The uniquely mellifluous and lilting kaghakatsi accent continues to intrigue
scholars around the world eager to rescue it from oblivion.
A
few
years
ago,
a
US
professor,
Bert
Vaux,
undertook
the
onerous
task
of
persuading
some
of
the
denizens
of
the
Armenian
Quarter
of
the
Old
City
of
Jerusalem
to
allow
him
to
record their speech. He collected quite some nuggets along the way.
Now
a
professor
from
Salzburg
university
in
Austria,
has
pitched
in
for
another
go,
using
a
different and, what she asserts would be, a more professional approach.
Dr.
Jasmine
Dum-Tragut
introduced
herself
as
a
self-employed
scholar
at
the
Linguistic
Department
of
the
university
of
Salzburg,
and
as
an
armenologists
specialized
in
Modern
Armenian.
She
also
heads
the
head
of
the
department
for
Armenian
Studies
at
the
Mayr-Melnhof-
Institute for the Christian East.
She
was
encouraged
to
contact
the
kaghakatsi
Armenian
Family
Tree
project
by
a
staunch
friend of ours, professor Michael Stone, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
"I have been working in Armenian studies for more than 20 years now," she says.
Last
November,
she
had
a
short-term
visiting
professorship
at
the
Hebrew
University,
and
it
was
there,
where
my
friend
and
colleague
"Michael
Stone
convinced
me
to
work
on
the
highly endangered kaghakatsi dialect."
Jasmine
concentrates
on
the
languages
of
endangered
minorities.
Over
the
past
four
years,
she
has
been
working
on
a
concise
linguistic
description
of
Modern
Eastern
Armenian
as
written
and
spoken
in
the
Motherland,
with
the
support
of
the
Austrian
Science
Fund,
and
the result, almost 700 pages, will be published this year by Benjamins, Amsterdam.
"I am really very interested and eager to work on this [kaghakatsi] dialect," she says.
She
will
be
using
the
tapes
previously
recorded
by
Theo
van
Lint,
but
most
probably
will
have to do some more recording and conduct specific interviews.
She
will
be
staying
in
Jerusalem
at
least
for
a
month
which
would
give
her
the
opportunity
to
do
some
teaching
on
armenological
subjects
again
at
the
Hebrew
University.
Kaghakatsi christening
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