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Influence of English on the Armenian Language
Kirovohrad State Pedagogical University School of Ukrainian and Russian Languages I was born in a small Ukrainian town 18 years ago. My parents arrived from Georgia (now one of New Independent States), but they are not Georgians. My father is Armenian, my mother has Greek origin, but she was born and grew up in Georgia. It happened so that we arrived in Ukraine and we have lived here since then. So, I have three native languages: Armenian, Ukrainian, and Russian. At home my native language is Armenian, at the university - Ukrainian. I communicate with my friends in Russian. It is very difficult to save your mother tongue when you live in a foreign environment, that's why we do everything possible and impossible for saving Armenian. Earlier both Armenia and Ukraine were parts of the Soviet Union and Russian was the state language, but now these are completely different and independent countries. So, my relatives and I are a part of Armenian diaspora in Ukraine. During the Soviet period, Armenian language borrowed many words from Russian: kholodec, povidlo, docent, etc. Now we feel more American influence. The influence of English onto Armenian has becoming stronger and stronger. Earlier we borrowed words connected mostly with sports (basketball, badminton, football, golf, tennis, volleyball), but now we use more English words from different sides of life: park (Armenian word is zbosaygy), club (akumb), clown (mimos), cafe (srcharan), orange (naryndzh), lemon (kitron), cake (karkandak), coffee (surdzh). Incredible number of words comes from technique: computer (there is no Armenian equivalent), telephone (herakhos), video (tesadzaynagrych), camera (tesagrych), disc. I am sure there will be more such words because computing is all the time developing. Our teacher introduced us to distance learning, and it is amazing. My
future profession is teaching languages: my major
is Ukrainian language and minor is English. But I
will also do my best to save Armenian for myself
and my children. Note: This article is part of a project published in TOPICS by Professor Yuliya Melnyk's students at the Kirovohrad State Pedagogical University, School of Ukrainian and Russian Languages. Read the entire project, Influence of Globalization on Ukrainian Culture. Return to: What's Happening to Our Languages? | What is Globalization? | Home Page |
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