#armenian immigration to canada

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"GREAT UNREST FOLLOWS DEATH OF ARCHBISHOP," Hamilton Spectator. December 27, 1933. Page 7. ---- Threatening Letters Said to Have Been Received --- But No Signs of Trouble Are Evident Here --- Prayers at St. Catharines Discontinued ---- Although extremely reticent on the subject, prominent local Armenians do not anticipate any trouble in their church as a result of the fatal stabbing last Sunday, In New York city, of Archbishop Leon Tourian, despite a report from Toronto in which an Armenian, whose name is not divulged, is alleged to have stated that trouble may result in the church in St. Catharines.

The archbishop, it will be remembered, was stabbed while conducting a service in New York city. So far no motive has been learned for the stabbing, outside of the possibility that exception was taken to the archbishop's opposition to activities of revolutionist groups.

According to the Toronto Armenian, revolutionist groups, to which it is is believed the archbishop's assassins belong, exist in Hamilton, Toronto, St. Catharines, Brantford, Galt and other Canadian cities.

Threatening Letters Rev. Skon Charkoogian, of Toronto, rector of the Armenian Apostolic church in St. Catharines. has received intimidating letters for some time, it is alleged, and prayers offered for Archbishop Tourian have been withdrawn from the form of service. This action is alleged to have been followed when Rev. Mr. Charkoogian realized a possible disaster may follow in the event of continuance of such prayers. Father Charkoogian conducts services in this city at various intervals at the Armenian church situated on Earl street, Brantford Statement Brantford, Dec. 27. - (CP)-The board of trustees of Brantford Armenian Episcopal church said in a statement issued to-day that Rev. Z. Charkoogian, Toronto Armenian minister, received a letter from a local "revolutionary faction" on the eve of conducting a service here last October 15, warning him not to conduct the service or he would be "in bad condition."

The trustees termed Archbishop Leon Tournian, primate of the Armenian church in America, assassinated Sunday in New York, "the greatest Armenian man." Letters from the late archbishop, acknowledging their authority as the official trustees here, were shown M proof the local board is an authentic one.

Dikran Keshian, board chairman, denied that Archbishop Tourian had been pro-soviet. He said efforts to prevent meetings of the Brantford trustees have been made since Rev. Mr. Charkoogian conducted services in October.

News of the Christmas eve tragedy in New York came as a distressing shock to church members here, Keshian said. He said the archbishop was highly respected in Brantford, where he had visited.

///

MURDER IN A CHURCH Archbishop Leon Tourian, primate of the Armenian Church of North and South America, was assassinated as he was conducting service in the Holy Cross Armenian Apostolic church in New York city on Sunday. His death has caused widespread repercussions in Ontario, where Armenian clergy have been threatened because of prayers uttered on behalf of the prelate. Archbishop Tourian was in this city over a year ago.

[rotzaprachim]

the thing about “secret israeli restaurants” is americans are generally more positive to israelis than arabs so a vague restaurant is more likely to be hiding arab origins than israeli

pretty sure the og tweet poster was Canadian but yeahhhhh I read it and blinked about the antisemitism but I also read it and blinked about the fact that like bro… are you…. are you that fucking unaware about the extent of anti-Arab and anti-middle eastern racism in the us&canada? Are you that fucking obtuse? Oh my god. It literally doesn’t fucking matter what “origins” the restaurants are “hinting at” but I couldn’t fucking process how a white Canadian would think that “people who simply describe themselves/their business establishment as “middle eastern” or “Mediterranean” are inherently sketchy” is in any way a productive idea to have for literally anyone

a) a restaurant/establishment describing themselves as “Mediterranean” or “middle eastern” would be inherently sketchy and suspicious (as loaded as “middle eastern” itself is, “Mediterranean” can often be taken more positively in the west and anglophone/francophone worlds, after all nutritionists have been going on about the “Mediterranean diet) for a while) but also

B) that those people would inherently be (in his opinion) Zionists and/or Israelis

also feel this person has big “have never interacted with middle eastern person in my life” because as much as xenophobia and various other issues pushes people to go for either the “Mediterranean/middle eastern” marker, there’s plenty of other reasons why establishments go for those identifiers like.

1) a lottttt of Mediterranean diaspora families, due to immigration and intermarriage, really are franco-lebanese, or palestinain-Greek, or Ashkenazi Jewish and Algerian, or Moroccan Spaniards, or something like that, (check the Arabs, Jews, and Italians of the greater nyc area lol) and

2) in diasporic situations one (1) grocery store or deli often services OR competes with others for a broader market share, I’ve lived places where I regularly shopped at a Turkish/greek/arab grocery store (Labelled itself “Mediterranean”) and a Persian/armenian/arab grocery store (Labelled itself “middle eastern groceries”) because it would be dishonest to say that these grocery stores are for any one “nationality!” Walk into many a Mediterranean or middle eastern grocery store or deli and you’ll see Turkish products from Germany, maghrebi Jewish products from France, halal versions of jamón and chorizo, and labneh from lebanon next to Greek and Persian yogurt. My favorite local market once had an entire NOT HALAL!!!!! Fridge Labelled in three languages to store the frozen pork products for the Greek and Romanian markets next to the general halal cheese boreks.

I’m not saying this is the case everywhere or like it’s all peachy perfect in diaspora but this just comes across as someone who has a lot of political Ideas about Mediterranean & middle eastern people but haven’t met them in real life. Also it’s a love letter to the diaspora grocery store with 6+ ethnicities inside them and an entire wall of tomato pastes. If there’s one in your city you should patronize them! (Also note the fantastic phenomenon of the “Black Sea” grocery, the mass halal Mart, and the particular greater London “Indian Bangladeshi Sri Lankan Persian Pakistani polish” mart

Also lol gonna have to lol at the “I’m so angry these diaspora Israelis would hide their nationality in order to avoid harassment because I want to boycott and harass them”

[sheetmusiclibrarypdf]

Charles Aznavour- La Bohème, chanson Française (partition, sheet music)

Charles Aznavour- La Bohème, chanson Française (partition, sheet music) La Bohème avec partition Charles Aznavour - Short biography Téléchargement des meilleures partitions dans notre bibliothèque. Please, subscribe to our Library. Thank you! https://dai.ly/kROP3kFphadUiIwMpr3

Charles Aznavour- La Bohème, chanson Française (partition, sheet music)

La Bohème avec partition

Charles Aznavour - Short biography

Beloved French chanson entertainer Charles Aznavour, who wrote more than 800 songs, recorded more than 1,000 of them in French, English, German and Spanish and sold over 100 million records in all, was born Shahnour Vaghinag Aznavourian on May 22, 1924, in Paris, the younger of two children born to Armenian immigrants who fled to France. His mother was a seamstress as well as an actress and his father was a baritone who sang in restaurants. Both Charles and his elder sister waited on tables and he performed, as well. He delivered his first poetic recital while just a toddler. Within a few years later he had developed such a passion for singing/dancing, that he sold newspapers to earn money for lessons. He took his first theatrical bow in the play "Emil and the Detectives" at age 9 and within a few years was working as a movie extra. He eventually quit school and toured France and Belgium as a boy singer/dancer with a traveling theatrical troupe while living the bohemian lifestyle. A popular performer at the Paris' Club de la Chanson, it was there that he was introduced in 1941 to the songwriter Pierre Roche. Together they developed names for themselves as a singing/writing cabaret and concert duo ("Roche and Aznamour"). A Parisian favorite, they became developed successful tours outside of France, including Canada. In the post WWII years Charles began appearing in films again, one of them as a singing croupier in Adieu chérie (1946). Eventually Aznavour earned a sturdy reputation composing street-styled songs for other established musicians and singers, notably Édith Piaf, for whom he wrote the French version of the American hit "Jezebel". Heavily encouraged by her, he toured with her as both an opening act and lighting man. He lived with Piaf out of need for a time not as one of her many paramours. His mentor eventually persuaded him to perform solo (without Roche) and he made several successful tours while scoring breakaway hits with the somber chanson songs "Sur ma vie" and "Parce que" and the notable and controversial "Après l'amour." In 1950, he gave the bittersweet song "Je Hais Les Dimanches" to chanteuse Juliette Gréco, which became a huge hit for her. In the late 50s, Aznavour began to infiltrate films with more relish. Short and stubby in stature and excessively brash and brooding in nature, he was hardly leading man material but embraced his shortcomings nevertheless. Unwilling to let these faults deter him, he made a strong impressions with the comedy Une gosse 'sensass' (1957) and with Paris Music Hall (1957). He was also deeply affecting as the benevolent but despondent and ill-fated mental patient Heurtevent in La cabeza contra la pared (1959). A year later, Aznavour starred as piano player Charlie Kohler/Edouard Saroyan in Francois Truffaut's adaptation of the David Goodis' novel Tirad sobre el pianista (1960) , which earned box-office kudos both in France and the United States. This sudden notoriety sparked an extensive tour abroad in the 1960s. Dubbed the "Frank Sinatra of France" and singing in many languages (French, English, Italian, Spanish, German, Russian, Armenian, Portuguese), his touring would include sold-out performances at Carnegie Hall (1964) and London's Albert Hall (1967). Aznavour served as actor and composer/music arranger for many films, including Gosse de Paris (1961), which he also co-wrote with director Marcel Martin, and the dramas Las cuatro verdades (1962) . The actor also embraced the title role in the TV series "Les Fables de la Fontaine" (1964), then starred in the popular musical "Monsieur Carnaval" (1965), in which he performed his hit song "La bohême". His continental star continued to shine and Aznavour acted in films outside of France with more dubious results. While the satirical Candy (1968), with an international cast that included Marlon Brando, Richard Burton and Ringo Starr, and epic adventure Los libertinos (1970) were considered huge misfires upon release, it still showed Aznavour off as a world-wide attraction. While he was also seen in La prueba del valor (1970) (1970), The Blockhouse (1973) (1973) and an umpteenth film version of Agatha Christie's Diez negritos (1974), it was his music that kept him in the international limelight. Later films included Yiddish Connection (1986), which he co-wrote and provided music; Il maestro (1990) with Malcolm McDowell; the Canadian-French production Ararat (2002) for which he received special kudos; cameos as himself in La verdad sobre Charlie (2002) and Emmenez-moi (2005); and his final feature film, Mon colonel (2006) Films aside, his chart-busting single "She" (1972-1974) went platinum in Great Britain. He also received thirty-seven gold albums in all. His most popular song in America, "Yesterday When I Was Young" has had renditions covered by everyone from Shirley Bassey to Julio Iglesias. In 1997, Aznavour received an honorary César Award. He has written three books, the memoirs "Aznavour By Aznavour" (1972), the song lyrics collection "Des mots à l'affiche" (1991) and a second memoir "Le temps des avants" (2003). A "Farewell Tour" was instigated in 2006 at age 82. He died Married at least three times (some claim five) to Micheline Rugel, Evelyne Plessis and Ulla Thorsell, he fathered six children (daughters Katia, Patricia and Seda Aznavour, and sons Misha, Nicholas, and Patrick Aznavour). He died on October 1, 2018, in France. Read the full article

[echopath]

We don't give enough love to Raffi on this website.

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Hi there! I've learned quite a lot about Greek culture from this blog and honestly some of it has made me re-examine my view on certain issues. Instead of saying this is what things are like I now feel the need to specify that's what they are like in my own country (I'm a Scot) Tumblr is very US centric and I didn't mind because I love American cultures but it is important to realise Western Europe/the US and Canada doesn't always equate to the rest of the world. For example about 95% of Scots are white but since the 1970s and maybe even before we have had immigrants of South Asian, East Asian, Mediterranean, Eastern European and African origin who have since settled and had children and are now just as much a part of Scottish society as those of us whose families were here centuries before. I'm white myself but a lot of the understanding of racial dynamics on this site stem from the US which isn't a bad thing because I like to be informed but had I not seen this blog and spoken to more Greeks or Europeans in general I wouldn't have known about the Pontic and Assyrian genocides (I was aware of the Armenian one.) Thankfully we were taught in schools that oppression was not always based on skin colour, but nationality, religion and ethnicity too. I wouldn't say I had a hard time or felt oppressed in any way but my own country has felt oppression. I've heard nasty slurs used against Irish, Welsh, Polish and Romanian people as much as I have the idiots who use horrible slurs against Pakistanis, Indians and Nigerians. And I'd never actually given much thought about the changing ethnicities of certain deities. I don't normally care if someone racebends a fictional character but I can understand why it might cause confusion doing it to mythological figures who were painted in the way the majority of the culture they came from looked. I strive to tell stories with a diverse cast. I guess it's me understanding that a diverse cast in the US/Britain would be different to what a diverse cast in Greece, Turkey or Italy would look like. As for PJO well, I was never a big fan as I was HP but I always assumed it was good. But not even showcasing Greek people in a Greek story feels weird? Come to think of it I couldn't think of many mainstream Greece set stories that actually have Greek people in them (except the ones from Greece obviously) That's like watching Mel Gibson as William Wallace to me.

I'm sorry for rambling I guess I just feel like I need to rectify my own understanding of the world. I try my best to be just the right ammount of politically correct, I don't stand for bigotry and I always try to show respect to another world view even if it's different from my own upbringing. Thank you for your blog, it can be confusing sometimes to try and understand all complicated parts of history and race but I like learning!

Oooh, a Scot!! *waves excitedly* Haha I don’t mind the rumbling xD I rumble a lot here, too! I hope that I provide a somewhat balanced view of things but if you have any questions don’t hesitate to send me a dm.

I am happy to know how my blog made you think about the diversity in your country and how to best express it - and, at the same time understand other parts of the world outside of the US-centric view.

Most Europeans understand oppression can come from many things (and ofc that doesn't stop us from acknowledging racism and fighting against it). As you noticed there are some conventions about certain things from country to country. And yes, the diversity - and its percentage - may differ depending on the location.

Greece (as all countries xD) also has “native” diversity on its own, with the different “tribes” - one of them being the Pontic/Pontiac Greek people. So those must be taken into account as well if someone wants to showcase the various customs.

[chiseler]

Downward Christian Soldiers

Father Charles Coughlin, 1930s

On January 14 1940, the FBI arrested 18 men in New York City accused of plotting the overthrow of the U.S. government. Fourteen were snatched up in their homes in Brooklyn, the others in The Bronx and Queens. Searches yielded more than a dozen Springfield rifles, a shotgun, some handguns, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and the materials for homemade bombs. J. Edgar Hoover said they were plotting a terrorist campaign targeting transportation, power, and communications facilities; their goal was to rouse the military into staging a coup, placing a strong dictator like Hitler or Mussolini in power, and cleansing the country of Jews.  

The men were mostly of German or Irish descent, and ranged in age from 18 to 38. If employed (a few weren’t), they held low-end jobs, including an elevator mechanic, a telephone lineman, a chauffeur, a couple of salesmen, a couple of office clerks. The 18-year-old was a student. Most troubling was the fact that six of them were National Guardsmen.

They were all followers of a Father Coughlin-inspired movement called the Christian Front. In his mid-1930s heyday, Coughlin was arguably the most powerful pro-Fascist voice in America. An Irish Catholic originally from Canada, he had first turned to radio in the 1920s simply as a way to expand his ministry beyond his tiny congregation in Royal Oaks. He had a strong radio voice, and when CBS started syndicating his weekly sermons in 1929 it was an instant success. The crash and start of the Depression politicized him. His condemnations of Wall Street and President Hoover brought him tens of thousands of fan letters a week, and his high praises for Hoover’s opponent FDR surely had an impact on the 1932 elections. Then, when the invitation he craved to sit among President Roosevelt’s circle of advisors didn’t come, he turned bitter as a jilted lover. He began denouncing Roosevelt, his New Deal, his Jew York advisors, and his friends in the labor movement as all facets of an international Jewish-Communist conspiracy to destroy Christianity and democracy. He also praised Franco, Mussolini, and Hitler for defending their people against this spreading evil.

Coughlin’s call for a “Christian Front” to combat the Communists’ mid-1930s Popular Front coalition with other groups on the left resonated with the Depression-driven anger and paranoia of many Americans, especially in cities like Boston and New York with large communities of lower- and lower-middle class Irish Catholics, who tended to be shut out of other right-wing movements precisely because they were Irish and Catholic. At his peak, Coughlin had tens of millions of listeners to his Sunday radio sermons, a million readers of his weekly magazine Social Justice, and received millions of dollars in small donations.

By 1938, rabid anti-Semitism had become the centerpiece of Coughlin’s message. That year, at a Christian Front rally in The Bronx, he allegedly gave the Nazi salute and declared, “When we get through with the Jews in America, they’ll think the treatment they received in Germany was nothing.” In Social Justice he reprinted the anti-Semitic hoax The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which also topped Henry Ford’s list of favorite reading. In the autumn of 1938, when Coughlin said the Jews had brought Kristallnacht on themselves, radio stations, including WMCA in New York, dropped him. Several thousand Fronters “picketed the station, its advertisers, and Jewish-owned stores throughout the city,” historian Robert A. Rosenbaum writes. “The pickets returned every Sunday afternoon for many months. In the meantime, gangs of Christian Fronters roamed the streets and subways, peddling copies of Social Justice, distributing anti-Semitic leaflets, and orating on street corners, while harassing and assaulting people they took to be Jewish.” The city’s police force, which was nearly two-thirds Irish, turned a blind eye; some number of them were Christian Frontiers themselves.

The Front thrived in parishes in all of New York City’s boroughs. Some of the first Front meetings took place in a church hall near Columbus Circle, and some of the most frequent and well-attended were in The Bronx. In Brooklyn, Father Francis Joseph Healy, the pastor of the St. Joseph’s parish in Prospect Heights, was also the editor of the Brooklyn diocese’s weekly paper, The Tablet, which he made a platform for extremely anti-Communist, pro-Fascist, and pro-Coughlin thought. After Father Healy’s death in 1940, his managing editor Patrick Scanlan continued the paper’s reactionary slant. Scanlan ran Coughlin’s rants on the front page. Healy’s successor at St. Joseph’s, Father Edward Curran, was also a major supporter of Father Coughlin and other pro-Fascist and isolationist groups. During the war in Spain Father Curran wrote dozens of pro-Franco columns for arch-conservative publications around the country.

By 1939 small cells of Fronters in Manhattan and Brooklyn were calling themselves “sports clubs,” though the only sport they practiced was target shooting at rifle ranges. The Guardsmen in the group evidently pilfered the rifles and ammo from their posts, and trained other Frontiers in how to use them. 


Along with the cops and Guardsmen, the Front cells were also peppered with spies. The FBI had informants keeping tabs on them. Two independent investigators would write very successful books in which they claimed to have infiltrated the Front as well, and dozens of other underground hate groups. Richard Rollins’ I Find Treason would be published by William Morrow in 1941; John Roy Carlson’s similar Under Cover would be a runaway bestseller for E. P. Dutton two years later, galloping through 16 printings in its first six months. Both writers used pseudonyms. Carlson was actually Arthur Derounian, an Armenian immigrant. Rollins was apparently Isidore Rothberg, an investigator for Congressman Samuel Dickstein of the House Special Committee on Un-American Activities. Partly because the writers used pseudonyms while naming scores of individuals they claimed were pro-Hitler and pro-Fascist, both books were widely denounced on the right as fabrications and smear campaigns.


Derounian wrote that he was riding the subway one day in 1938 when he picked up a leaflet of “bitterly anti-Semitic quotations” published by something called the Nationalist Press Association on East 116th Street in Italian East Harlem. He decided to research, and found himself exploring a vast underground world of wannabe Hitlers and Mussolinis, society matron super-patriots, racists, Anglophobes, White Russians, and assorted conspiracy theorists and kooks.
 Born in 1909, Derounian had grown up in another world of hate. After struggling to stay alive as Armenians in Greece at a time of chaos and slaughter in the Balkans, his family fled to New York in 1921. Arthur learned English and earned a degree in journalism at NYU in 1926. In 1933 he learned that the turmoil in the Balkans had followed him across the ocean, when the archbishop of New York’s Armenian Orthodox Catholics, while serving Christmas Mass in his Washington Heights church, was stabbed to death by radical Armenian nationalists opposed to his politics.

So when Derounian read that hate sheet on the subway in 1938, he was primed to follow up. The 116th Street address was an old tenement with a barber shop on the ground floor. The Nationalist Press “office” was a dingy back room stacked to the stained ceiling with right-wing books, newspapers and pamphlets. Poking around in the gloom were a few Italian men and Peter Stahrenberg, a tall blond Aryan type “with blunt features and a coarse-lipped, brutal mouth,” who wore a khaki shirt and a black tie with a pearl-studded swastika tie tack. Stahrenberg was the publisher of the National American, a pro-Hitler newspaper whose striking logo was an American Indian giving the Nazi salute before a large swastika. He was also the head of the American National-Socialist Party. Derounian, calling himself George Pagnanelli and expressing interest in the “patriotic movement,” wormed his way into Stahrenberg’s confidence.

As he explored Stahrenberg’s twilight world, Derounian claimed, he found pro-Nazis and pro-Fascists all over New York City, holding meetings and rallies in every borough. It was a topsy-turvy world where street thugs from the city’s poorest neighborhoods mingled with wealthy Park Avenue crackpots, and Irish Catholic Fronters convinced that Communism was an international Jewish plot sat in the same meetings with Protestant zealots convinced that the Vatican was a Jewish front. He met rabidly anti-Communist D.A.R. socialites, and retired military officers who were certain that FDR and the Jew Dealers were leading the nation to ruin. He met the prominent conservative organizer Catherine Curtis, introducing himself as George Pagnanelli; she kept calling him Mr. Pagliacci. He even found black pro-Nazis in Harlem. Some were attracted by Hitler’s anti-Semitism; others simply cheered the idea of a white man making trouble for other whites.

When the Christian Front clique was arraigned in Brooklyn’s federal courthouse in February, they all pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy and theft of government property. The lawyer for 12 of them was Leo Healy – Father Healy’s brother. A crowd jeered and booed as they were perp-walked into the courthouse. Winchell and La Guardia both derided them as “bums,” La Guardia adding that if they were the best the enemies of democracy could muster, no one need lose any sleep. But the defendants also had their sympathizers. Father Curran was the keynote speaker at a large rally in Prospect Hall to express support for them.  

Fourteen defendants were left when the trial began in April; one of the original 18 had committed suicide, and charges against three others were dropped. As the trial sputtered along through May, it began to appear that the FBI and prosecutors hadn’t built a very strong case. When the proceedings stumbled to a close on Monday June 24, the jury acquitted nine of the defendants and pronounced themselves hung on the other five.


It was a major embarrassment for Hoover. The Front and their supporters cheered it as a great victory, and would continue to spread hate and violence well into the war years. Through 1942 and 1943 there would be numerous reports in the press of roving gangs of young men, mostly identified as Irish and affiliated with the Front, beating and sometimes even knifing Jews in neighborhoods like Flatbush, Washington Heights and the South Bronx, where Irish and Jewish communities abutted. Many shops, synagogues and cemeteries were vandalized. Jewish leaders pleaded with Mayor La Guardia and Police Commissioner Valentine, but they took little action.

Coughlin would rant on into 1942, when the federal government shut down Social Justice as a seditious publication, and the Archbishop of Detroit finally ordered him to stop all political activity. Father Curran, however, continued undeterred, making anti-Semitic, anti-war speeches to Frontiers and others through the entire war.

by John Strausbaugh

[thelanguagecommunity]

“what language should I learn?”

“is it better to learn [x] or [x]?”

“is it worth learning [x]?”

I get this type of question a lot and I see questions like these a lot on language learning forums, but it’s very difficult to answer because ultimately language learning is a highly personal decision. Passion is required to motivate your studies, and if you aren’t in love with your language it will be very hard to put in the time you need. Thus, no language is objectively better or worse, it all comes down to factors in your life. So, I’ve put together a guide to assist your with the kind of factors you can consider when choosing a language for study.

First, address you language-learning priorities.

Think of the reasons why are you interested in learning a new language. Try to really articulate what draws you to languages. Keeping these reasons in mind as you begin study will help keep you focused and motivated. Here are some suggestions to help you get started, complete with wikipedia links so you can learn more:

Linguistic curiosity?

For this, I recommend looking into dead, literary or constructed languages. There are lots of cool linguistic experiments and reconstructions going on and active communities that work on them! Here’s a brief list:

Dead languages:

Akkadian

Egyptian (Ancient Egyptian)

Gaulish

Gothic

Hittite

Old Prussian

Sumerian

Older iterations of modern day languages:

Classical Armenian

Classical Nahuatl (language of the Aztec Empire)

Early Modern English (Shakespearean English)

Galician-Portuguese

Middle English (Chaucer English)

Middle Persian/Pahlavi

Old English

Old French

Old Spanish

Old Tagalog (+ Baybayin)

Ottoman Turkish

Constructed:

Anglish (experiment to create a purely Anglo-Saxon English)

Esperanto

Interlingua

Láadan (a “feminist language”)

Lingua Franca Nova

Lingwa de Planeta

Lobjan

Toki Pona (a minimalist language)

Wenedyk (what if the Romans had occupied Poland?)

Cultural interests?

Maybe you just want to connect to another culture. A language is often the portal to a culture and are great for broadening your horizons! The world is full of rich cultures; learning the language helps you navigate a culture and appreciate it more fully.

Here are some popular languages and what they are “famous for”:

Cantonese: film

French: culinary arts, film, literature, music, philosophy, tv programs, a prestige language for a long time so lots of historical media, spoken in many countries (especially in Africa)

German: film, literature, philosophy, tv programs, spoken in several Central European countries

Italian: architecture, art history, catholicism (Vatican city!), culinary arts, design, fashion, film, music, opera

Mandarin: culinary arts, literature, music, poetry, tv programs

Japanese: anime, culinary arts, film, manga, music, video games, the longtime isolation of the country has developed a culture that many find interesting, a comparatively large internet presence

Korean: tv dramas, music, film

Portuguese: film, internet culture, music, poetry

Russian: literature, philosophy, spoken in the Eastern Bloc or former-Soviet countries, internet culture

Spanish: film, literature, music, spoken in many countries in the Americas

Swedish: music, tv, film, sometimes thought of as a “buy one, get two free” deal along with Norwegian & Danish

Religious & liturgical languages:

Avestan (Zoroastrianism)

Biblical Hebrew (language of the Tanakh, Old Testament)

Church Slavonic (Eastern Orthodox churches)

Classical Arabic (Islam)

Coptic (Coptic Orthodox Church)

Ecclesiastical Latin (Catholic Church)

Ge’ez (Ethiopian Orthodox Church)

Iyaric (Rastafari movement)

Koine Greek (language of the New Testament)

Mishnaic Hebrew (language of the Talmud)

Pali (language of some Hindu texts and Theravada Buddhism)

Sanskrit (Hinduism)

Syriac (Syriac Orthodox Church, Maronite Church, Church of the East)

Reconnecting with family?

If your immediate family speaks a language that you don’t or if you are a heritage speaker that has been disconnected, then the choice is obvious! If not, you might have to do some family tree digging, and maybe you might find something that makes you feel more connected to your family. Maybe you come from an immigrant community that has an associated immigration or contact language! Or maybe there is a branch of the family that speaks/spoke another language entirely.

Immigrant & Diaspora languages:

Arbëresh (Albanians in Italy)

Arvanitika (Albanians in Greece)

Brazilian German

Canadian Gaelic (Scottish Gaelic in Canada)

Canadian Ukrainian (Ukrainians in Canada)

Caribbean Hindustani (Indian communities in the Caribbean)

Chipilo Venetian (Venetians in Mexico)

Griko (Greeks in Italy)

Hutterite German (German spoken by Hutterite settlers of Canada/US)

Fiji Hindi (Indians in Fiji)

Louisiana French (Cajuns) 

Patagonian Welsh (Welsh in Argentina)

Pennsylvania Dutch (High German spoken by early settlers of Canada/ the US)

Plaudietsch (German spoken by Mennonites)

Talian (Venetian in Brazilian)

Texas Silesian (Poles in the US)

Click here for a list of languages of the African diaspora (there are too many for this post!). 

If you are Jewish, maybe look into the language of your particular diaspora community ( * indicates the language is extinct or moribund - no native speakers or only elderly speakers):

Bukhori (Bukharan Jews)

Hebrew

Italkian (Italian Jews) *

Judeo-Arabic (MENA Jews)

Judeo-Aramaic

Judeo-Malayalam *

Judeo-Marathi

Judeo-Persian

Juhuri (Jews of the Caucasus)

Karaim (Crimean Karaites) *

Kivruli (Georgian Jews)

Krymchak (Krymchaks) *

Ladino (Sephardi)

Lusitanic (Portuguese Jews) *

Shuadit (French Jewish Occitan) *

Yevanic (Romaniotes)*

Yiddish (Ashkenazi)

Finding a job?

Try looking around for what languages are in demand in your field. Most often, competency in a relevant makes you very competitive for positions. English is in demand pretty much anywhere. Here are some other suggestions based on industry (from what I know!):

Business (General): Arabic, French, German, Hindi, Korean, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish

Design: Italian (especially furniture)

Economics: Arabic, German

Education: French, Spanish

Energy: Arabic, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish

Engineering: German, Russian

Finance & Investment: French, Cantonese, German, Japanese, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish

International Orgs. & Diplomacy (NATO, UN, etc.): Arabic, French, Mandarin, Persian, Russian, Spanish

Medicine: German, Latin, Sign Languages, Spanish

Military: Arabic, Dari, French, Indonesian, Korean, Kurdish, Mandarin, Pashto, Persian, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Urdu

Programming: German, Japanese

Sales & Marketing: French, German, Japanese, Portuguese

Service (General): French, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, Sign Languages, Spanish

Scientific Research (General): German, Japanese, Russian

Tourism: French, Japanese, Mandarin, Sign Languages, Spanish

Translation: Arabic, Russian, Sign Languages

Other special interests?

Learning a language just because is a perfectly valid reason as well! Maybe you are really into a piece of media that has it’s own conlang! 

Fictional:

Atlantean (Atlantis: The Lost Empire)

Dothraki (Game of Thrones)

Elvish (Lord of the Rings)

Gallifreyan (Doctor Who)

High Valyrian (Game of Thrones)

Klingon (Star Trek)

Nadsat (A Clockwork Orange)

Na’vi (Avatar)

Newspeak (1984)

Trigedasleng (The 100)

Vulcan (Star Trek)

Or if you just like to learn languages, take a look maybe at languages that have lots of speakers but not usually popular among the language-learning community:

Arabic

Bengali

Cantonese

Hindi

Javanese

Hausa

Indonesian

Malay

Pashto

Persian

Polish

Punjabi

Swahili

Tamil

Telugu

Thai

Turkish

Urdu

Vietnamese

Yoruba

If you have still are having trouble, consider the following:

What languages do you already speak?

How many and which languages you already speak will have a huge impact on the ease of learning. 

If you are shy about speaking with natives, you might want to look at languages with similar consonant/vowel sounds. Similarity between languages’ grammars and vocabularies can also help speed up the process. Several families are famous for this such as the Romance languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, Romanian), North Germanic languages (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish) or East Slavic languages (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian). If you are a native English speaker, check out the FSI’s ranking of language difficulty for the approximate amount of hours you’ll need to put into different languages.

You could also take a look at languages’ writing systems to make things easier or for an added challenge.

Another thing to remember is that the languages you already speak will have a huge impact on what resources are available to you. This is especially true with minority languages, as resources are more frequently published in the dominant language of that area. For example, most Ainu resources are in Japanese, most Nheengatu resources are in Portuguese, and most Nahuatl resources are in Spanish.

What are your life circumstances?

Where you live with influence you language studies too! Local universities will often offer resources (or you could even enroll in classes) for specific languages, usually the “big” ones and a few region-specific languages.

Also consider if what communities area near you. Is there a vibrant Deaf community near you that offers classes? Is there a Vietnamese neighborhood you regularly interact with? Sometimes all it takes is someone to understand you in your own language to make your day! Consider what languages you could realistically use in your own day-to-day. If you don’t know where to start, try checking to see if there are any language/cultural meetups in your town!

How much time can you realistically put into your studies? Do you have a fluency goal you want to meet? If you are pressed for time, consider picking up a language similar to ones you already know or maintaining your other languages rather than taking on a new one.

Please remember when choosing a language for study to always respect the feelings and opinions of native speakers/communities, particularly with endangered or minoritized languages. Language is often closely tied to identity, and some communities are “closed” to outsiders. A notable examples are Hopi, several Romani languages, many Aboriginal Australian languages and some Jewish languages. If you are considering a minoritized language, please closely examine your motivations for doing so, as well as do a little research into what is the community consensus on outsiders learning the language. 

[canaryrecords]

In the second half of the 19th century, troupes of Moroccans, Egyptians, and Syrians performed in the United States at tent shows, circuses, minstrel shows, vaudeville houses, and theaters as ethnographic/ exotic spectacles for American audiences. Several members of the first Syrian family to emigrate to the U.S., headed by a medical doctor named Yusuf Arbeely (b. 1828, five miles outside of Damascus) who arrived with his wife, niece, and five sons in August 1878, toured during the 1880s offering paying customers (25 cents for adults; 15 cents for kids) a chance to see people from the Holy Land in native costume. The 1893 Columbia World Exposition in Chicago offered many more Americans the chance to witness aspects of Arab and Turkish culture at its pavilions. (Three wax cylinders recorded there by Benjamin Ives Gilman on the morning of September 25, 1893 by four musicians from Beirut and totaling less than five minutes of sound are, strictly speaking, the first sound recordings of Arabs made in the United States.)

Through the end of the 19th and beginning of the early 20th centuries Syrian immigrants to the U.S. developed enclaves in about a dozen cities and towns in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Michigan, and New York. By 1920, over 150,000 Arabic-speaking immigrants from Greater Syria (the Ottoman districts of Aleppo, Damascus, Beirut, Mount Lebanon, and Jerusalem) established themselves in a variety of retail, service, and manufacturing trades, especially the garment business. 40,000 more immigrants from the Syrian diaspora had settled in Canada and Mexico, 300,000 in Brazil and Argentina, and 40,000 more elsewhere in South America and the Caribbean. In the wake of the catastrophe of WWI, in which 18% of the Syrian population died, and the politics of the establishment of the nation of Lebanon, most remained in the Americas.

The first Syrian-American to have recorded in the U.S. was, in fact, second generation: a composer and pianist named Alexander Maloof (b. ca. 1884-85) whose parents arrived from Zahle (present-day Lebanon) in 1884 and applied for citizenship the following year. He was already publishing sheet music of his compositions, by 1901, had established as a music teacher in Brooklyn by 1905 and was performing in public by 1911. His music synthesized American and Syrian elements. In 1912, he copyrighted “America Ya Hilwa” (which he called “For Thee, America” in English) and campaigned for years to have it become the U.S. national anthem. In September and October, 1913, he recorded a porto-ragtime piano arrangement of the traditional Ottoman tune “Alyazayer” and an original composition called “A Trip to Syria” (a trip that he, himself, never made during his lifetime). It is unclear whether the resulting disc was marketed to English or Arabic speaking audiences. But in April 1916 a group credited only as “Syrian Band” recorded four sides for Columbia records in New York and issued as part of their E (ethnic) series for the immigrant community; the hybridized style of those performances are not unlike material Maloof recorded and self-released by Maloof,including his “America Ya Hilwa”, in the 1920s, and it seems reasonable to speculate that these were made under his direction. On his own label, his issued a wide variety of material by his own Oriental Orchestra as well as then-popular immigrant performers. After folding the label, he recorded several more sessions for other labels including Gennett Records in Richmond, Indiana. (Among them were a series of organ solos marketed to funeral parlors and roller rinks.) He produced piano rolls, performed on radio, toured widely, and continued teaching in to the 1950s. Richard M. Breaux’s excellent biographical article on Maloof points out that when he died on leap day 1956 in New Jersey, his local obituary pointed out his efforts to transcribe and preserve Levantine folk music.

Arabic-language discs were imported physically from Beirut and Cairo during the early 1910s by entrepreneurs including A.J. Macksoud who ran a series of music shops on and around Manhattan’s Washington Street, while at the same time Victor Records issued overseas recordings domestically in the U.S. for the immigrant market. It was not until the Maronite priest Rev. George Aziz (b. 1872) recorded a single disc on May 15, 1914 in New York with violin accompaniment that the Arabic language was recorded commercially in the U.S. (Again we refer those interested in a recent biographical article on Aziz by Richard Breaux.) March 18 and 19 of 1915, the first Syrian recording star Nahum Simon made his first recordings for Columbia.

Simon appears to have been a professional shoemaker, born January 25, 1890. He seems to have tried to emigrate first in June 1904 at the age of 15, but after being detained for four days for medical reasons, was deported. He successfully entered the U.S. in 1912, settling first on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn with his wife Rahill and their two American-born children Evaleen (b. ca. 1915) and Joseph (b. ca. 1917). Between March and September 1915, he recorded 12 discs, and then in 1916-17 another 21, all for Columbia. Their popularity would seem to have been the catalyst for the wave of recordings of Arabic-speaking immigrants that took place over the second half of the 1910s. He did not however record again until the 1920s when he made 8 more discs for Victor Records (including two 12” discs) and 3 12” discs for Columbia. After a few appearances of WBBC’s Syrian Hour radio show in early 1933, we are unclear what happened to him.

The only other singers to have recorded nearly as prolific as Simon during the 1910s and 20s were Selim Domani, who made at least 30 discs for Maloof’s label; Louis Wardini, who made 6 discs for Victor on May 16, 1917 and another 25 discs for independent labels in the 20s (including Maloof’s); and Constantine Sooss (or Souse), who released 17 discs on Victor and Columbia during the period October 1917 to February 1920. (Again, Richard Breaux has written biographical studies of all three of them.) One factor ties together the recordings of Simon, Domani, Sooss, Wardiny, and (potentially) Aziz. They all include the violin accompaniment of Naim Karacand. A 2500-word biographical article on Karacand, published at Breaux’s Midwest Majar blog, is attached among the download files for this album. But here is a brief summary:

Karacand was born on September 2, 1890 in Aleppo, Syria, where he was raised Catholic. He arrived at Ellis Island October 10, 1909 and settled in Brooklyn, followed by his younger brother Hicmat and parents Abdullah and Susie. He was first married in 1912, and he had his wife Najeema had three children (1913-17) - the period during which he recorded with Nahum Simon, William Kamel, Moses Cohen, and others as well as about another 10 discs under his own name or anonymously. His band at the time included Shehade Ashear (or Shehadi Ashkar, kanun) and Abraham Halaby (oud), both of whom were Halabi (Aleppan) Jews, or in some cases oudist Toufic Gabriel Moubaid (born ca. 1887-88 in Tripoli, Lebanon). During 1921-22, he was involved in a protracted, bitter, and very public divorce that tore his family apart. He recorded prolifically through the 20s for Maloof and A.J. Macksoud independent labels based in southern Manhattan’s Little Syria neighborhood.

His Declaration of Intent to naturalize as the citizen of the United States on July 10, 1923 was witnessed by his regular collaborator Toufic Moubaid and the dancer Anna Athena Arcus, a native of Mersin, Turkey five years his senior whom he later married. In 1930-32 Karacand worked as a music consultant on a series of film in Hollywood, notably including Mata Hari starring Greta Garbo. In 1936-37, he traveled to Brazil for the wedding of his brother Chukri and performed there before returning to Brooklyn. He spent the 1930s and 40s playing WHOM’s Friday evening Arabian Nights radio program and performing constantly at gatherings of the Syrian-Lebanese community. He continued to record prolifically for independent labels through the 1940s and 50s in New York. Among his last recordings were in 1958 at jazz-Arabic hybrid sessions for Riverside Records under the direction of Ahmed Abdul-Malik, who was then bassist for Thelonious Monk. Following the deaths of his second wife and all three of his children, he died in Astoria, Queens in 1973 and is buried in Green Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

A composer and performer who was held in high regard in his community, Karacand’s repertoire and skill allowed him to play with a wide variety of performers from a variety of backgrounds. Even among his earliest recordings on this album, he plays a classical peshrev (“bishro”) by the Ottoman-Armenian Tatyos (tracks 17-18), urban Beirut/Cairo-style classical tarab (tracks 5-6 and 9-10), and Syrian rural folk deke dances (tracks 21-22 which were originally issued uncredited). His collaborators included Jews (including Moses Cohen, who we suspect was born in Aleppo ca. 1894) as often as Christians.

Between May 1914 and February 1920, Columbia Records issued a total of 70 discs recorded by Arabic-speaking immigrants before ceasing to record them. Victor a total of 32 discs between September 1913 and July 1921 and persisted only sporadically through the 1920s. By and large the market gap for Syrian-American performers on record during the 20s was filled by the Maloof and Macksoud labels. This collection then represents about 10% of the total output for the time-period it covers. Allthough lacking certain key performers (Souss in particular) and sourced from acoustically recorded discs in very mixed condition from over a century ago, and lacking in biographical details for two of its performers (William Kamel and Moses Cohen), I hope it serves as window into in the musical world of a remarkable American immigrant community deserving of more attention.

All tracks recorded at Columbia Grafophone's Woolworth Building studio on Broadway except for 1 & 2 recorded at Victor Records' New York City studio.

Instrumentalists on tracks 3-22 are likely Naim Karacand (violin), Shehade Ashear (or Shehadi Ashkar, kanun) and either Abraham Halaby or Toufic Moubaid (oud).

Recordings dates via Richard K. Spottswood Ethnic Music on Records (University of Illinois Press) and Columbia Records E Series, 1908-23 (Mainspring Press): 1 July 24, 1913 2 September 18 1913 3-6 April 1916 7-10 May 1916 11-18 June 1916 19-20 January 1917 21-22 May 1919

Transfers, restoration, and notes by Ian Nagoski, 2017-2020 Thanks to Richard M. Breaux whose ongoing research into early 20th century Arabic-speaking immigrants can be found at syrianlebanesediasporasound.blogspot.com

Thanks also to Steve Shapiro, Nancy Karacand, and Jorge Khlat.

Further reading: Elmaz Abinader. Children of the Roojme: A Family’s Journey from Lebanon. University of Wisconsin Press, 1997. Donna Carlton: Looking for Little Egypt. IDD Books, 2011 Stacy D. Fahrenthold. Between the Ottomans and the Etente: The First World War in the Syrian and Lebanese Diaspora, 1908-1925. Oxford University Press, 2019. Sarah M. Gaultieri. Between Arab and White: Race and Ethnicity in the Early Syrian American Diaspora. University of Caltifornia Press, 2009 Princess [sic] Rahme Haidar. Under Syrian Stars. Fleming H. Revell, 1929. Linda K. Jacobs. Strangers in the West: The Syrian Colony of New York City, 1880-1900. Kaliyah Press, 2015. Salom Rizk. Syrian Yankee. Doubleday, 1943. Najiba E. Saliba. Emigration from Syria and the Syrian-Lebanese Community in Worcester, MA. Antakya Press, 1992. Lee S. Tesdell et al. The Way We Were: Arab-Americans in Central Iowa, an Oral History. Iowa Humanities Board, 1993.

[rightsinexile]

News on Countries of Asylum

AFRICA

High-level ministerial meeting on refugees in the Great Lakes region

Africa welcomes refugees but freedom and jobs are needed

Seventy percent of African migration occurs within the continent

Members states of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) resolve to work towards making it easier for refugees to work in their host countries

DJIBOUTI

Yemeni refugees choose baboon-infested tent city in Djibouti over Saudi camp

EGYPT

Sudan’s refugees in Egypt: The struggle to cope

ETHIOPIA

How Ethiopia is managing refugees and shoppers from Eritrea amid new peace

KENYA

Global restructuring at UNHCR to affect Kenya

Kenya orders closure of Dadaab camp this year, according to leaked UN document

MAURITANIA

UN says Mauritania urgently needs funds to deal with ongoing refugee crisis

REUNION

Sri Lankans risk it all to seek asylum on tiny island of Reunion

UGANDA

Key donors freeze Uganda refugee aid after UN mismanagement scandal

UNHCR calls for international support for Uganda, grappling with an influx of 1.2 million refugees from neighbouring countries

ZAMBIA

Zambia appeals for money to cater for refugees

AMERICAS

BRAZIL

Over 5,000 Venezuelans find new homes through Brazil’s internal relocation programme

CANADA

Québec’s Trump-like immigration policies contradict Canada’s welcoming image

COLOMBIA

Colombia border hospitals struggle with Venezuelan migrant influx

MEXICO

Mexico frets over US plans to take divisive asylum policy to new cities

Mexico tries new approach to asylum-seekers at the border

Life carries on at Mexico’s southern border, where there is permanent mobility

US

Ankle bracelets, court hearings, no work and homelessness amongst Mexican asylum seekers in the US

Parents separated from children and deported arrive back at US border

Trump administration to close offices for international asylum and refugee cases

ASIA

BANGLADESH

Inside the Bhashan Char plan for Rohingya refugees

Bangladesh says it will not accept any more Myanmar refugees

How the Rohingya crisis in Bangladesh is changing

CHINA

China offers Rohingya refugees money if they return to Myanmar

INDIA

Supreme Court suggests refugee status for immigrants

INDONESIA

The growing despair of refugees stuck in Indonesia

MALAYSIA

More than 30 Rohingya women, children found stranded on beach in Perlis

AUSTRALIA

Refugee footballer becomes Australian citizen after Thai-Bahrain ordeal

The Government says Australians will lose out on medical help if refugees are brought here for treatment

Children of refugees on Manus Island eligible for transfer under medevac bill, but confusion reigns

Employing refugees in Australia is not as complicated as many think

Australia's citizenship backlog is taking a toll on the country's refugees

Manus Island refugee addresses UN over Australia's “cruel” asylum seeker policy

EUROPE

EU recalls ships helping in Mediterranean refugee rescues

Diminished “Operation Sophia” abandons refugees, migrants to Libyan Coast Guard

AUSTRIA

Austria proposes preventative detention for asylum seekers deemed a threat

CYPRUS

UNHCR highlights plight of asylum seekers in Cyprus

DENMARK

Denmark announces extension of refugee apprenticeship programme

GERMANY

Germany's east 10 times more unsafe for asylum-seekers

Number of attacks on migrants and refugees going down in Germany

GREECE

Council of Europe slams Greece over refugee camp conditions

Masked attackers target refugee event in northeastern Greece, one injured

ICELAND

Refugee protesters in Reykjavik disperse, cite failing health and xenophobia

IRELAND

Government calls for Irish communities to sponsor refugee families

ITALY

Bulldozers demolish Italian camp housing 1,500 refugees

Italian government says migrant arrivals down 94% in 2019

NETHERLANDS

The Netherlands tougher on migration after granting asylum to Armenian family

SPAIN

Venezuelans seeking asylum In Spain hope to return home one day

The young refugees trapped in Spain's African enclave

Venezuelans top list of asylum-seekers in Spain

Spanish Coast Guard planes struggling without search radars amid record migrant crossings

Nearly half of recent Spain migrant arrivals report exploitation and abuse

SWEDEN

Sweden to grant direct refugee status to Uighur Turks

SWITZERLAND

New asylum rules come into force in Switzerland

UK

Asylum seekers in Glasgow “could be cleared to work in six months”

Parliamentarians call on Britain to double places for vulnerable refugees

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAEL

Israeli authorities find asylum seekers have a case, but won't act

Interior Minister refuses to grant Darfuri asylum seekers resident visas ahead of election

PAKISTAN

Imran Khan allows registered Afghan refugees to open bank accounts in Pakistan

TURKEY

Syrian refugees who fled to Turkey face backlash

Turkey gradually implements a policy of integration for Syrian refugees

[quadraphonictypewriter]

OC Introduction

Here are some little snippet bios for three characters in “Mirrors.”

Tagging @adamthegirl @fluffythewritingplant

Main OC: Nora Kaloustyan (born 1995)

A 20 year old Armenian-Canadian who finds she can travel through time and realities through pre-genocide, made-in-Armenia mirrors. She sets out on a journey to find out why and how these mirrors are transporting her, and why her great-grandmother, Mariam, left her the original mirror in the first place.

Secondary OC: Armen Nersessyan (born 1963)

Second generation Armenian immigrant living in Laval, Canada, in 1984 who feels sympathetic to Nora when he meets her. He doesn’t understand why or how she always pops in and out of his life in the years to come.

Secondary OC: Mariam “Mam” Kaloustian (born 1894)

Daughter of a silversmith in Northern Armenia. Survived the genocide as a child, became a sorceress and a spiritual pillar in her community. Sent her children to Canada in the 1940s to have a better life than she did.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"LOCAL GREEKS NOW AWAIT WAR CALL," Vancouver Daily World. October 7, 1912. Page 3. --- Seven Hundred Former Residents of Greece Ready to Proceed to Front-First Call Received From Greek Ambassador. ---- That local Greeks are willing and ready to help their comrades in the old land in the war against the Turks was evidenced by the enthusiasm displayed at a meeting held in the Dominion hall last evening. P. Bancroft, the pre ident of the Greek society, presiding. The total number present was over 1200, consisting of Greeks, Bulgarians, Armenians and Montenegrins.

The principle object of the meeting was to get together natives of the Balkan states, who were on the army reserve list. In order that they might hear the call to hold themselves in readiness to proceed to the front. The call came in the form of a wire from the Greek Ambassador in Washington, D. C., and read as follows: "Reserves to 1911 be ready. (signed) Caftayaglu."

According to Mr. Bancroft, the second call will not be long in coming. and it will find about 700 local men available for service, and ready to proceed to Greece at once.

Of this number about 400 will be reserve men and the rest volunteers. The men will be sent as far as New York at the expense of the local Greek colony, the Greek government defraying the cost afterwards. They will be under the command of A. Demetry, an old navy man, and one who knows the country thoroughly.

It is expected that throughout the whole of Canada, something like 20,000 men will answer to the call, whilst from the United States over 75,000 will mobilize.

Speeches in the Greek language were delivered by P. Bancroft, M. A. Karoditch and E. Bulich, interrupted at times with vehement cries in English of "Down with the Turks," the meeting terminating in the early hours of the morning.

[diaryofanangryasianguy]

Lol white Europeans act like white Americans and Canadians are somehow separate from them. Like America AND Canada are the products of WHITE EUROPEAN imperialism lmao. Just because they practice systematic racism versus our outright racism doesn’t make them better. And honestly this whole idea that Europe is somehow better is laughable. Especially since they give racist governments (turkey and Israel) passes for genocide while letting refugees die despite signing the Geneva accords.

Exactly.

And the thing about Canadian whiteys is that they love showing off how progressive and friendly and odd they are but tbh they’re just as racist over there too.

You know how media propaganda makes a country look bad, well Canada is one of those countries where media propaganda tries to make it look good. The same thing with Australia. They try to act all progressive and this and that but they’re racist over there too. In both Canada and Australia, the indigenous groups are facing all kinds of issues from health to crime and all. Both countries also have xenophobic and anti-immigration issues as well.

And Turkey still denies the Armenian genocide even though many countries already recognize it. And Israel is occupying Palestinian land. The IDF spreads anti-Palestinian propaganda while they shoot and murder protestors. Then they have the nerve to deny Palestine when they’re literally on Palestinian land.

To be clear, I’m not anti- towards any of these places, I’m just pointing out some shit in which everyone has a right to do lol

Angry Asian Guy

[sheetmusiclibrarypdf]

Charles Aznavour- La Bohème, chanson Française (partition, sheet music)

Charles Aznavour- La Bohème, chanson Française (partition, sheet music) La Bohème avec partition Charles Aznavour - Short biography Téléchargement des meilleures partitions dans notre bibliothèque. Please, subscribe to our Library. Thank you! https://dai.ly/kROP3kFphadUiIwMpr3

Charles Aznavour- La Bohème, chanson Française (partition, sheet music)

La Bohème avec partition

Charles Aznavour - Short biography

Beloved French chanson entertainer Charles Aznavour, who wrote more than 800 songs, recorded more than 1,000 of them in French, English, German and Spanish and sold over 100 million records in all, was born Shahnour Vaghinag Aznavourian on May 22, 1924, in Paris, the younger of two children born to Armenian immigrants who fled to France. His mother was a seamstress as well as an actress and his father was a baritone who sang in restaurants. Both Charles and his elder sister waited on tables and he performed, as well. He delivered his first poetic recital while just a toddler. Within a few years later he had developed such a passion for singing/dancing, that he sold newspapers to earn money for lessons. He took his first theatrical bow in the play "Emil and the Detectives" at age 9 and within a few years was working as a movie extra. He eventually quit school and toured France and Belgium as a boy singer/dancer with a traveling theatrical troupe while living the bohemian lifestyle. A popular performer at the Paris' Club de la Chanson, it was there that he was introduced in 1941 to the songwriter Pierre Roche. Together they developed names for themselves as a singing/writing cabaret and concert duo ("Roche and Aznamour"). A Parisian favorite, they became developed successful tours outside of France, including Canada. In the post WWII years Charles began appearing in films again, one of them as a singing croupier in Adieu chérie (1946). Eventually Aznavour earned a sturdy reputation composing street-styled songs for other established musicians and singers, notably Édith Piaf, for whom he wrote the French version of the American hit "Jezebel". Heavily encouraged by her, he toured with her as both an opening act and lighting man. He lived with Piaf out of need for a time not as one of her many paramours. His mentor eventually persuaded him to perform solo (without Roche) and he made several successful tours while scoring breakaway hits with the somber chanson songs "Sur ma vie" and "Parce que" and the notable and controversial "Après l'amour." In 1950, he gave the bittersweet song "Je Hais Les Dimanches" to chanteuse Juliette Gréco, which became a huge hit for her. In the late 50s, Aznavour began to infiltrate films with more relish. Short and stubby in stature and excessively brash and brooding in nature, he was hardly leading man material but embraced his shortcomings nevertheless. Unwilling to let these faults deter him, he made a strong impressions with the comedy Une gosse 'sensass' (1957) and with Paris Music Hall (1957). He was also deeply affecting as the benevolent but despondent and ill-fated mental patient Heurtevent in La cabeza contra la pared (1959). A year later, Aznavour starred as piano player Charlie Kohler/Edouard Saroyan in Francois Truffaut's adaptation of the David Goodis' novel Tirad sobre el pianista (1960) , which earned box-office kudos both in France and the United States. This sudden notoriety sparked an extensive tour abroad in the 1960s. Dubbed the "Frank Sinatra of France" and singing in many languages (French, English, Italian, Spanish, German, Russian, Armenian, Portuguese), his touring would include sold-out performances at Carnegie Hall (1964) and London's Albert Hall (1967). Aznavour served as actor and composer/music arranger for many films, including Gosse de Paris (1961), which he also co-wrote with director Marcel Martin, and the dramas Las cuatro verdades (1962) . The actor also embraced the title role in the TV series "Les Fables de la Fontaine" (1964), then starred in the popular musical "Monsieur Carnaval" (1965), in which he performed his hit song "La bohême". His continental star continued to shine and Aznavour acted in films outside of France with more dubious results. While the satirical Candy (1968), with an international cast that included Marlon Brando, Richard Burton and Ringo Starr, and epic adventure Los libertinos (1970) were considered huge misfires upon release, it still showed Aznavour off as a world-wide attraction. While he was also seen in La prueba del valor (1970) (1970), The Blockhouse (1973) (1973) and an umpteenth film version of Agatha Christie's Diez negritos (1974), it was his music that kept him in the international limelight. Later films included Yiddish Connection (1986), which he co-wrote and provided music; Il maestro (1990) with Malcolm McDowell; the Canadian-French production Ararat (2002) for which he received special kudos; cameos as himself in La verdad sobre Charlie (2002) and Emmenez-moi (2005); and his final feature film, Mon colonel (2006) Films aside, his chart-busting single "She" (1972-1974) went platinum in Great Britain. He also received thirty-seven gold albums in all. His most popular song in America, "Yesterday When I Was Young" has had renditions covered by everyone from Shirley Bassey to Julio Iglesias. In 1997, Aznavour received an honorary César Award. He has written three books, the memoirs "Aznavour By Aznavour" (1972), the song lyrics collection "Des mots à l'affiche" (1991) and a second memoir "Le temps des avants" (2003). A "Farewell Tour" was instigated in 2006 at age 82. He died Married at least three times (some claim five) to Micheline Rugel, Evelyne Plessis and Ulla Thorsell, he fathered six children (daughters Katia, Patricia and Seda Aznavour, and sons Misha, Nicholas, and Patrick Aznavour). He died on October 1, 2018, in France. Read the full article

[cloudtales]

Canadian Religious Groups Speak Out on Immigration Detention

Canadian Religious Groups Speak Out on Immigration Detention

Click to expand Image Armenian Orthodox Priest Meghrig Parikian, right, hands a Christmas chocolate to Gerget Prtoyan during a service at the St. Mary Armenian Apostolic Church, December 11, 2015, in Toronto, where Syrian refugees arrived that Friday morning. © 2015 Chris Young/The Canadian Press via AP Religious organizations across Canada urged the federal and provincial governments to get on a…

[armeniaitn]

Entrepreneur and Activist Saro Derbedrossian at the forefront of HotNewHipHop

New Post has been published on https://armenia.in-the.news/culture/entrepreneur-and-activist-saro-derbedrossian-at-the-forefront-of-hotnewhiphop-73126-07-05-2021/

Entrepreneur and Activist Saro Derbedrossian at the forefront of HotNewHipHop

Saro Derbedrossian, who goes by the name of Saro D

BY LALAI MANJIKIAN Special to Asbarez

For more than 14 years, Saro Derbedrossian, who goes by the name of Saro D, has been diligently building one of the biggest music platforms on the internet today. This digital publication called HotNewHipHop (HNHH) has become an internationally recognized force in the hip-hop world and in the music industry at large.

Saro D was born in Beirut before the start of the Lebanese civil war and grew up against the backdrop of conflict, until he immigrated to Montreal, Canada. After completing an MBA degree in Montreal, he was eager to find opportunities to apply his entrepreneurial skills and relentless drive. With his love of the Internet and music colliding, he was able to take a simple website to new heights, as the growth of HNHH also coincided with hip-hop’s rise as the dominant music genre.

Saro D. in Artsakh

Today, HNHH is the place where millions of people around the world turn to for news, music, and trends, all linked to hip-hop culture. Currently, HNHH averages over 12 million unique visitors a month, with 80 percent of them from the United States & Canada and boasts a social media footprint of over 3.5 million followers across all channels. Though the company is based in Montreal, HNHH has an office in New York City and a creative space in Los Angeles.

Not only is Saro D a successful entrepreneur, but he also manages to stay active in the Armenian community, as a committed advocate for the Armenian Cause (Hay Tad). His Armenian background and his deep involvement in community activism, whether for genocide recognition or Artsakh, has only heightened his sensitivity vis-à-vis racism in general and the Black Lives Matter Movement.

I interviewed Saro D to learn more about how he developed and grew HNHH into the digital publication that it is today, and to find out more about his overlapping entrepreneurial and personal trajectories.

Saro is an example that Armenians are builders, whether that is building an online lifestyle publication from the ground up or (re)building a stronger Armenia.

LALAI MANJIKIAN: Can you take us back to when, and how, this start-up was born? Can you describe what your role has been in HNHH’s development over the years?

SARO DERBEDROSSIAN: It started as a personal thing. My entrepreneurial drive, the fire I had in me, pushed me to do something on my own. When I was thinking of “where” and “what” I wanted to do alone, at the time, I was fascinated by the Internet, we’re talking about 2007. The Internet was going crazy back then. It really didn’t matter what the project was, as long as I was working on a business involving the Internet. I came from a background of operations and manufacturing, which is pretty traditional. I was really looking forward to being in a very exciting venture. Once I knew that I wanted to start something on the Internet, the music aspect came later.

L.M: The start of your website happened to coincide with a time when music was transitioning from physical to digital. The way we consume music has changed drastically over the last decade, and it is precisely during these past ten years that HNHH has emerged and evolved.

S.D: Exactly! In the beginning, HNHH started by being a simple page where we curated music. It was a compilation of daily music that we, ourselves, liked. We said, you know what, instead of you going and looking everywhere for music, you can come here, where we are giving you a highly curated daily list of songs and we were rating them. So, there was an editorial element. We were saying, “this is HOTTTTT”, “this is VERY HOTTTTT” and this ranking system became an iconic thing for HNHH.

L.M: HNHH carved its place then, initially through music curation, but now it has expanded to tackle hip-hop news and other topics adjacent to the culture. How did this transition take place?

Saro D. with the rapper Lil West, one of the artists signed to his label (Nomad Music Group) and to Republic Records (part of Universal Music)

S.D: We decided that HotNewHipHop has to be a publication, as opposed to just a website, or a blog page. I don’t have any background in publication, and I don’t have editorial experience, but because I had worked in operations, I had a lot of experience in how to operate a business. I started realizing that we should have an editorial team. We should have someone writing news, someone who’s writing features. That’s when I started hiring journalists, who know exactly how things are done, people who have writing skills. We started putting these people together, who also have a lot of knowledge in hip hop, referred to as “hip hop heads.” As much as I love music, there are people who really know this stuff, they know it by date, the history, etc. So, that is how we started growing the content type. We realized, instead of focusing on the content let’s focus on the audience.

L.M: Can you address who your target audience is on HNHH?

S.M.: Our audience is made predominantly of millennials, who are 18-34 years old. The majority of people visiting the site are 21, 22, 23-year-olds. These are people who not only love to hear hip hop music, they are also active within the culture. A lot of current aspects of pop culture are influenced by hip hop. We went from being the “underdog” of music genres, to really a worldwide cultural phenomenon. We realized that we should cover other aspects of the culture, besides just the music. If you are coming to listen to the music or coming to know what are the top songs of that day, you also come to see what happened that day in the world of professional basketball, like did something funny happen yesterday during the Laker’s game?

Saro D.’s HotNewHipHop has become an influential force in hip-hop world and the music industry

L.M.: Can you give us a sense of the role HNHH plays in introducing and determining trends in hip hop culture? To some degree you are calling the shots, by telling your audience what’s hot and what’s not.

S.D.: I am not going to call it our forte, our specialty, but I guess the name of the game is creating content. Most of the news that we break is through interviews. That’s the type of news we like to break.

We also focus on finding new talent.

We focus a lot on new artists. We have a team taking care of that, we have music submission systems, and we also go and look for artists.

We try to stay true to our name. The content has to be “hot”, in the sense that, we want to serve it to our audience quickly, but it also has to be culturally relevant and important. We want to be the first ones to break the news, and then also, when something interests us, we report it. We publish anywhere between 100-125 articles, pieces of news, information a day. We have different segments on YouTube weekly. We also have a social media team who creates content specifically for our social media channels, Facebook, and Instagram. The content is not necessarily the same, they don’t intersect. Our audience on Instagram consumes news differently than our audience on the website.

L.M: HNHH has been instrumental particularly in featuring new, as well as established hip hop artists. Can you describe the role HNHH has played and continues to play in launching new artists’ careers?

Saro D. at Dadivank Monastery in Artsakh.

S.D.: I wouldn’t credit ourselves saying we launch artists’ careers. We give them the platform; it is up to them to make the most out of it.

Many artists have gone through HNHH, but one or two that became really big via our exclusive support early on, would be Tory Lanez, Canadian R&B/Hip-Hop artist. Tyga would be another one. Wiz Khalifa would be another one. We’ve launched his first mixtape. The Weeknd also is another one. We have a good relationship with The Weeknd’s management team and have premiered exclusive singles from him.

L.M: I would like to address the #BlackLivesMatter movement and how it too connects to HNHH. How has HNHH addressed anti-Black racism over the years and particularly now, with the rise of racist rhetoric and with systemic racism becoming more exposed?

S.D: It all comes from the internal culture. Every time something big happens, we have covered it. We are not a political website, true. However, anything that happens in the world that affects the culture, we definitely are there, we cover it. Personally, I am very sensitive to these issues. Sometimes, I am the one pushing, because I am an activist as a person, as an Armenian. I feel like anytime a community, a population is going through a crisis, something is activated in me and tells me that we have to do something, we have to talk about it. Obviously, I am not black, but sometimes, I really feel what they go through. For the past 14 years, I have been working day in and day out with people of all races.

L.M: HNHH has plans to open a creative space in Los Angeles, can you talk to us about this project, what the space will encompass and where this project currently stands?

S.D: The whole idea is about creating content. As a digital publication, besides text-based content, we also need to produce video content, visuals, photos and audio. Initially, we were very successful in creating a creative space in NYC. However, while we wanted to go to NYC because of its deep history with hip-hop, we realized many rappers had moved to LA. With all the talent that LA and Hollywood both have, as well as the visual creation industry that is based there, we felt like we would be in a good position to move out there. So we kept our offices in NYC, and we went out and got a space in LA as well. We signed the lease in February, and unfortunately everything was closed down in March, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s a beautiful space in Burbank, it is near other visual creators, musical studios, Disney and all that. The idea is to have many small studios, each one catering to a different video series for our YouTube channel. We also plan to have a recording studio – I also own a record label called Nomad Music. We manage artists, we sign artists for record deals. So, the idea is to have our own artists go there as well, to produce, and record songs in that space.

L.M: Can you tell us a bit about your personal trajectory, both in life and in business? Have you always had entrepreneurial ambitions?

S.D: I was born in Beirut, and I grew up in Beirut. I was born just before the (Lebanese civil) war, and I came to Canada shortly after the war ended. So, I have seen it all in Lebanon. I went to Neshan Palandjian Djereman in Beirut, and I also attended university in Lebanon, Université St-Joseph, majoring in Economics. After graduating, I wanted to come to Canada, but I had a year in between, waiting for immigration acceptance. During that year, I taught Math at Djemaran. After finally arriving in Canada, I did my MBA at Concordia University and then found a job. So, the entrepreneurial thing, I don’t know exactly, is it genetic? Or is it my personality? My father was a businessman, and I always went to his office. I was inspired by my father, he was a very creative businessman, he was a “big ideas” man. “Big ideas” which we have to be able to do, make them concrete. My father inspired me to think big, to dream big. But I think my personality also plays a role. The war, and the fact that we did not have a normal childhood. We grew up around bombardments, military cannons and army bases, it was chaotic. Nonetheless, I had a great childhood, I was born into a great family, but the environment was so rough, so tough, and violent. On top of the war, there was this Armenian education, to remain Armenian, I am not going to say indoctrinated, but we were brought up being “very Armenian.” We are talking a period of time that was post-genocide, pre-Artaskh. As an Armenian, there was a struggle, as a Lebanese, there was a struggle, as a student, as a person, there was always a struggle, to try to make up for what we lost.

L.M: I think it is safe to say that you were in survival mode but wanted to go into “thrive mode.”

S.D: Exactly. So, when I came to Canada, my thinking was that, you know what, I have to prove to myself that I am able to achieve something. Basically, we went through all that, and, now, are we good for something? Can we do something?

L.M: Besides being a successful entrepreneur, you have also been a relentless advocate for the Armenian Cause (Hay Tad) for several years. Can you talk about this aspect and what the Armenian Cause means to you, particularly in light of the recent war that took place in Artsakh?

S.D: Hay Tad is on a personal level. It’s my life. Hay Tad is the most important thing we have outside of Armenia. It is advocating for Armenia in the diaspora. I feel like it’s the most important mission any Armenian should be devoted to, outside of Armenia. Besides educating our kids and keeping the culture, we need to make sure that Armenia, as a country, as a state, becomes stronger. Hay Tad is important, it means activism outside of Armenia.

As for the war, not only did we lose the war, but we are going through turmoil within the country. Armenia should have never gone to war. Armenia should have defended Artsakh, Artsakh is the cornerstone of everything we have, we lost it. I am very worried.

We went to war; the loss of life is tremendous. I don’t know how to put it. It ruins you from the inside. The aftermath is also very ugly. There is no loss without an aftermath of sorrow, of sadness, people not understanding, of political turmoil. However, I also feel that we have the strength as a nation to stand on our feet again.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Read original article here.

[familiaralien]

On the topic of that fucking vehicular manslaughter dude I have pretty much 100% confirmation at this point he:

Always resided in Canada.

Is of Armenian descent (so white passing PoC? I’ve seen the photo he’s has super pale skin anyway). Armenians for context are vast majority Christian so its very likely that’s his faith or he’s non religious.

So yeah this makes all the people spamming the TorontoAttack hashtag on twitter with anti immigration and anti Muslim sentiment super damn frustrating. I mean for fuck sakes even if he had been one of both of those it would still make him the exception not the rule! 

Every fucking time some piece of shit hauls off and murders a bunch of people here they turn up to have always resided in Canada and always turn out to be to a man with no Muslim ties at all (usually but not always white+christian).

There’s literally no reasonable reason to assume it was a Muslim immigrant, they are absolutely not the ones doing the killing in this country. Hell last year this shit country had a fucking white supremacist walk into a mosque and murder several people. There couldn’t be a worse time for this Islamphobic horseshit to keep spewing.