Overview

ACABI'S ARMENIAN: Idioms and popular expressions in Old Western Armenian by Edwin Gerard Hamamdjian is a linguistic recollection of a dialect once widely spoken, but which today is high on UNESCO'S list of endangered languages. This book is a testament to the language spoken with her family and friends by the author's great-grandmother Acabi (1882-1965), in Constantinople, then Cairo, and later, Los Angeles. As you scroll through this collection of often humorous linguistic memorabilia, many of you will revel with nostalgia in the echoes of your elders' voices. Their hybrid form of Western Armenian offers a generous pot-pourri of Armenian mixed with neighboring Turkish, Greek, Italian, Kurdish, and Arab loan words. Some older folks still call it Dajkahayeren, or Ottoman-Armenian. Although many purists frown on what they consider a bastardization of the language, the dialect still reverberates deeply in the souls and memories of many speakers who hope to keep it alive.

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Edwin Gerard Hamamdjian was born in Los Angeles, California in 1948. After graduating from UCLA and earning a Master's in French literature at UC Berkeley, he moved to France where he obtained a Doctorate in Theatre Arts at the Université de Paris 3, Sorbonne Nouvelle. As an award-winning director, playwright and actor, he has worked extensively in the US, France, Italy, and India. He has taught in the theatre department of USC, UCLA, University of Paris 8, as well as in various private acting schools. He is fluent in several European and Near Eastern languages. Edwin currently resides in Cairo, Egypt where he is studying Arabic. Nadia Brugnara is an illustrator and 2D animator living in Paris, France. Born in 1986 in a small village in the Italian Alps, she grew up speaking the local dialect, fostering a strong connection to her roots. After earning her degree in Animation in Florence, she worked on several Italian and international animated TV shows as an animator and a storyboard artist. Her career has taken her across different countries, fueling her passion for both storytelling and learning new languages.

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