On Speaking Armenian . . .

Although Mummy (known to the kids as Grandma Jennie) spoke only Armenian at home when she was growing up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as soon as her maternal grandmother came to live with Mummy and her family, the whole family began to speak, and continued to speak, only Turkish because that was the only language that Grandma Jennie's grandma understood. Why? Do you really want to know? Marash Girl hesitates to write this because it is so painful, but in certain areas of the Ottoman Empire, at the turn of the last century (that's the 19th to the 20th, NOT the 20th to the 21st), if you were caught teaching, speaking, or reading anything other than the Turkish language, . . . well, there's a family whose name is dilsiz which translates into English "without a tongue" . . . need Marash Girl comment further on this subject? Or, as the Armenian folks often said (in Turkish), lep deyerse, leplebou anliar!!! Don't understand? It translates into English, "When someone says chick, one understands chickpeas." Or, as the folks who grew up speaking English would say, "Need I spell it out for you?" N.B. See http://marashgirl.blogspot.com May 19, 2015 no-Armenian-in-Marash