On July 29, the RA Ministry of Diaspora and the Hrachya Atcharyan Language Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia (NAS RA) launched the conference on “Issues of Convergence between Western Armenian and Eastern Armenian” at the sessions hall of the NAS RA. The conference will continue on July 30.

RA Minister of Diaspora Hranush Hakobyan gave opening remarks in which she greeted the participants and particularly said the following: “I am certain that this conference devoted to the two ramifications of the Armenian language will contribute to the common use, development, preservation, regulation of and scientific research on our language, the preservation of its purity, the implementation of initiatives devoted to the teaching of Armenian and will help set forth and implement objectives.

The losses that our language suffered are some of the severe damages caused by the Armenian Genocide, and we have a lot of work to do in order to recover those losses.

Dozens of Western Armenian dialects were lost, literary Western Armenian was no longer spoken in the historic homeland and didn’t develop and is now on the verge of extinction in all parts of the world. We need to help preserve it since the existence of Western Armenian serves as a way of preserving the Armenian identity in the Armenian Diaspora. The mother language is truly the “home” of all Armenians across the globe.

Diaspora Armenian organizations have made unforgettable efforts to preserve the language, and the support of the Armenian Church especially deserves appraisal. Armenia has also carried out activities to study and teach Western Armenian, as well as create textbooks and other supporting materials. The Government of the Republic of Armenia, namely the Ministry of Diaspora, collaborates with the National Academy of Sciences, universities and various scientific and educational organizations to expand the spheres of use of Western Armenian, to contribute to the convergence between Eastern Armenian and Western Armenian, as well as gather samples of the dialects that were lost.

It is our duty to preserve the purity of Western Armenian and provide for the development of both ramifications of the Armenian language as the major factor for the maintenance of national unity and the development of statehood.”

Summing up, Minister Hranush Hakobyan added the following: “Generally speaking, the several programs that the Ministry of Diaspora has been carrying out over the years are aimed at helping preserve the Armenian language in the Diaspora and contributing to the preservation of the national identity through preservation of the language. Among those programs are the “Diaspora” Summer School Program, the “Ari Tun” Program, the E-Library Program, the Western Armenian-Eastern Armenian and Eastern Armenian-Western Armenian Converter, the Support to the Solution to Educational and Cultural Issues Facing Armenian Communities of the CIS Program, the Armenian Language Learning TV Program, the Teachers Visit Distant Regions Program, the Promotion of Research on Western Armenian Program and more.

Dear friends, by organizing this conference, we fully hope you scholars, teachers and intellectuals concerned about the issue will give situational analyses, as well as make proposals and observations that will help draft a comprehensive plan to support the preservation of the Armenian language, strengthen the relations between Armenia and the Diaspora in science and culture, contribute to the teaching of Western Armenian and help make changes in teacher training programs and teaching methods, help achieve a qualitatively new level in the teaching of Western Armenian in the Republic of Armenia, the simultaneous development of the two ramifications of the Armenian language and help work on ways of enriching Eastern Armenian and Western Armenian.”

In his welcome speech, academician-secretary of the Division for Armenian Studies and Social Studies of the NAS RA Yuri Suvaryan attached importance to the role that the conference plays in solving the issues on the convergence between the two ramifications of the Armenian language and mentioned that the regulation of the two ramifications and the enrichment of vocabulary is the current issue, adding that a Supreme Council for the Armenian Language will soon be set up to help solve those issues. To solve the current issues, the Hrachya Atcharyan Language Institute of the NAS RA has set up and is running a Western Armenian division.

In his speech on “The Challenges Facing the Armenian Language 100 Years After the Genocide”, Director of the Hrachya Atcharyan Language Institute of the NAS RA Victor Katvalyan touched upon the current state of both ramifications and the existing issues, talked about the loss of Armenian dialects as a result of genocide and in Azerbaijan during the Soviet era, as well as the impeding factors for development of the language and convergence between the two ramifications.

The conference continues and will include speeches by renowned linguists, literary critics and other field-related experts from Armenia and the Diaspora.