
    • When the Feast of the Presentation coincides with the Fast of the Catechumens, fasting is suppressed for that day. It’s a dominical feast, focused on Christ, so that takes precedence.
  2. Friday’s remembrance wasn’t actually a feast day or commemoration of the Prophet Jonah. Rather, it was the remembrance of Jonah’s preaching and Nineveh’s repentance. (I always thought it was notable that he was celebrated twice in a year, now I know!) This remembrance harkens back to the origins of the Fast of the Catechumens, when St. Gregory the Illuminator emerged from Khor Virap and directed the Armenian people to fast for five days in repentance, using Nineveh as an example.
    • Jonah was actually celebrated with other prophets, the week before.
  3. The Feast of St. Sarkis is coincidentally always the Saturday after the Fast of the Catechumens. Many of the Shapatabakh fasts (5-days) are called by the name of the feast day that comes on Saturday, after the week of fasting. Interesting historical misunderstandings about this name, in the resources below.
  4. I’m not exactly sure why there were no readings for Monday – Wednesday, but it’s apparently a usual thing during the Fast of the Catechumens. I asked a Priest in passing, who said it was related to the tradition of catechumens fasting before their baptism, and not reading the Bible by themselves yet but listening to preaching.  He also said this was one of the oldest fasts in the church, and may even have come from a Syrian or Aramaic tradition.  (Hopefully he’ll follow-up and send me more information, because this is all super interesting.)

Resources:

  • One of my favorite resources about fasting in the Armenian church is this PDF:  https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.stjohnsarmenianchurch.org/images/FAST.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwitsoODtK3gAhXGt1kKHcMWBT0QFjAFegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw3VtfWcaEHQCL36Ie2Fq_KF
  • From “A Dictionary of the Armenian Church” by Malachia Ormanian:
    “The Sunday which comes three weeks before Great Paregentan and ten weeks before Easter is known as Arachavoratz Sunday. It is always reckoned in relation to Easter, and similarly is movable in an interval of thirty-five days from January 11 to February 15. Five out of the seven days which follow this Sunday are called the Fast of the Catechumen. A strict fast is observed with total abstinence; even the celebration of the Divine Liturgy is discontinued as during Lent. The fifth day of the fast, that is, Friday, is assigned to Jonah’s preaching and Nineveh’s repentance, not as Prophet Jonah’s feast, but simply as an example of a great act of penitence. Shnorhali explains the designation of Arachavork as the initial fast, a commemoration of the fast initiated by St. Gregory the Illuminator, who after his release from Khor Virap began to evangelize, first by making the Armenian people observe five days of continuous fasting, so as to receive a similar healing grace and enlightenment, as in Nineveh’s repentance. It is the commemoration of this initial fast which has remained unchanged in our church, and which is not found in any other church. On the Saturday of this fast the memory of St. Sarkis is observed; the people therefore, often call it the fast of St. Sarkis. The Greek Orthodox not only have no fast during this week, they even discontinue ordinary fasts. At one time they disparaged the Armenians by saying that the Armenians had established the fast in remembrance of the death of the ass or dog or sorcerer named Sergius. Actually the fast is neither for a sorcerer named Sergius nor even for St. Sarkis the commander, the popularly applied name having resulted from a coincidence of the two dates. The designation “Arachavoratz” may be interpreted also as the first part of the fasts related to Easter. Under any circumstance, the significance and meaning of the initial fast established by the Illuminator is more acceptable.”

Lighting candles for Hagop

Candle for Hagop.jpg

I’ve been going by our church after work a lot since my father-in-law Hagop passed away, to light a candle and say a prayer. One time I went, I saw that someone who visited before me had written something in Armenian in the sand in front of their candle. Often times people will draw crosses in the sand, but it was the first time I had seen a word written out. So I’ve been writing Hagop’s name in the sand sometimes now too <3.

Blessing of the children

Today there was a Blessing of the Children service at our church, and everyone who had a child baptized in the last year came up to the altar for a special blessing.
The service is in keeping with Biblical tradition, and tied to the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord to the Temple, which the Armenian Church celebrates every February 14th. In Armenian, it is Տեառնընդառաջ, Dyarnuntarach (or I’ve seen it transliterated as Tiarn’ndaraj), translated as “the bringing forward of the Lord.”
We are grateful for the gift of baptism for our little baby, and grateful for the wonderful church community he will grow up into.

All the families, Blessing of the Children.jpg
Children baptised in the last year, along with their families, at St. James Armenian Church

 

Armenian plaki recipe

I used to HATE plaki. When I first started dating my husband, 12 years ago, it was a staple in their house. My father-in-law Jirair made it all the time. He was quite generous with the olive oil, and I was still a picky, image-conscious teenager, so anything with oil was YUCK. But I’ve come around, a decade later, and now tolerate this healthy and filling dish 😉
My husband and mother-in-law cooked some today, using the Babikyan/Ayvazian family recipe, which is also published in our church’s cookbook.
She doesn’t give a lot of detail, so here are some additional tips!
  • First of all though, there’s a typo in the recipe. We always put in 1 green and 1 red bell pepper into the plaki too.
  • Carrots and bell peppers should be chopped into bite-sized chunks.
  • Finely mince the garlic. This recipe is fairly garlicky, but of course always add more to taste 😊
  • My mother-in-law says you can’t make this with canned beans, but I’ll give it a try someday and let you know how it goes.
  • You’ll know the plaki is done when the skin starts to split on the beans. Don’t let it get too mushy.

Resources:

Yotnorek

Traditionally, the one week after the funeral, there would be a graveside requiem service for the person who passed. It would usually be done in the morning, and (I’m pretty sure) is called “Yotnorek”. “Yot” means seven.
We didn’t end up going over to the cemetery this morning, but hope to stop by later tonight. We wouldn’t do the service ourselves without our Priest, but the service is included in a funeral services book that we have at home, so we may say a prayer or two from it. Even if the cemetery is closed and we have to pull over by the side of the road, I’d like to stop by.
Meanwhile, I decided to wear my son’s khatch (cross) today. It’s the cross he was given at his baptism, but it’s sized for an adult, so he doesn’t wear it himself yet. (He’s only 5 months old.) Feeling in need of some extra strength today.
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About:

Giragmoodk and New Sunday

The Friday after the funeral, we got a call from one of my father-in-law’s old friends. He wanted to make sure we knew about a Bolsetsi tradition: Giragmoodk. “We’ll come over. Someone should make halvah.”

So I frantically searched for a halvah recipe… while my husband Googled “Giragmoodk”… and my sister-in-law Mary called her Romanahye parents to make sure this was a “real thing”. With their reassurance, we invited people over for the following evening.
Giragmoodk, according to the Bolsetsis (Armenians from Istanbul), is an Armenian funeral tradition that originated in Istanbul. The Saturday evening after the burial, the family gathers at home, and a priest or deacon comes to say some memorial prayers.
“Girag” comes from Giragi (Sunday), and “moodk” which means entrance. It’s translated something like “entering Sunday” or “entering into Sunday.” In ancient traditions, Sunday begins after sundown on Saturday evening. What’s special about this Sunday, that it needs to be marked in a way?
Well, the first Sunday after Easter is called Nor Giragi (Նոր Կիրակի), or New Sunday. It’s a day to celebrate our new lives, after the Resurrection at Easter. The first Sunday after a person’s death and burial is their New Sunday. We pray that they get to experience it at the right hand of God, keeping company with the saints, and that God has mercy on their soul.
The actual service at our house was very small, but lovely. Two deacons came over, we gathered in the room where Jirair passed away, we lit a candle and some incense, faced East, and said some short prayers. They were reading from the Mashdots, the Armenian book of services, but I’m not sure if it was an actual service in its own right. (It reminded me of the Hokiehankist memorial service done at the end of every Sunday Badarak mass.)
My halvah didn’t turn out great. Correct flavors, but the consistency was completely off. More like marzipan than the fluffy delicious sweet stuff I’ve had at other Armenian funerals and memorial meals (I think I made imrig halva rather than dry halva). I’ll have to try again before the Karasoonk (forty day memorial service and meal.) 
Resources:

 

Can’t let perfect be the enemy of the good

I’ve had a draft of this blog post sitting in an Evernote notebook for a year and a half now.

I don’t know what I was waiting for… Life got in the way. I wanted the first post to be perfect. I wanted to have half a dozen other posts drafted as back up.

But there’s a sense of urgency now, as my father-in-law passed away last week.

He was a man of a particular generation… A hardworking immigrant, with the church in his bones, to whom family was everything. He was so bright, got into MIT even though he didn’t speak English, graduated in 3.5 years, then brought his family to the United States. He passionately and selflessly loved the Armenian people, history, language, and church. He passed along a lot of what he knew to his four sons, including my husband, but he suffered from Alzheimer’s disease in his last decade, and we were away at college for the last good years. There’s so much we didn’t have a chance to absorb, and we’re mourning the loss of that too. Did we miss the opportunity to really learn Western Armenian? Will we ever be able to recover the knowledge he had of the sharagans and Armenian church history? How will we pass that kind of life along to our children, without him as an example?

So, we’ll blog to keep ourselves accountable as we try to create that kind of life for ourselves. To document and preserve the traditions we encounter in the Armenian diaspora. We’re also excited to share some of the tips and tricks, flashcard decks, and other resources we’ve discovered and created for learning Western Armenian. We hope you’ll laugh and learn along with us, when we try to make simit and they turn out tasting like Southern biscuits. Most of all, we hope this blog contributes to the revival and restoration of the rich Armenian Christian heritage that gives purpose and guidance to our everyday lives, and which our dear Hayrig loved so deeply.