In the 70-80s of the previous century the Armenian language was officially being degraded. The language of the government and the prestige was the Russian language. The teachers of Russian schools were threatening to schoolchildren by saying, “If you continue to act this way we will fire and send you to an Armenian school.” But the state policy has created a huge controversy. It was a controversy, as a result of which in 1977 in the Brezhnev constitution a status of a state language was given to Armenian. But in 1993 in the already independent state a law on Armenian language was adopted. The law of 1993 was almost perfect. Till now it only has two amendments. Both of those were to a certain extent considered a receding factor. The first amendment was made to provide foreign language education in the country. The meaning of 2005’s amendment was signified by this statement, “Only the Armenian government is allowed to establish a foreign language school in Armenia.” The only state language of public schools is now Armenian. But this didn’t suffice our current Diaspora in Russia. The Russian Diaspora is gradually gaining a huge control in the whole Armenian Diaspora and its influence is increased. This is noticeable in the activity of the Armenia Pan-Armenian Fund. As a result of donations organized every year the portion of the Russian-Armenian Diaspora is increased. If I am not mistaken during the last telethon 8 million of the total 20 million was granted by Russia. Over 90% of private remittances, which is annually 1.2-1.5 billion, are sent from Russia to Armenia. This fact is being played in the political field as well. And most probably the result of the amendment of 2010 is expressed in the law on language. It already allowed opening foreign language schools. It is evident that as in the case of remittances 90% of the schools will be pro-Russian. Now it’s already evident. It is evident from the activity of the former director of the largest Russian company in Armenia and the current mayor of Yerevan. After submitting the post of the mayor Karen Karapetyan obligated the staffers of the city council to improve the Russian language. And this happens in the event when none of the government officials has ever made the cabinet to improve their Armenian. However, the need of the Armenian language improvement is everywhere in all the sectors of public life. Due to the absence of the sub-legal acts it is impossible to correct anything. The evidence of that are the simple illiterate texts. One of the brandy producing company already rolls the second commercial by using the slogan, “The product of Proshyan brandy company should be differentiated from the other fraud.” It is hard to insist that the owners of the company consider their product fraud. But according to the simple logic it turns out that way. I think this rule of logic is called syllogism. The commercial is simply an illiterately formulated text. Even our minister of science and education allows himself speaking Russian when receiving foreign guests. Soon the anecdotes about the Russian language of the 70-80s will emerge again. If you remember we Armenian speakers used to call macaroni “yerkarakhmoratsak.” And we used to call the female skirt cut “grgratchekhk.” It is a new field of survey for national study experts, sociologists, psychologists and psychiatrists in order to find out why certain Armenians are teasing their own language sometimes. For about two decades Armenian language was fully protected by the law. But according to the Russian proverb, “Finances sing romances.” This is also a result of the deficiency of Armenia-Diaspora. And we mean the traditional Diaspora. The traditional Diaspora will not abuse the mother language because our country has the need of protection of Armenian. Indeed, the investment of the Diaspora is unforgettable. During the past 20 years Diaspora has always helped us. It helped us to build homes, roads schools, etc. It helped us build clinics, import equipment and helped us implement various projects. It has also helped Armenia to form a government. But our Diaspora has never helped us in the process of statehood. Our Diaspora has never supported the formation of civil society. Instead the recently formed Armenian Diaspora in Russia intensively makes us remain in the same political system and situation. And that is a system, which involves corruption and authoritarianism. So we have such a sad prospect. This is a prospect, which may cause the second amendment of the law the last one for the language.
