Language Situation among the Armenians of Baghdad: A Sociolinguistic Study

Abstract

This study investigates the language situation of the Armenian language among the Armenians of Baghdad. The researcher examines the domains of language where the Armenians use their ethnic language and the factors that support them use their ethnic language side by side with Arabic language. The researcher uses a pilot questionnaire that helped her to create a community profile which gives information about the community. She uses a sociolinguistic questionnaire, which is formed by the information taken from pilot questionnaire, to answer the main questions of the study. She distributed the questionnaire to 50 participants from different demographic background from Armenian community. The study concludes that the Armenians of Baghdad still preserve their ethnic language and use it restrictedly at home, church and in social religious events. The study also finds that the home, the family and the church are the major factors that maintain the Armenian language among the community in Baghdad. It also shows other factors that maintain the Armenian language such as schools, institutions, and the historic events that live in the memory of the community that contribute to the language maintenance.