Armenian Language Opens Doors
Visiting one post-Soviet state, you can then recognize it in all others – the similar patterns of urban planning and the identical buildings, structures, roads, pipes, wires, tiles, etc. However, an outsider delving inside under the extreme familiarity of the material environment finds an extreme “strangeness” of social interactions and practices. The “Outside In” series is about emplaced paradoxes and nuances. It spotlights the mundane in Armenia’s peripheral locations, where the seemingly unspectacular encounters with people and things allowing us to capture the unique features of the territory.
About three and a half years ago, when I began learning Armenian as part of my PhD at Oxford, I felt a subtle but persistent frustration. Instead of investing my time in one of the UN languages — Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, or at least French — that circulate smoothly through diplomacy, international organizations, academia and global labor markets, I was spending three mornings a week grappling with a language spoken by roughly three million people in a small, landlocked country (and several million in the diaspora) that many foreigners cannot confidently locate on a map. Remember how, in 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly confused Armenia with Albania while discussing a peace deal he claimed to have brokered? I am fairly certain he is not alone in that geographic ignorance.
For a while, learning Armenian felt indulgent. But time has a way of humiliating our certainty. I was wrong. Not only is Armenian a beautiful language, one in which words are constructed so that the whole genuinely exceeds the sum of its parts and delves into the essence of the phenomenon (a kiss is literally taste plus smell; friends are people who eat together; family are those who live under one roof), it is also unexpectedly useful. Speaking Armenian opens doors that appear, to everyone else, firmly locked. The stories below might sound improbable, but quoting one of the highly influential and acclaimed contemporary anthropologists, Michael Taussig: “I swear, I saw it.”
Restaurant in Leipzig
My education in the utility of the Armenian language began in Leipzig. It was approaching 10 p.m. The neatly paved streets offered nothing but closed entryways. Finally, I saw light through the windows of one restaurant. Chairs were stacked upon most of the tables, but there were still people dining. I knocked on the door out of pure desperation.
A large man with an even larger jet black moustache opened it halfway. He said something in German that required no translation whatsoever: we’re closed, go away. Exhausted, hungry, and reaching for whatever linguistic scraps were left in my brain, I attempted a polite retreat and accidentally answered in Armenian: “Thank you, sorry” [Arm.: shnorakalutyun, neroghutyun].
The transformation was immediate and total. His face reorganized itself into a smile so wide I briefly worried about the structural integrity of his gorgeous moustache.
“Are you Armenian?” [Arm.: Hay es?]
“No, but I speak…” [Arm.: Che, bayts khosum em…]
Too late. I was already being pulled across the threshold, from the realm of “closed” into warmth and light. Within minutes, I was seated at a table that began to fill without any consultation, with dolma, khorovats, bread, salads, and enough Ararat cognac to preserve a small mammal.
The man with the moustache , Armen, the owner, explained that half his staff was Armenian, his mother was from Gyumri, his wife’s grandmother from Yerevan. These facts were delivered not as a biography but as credentials.
When I tried to pay, Armen looked genuinely offended, as though I had suggested something morally questionable. “You speak Armenian,” he said patiently, as if this resolved the matter. It did, though I didn’t yet know why.
From that day on, every time I am in Leipzig on business, I drop by Armen’s restaurant with small tokens from Yerevan. He still never allows me to pay.
Train Station in Ghent
Some months later, Armenian intervened again, this time at Gent-Sint-Pieters station. I missed my train to Brussels by roughly 40 seconds, close enough to helplessly watch it depart. The next train would arrive soon, except that it would make me miss my Eurostar to London, at a moment when my bank account was already in end-of-the-month existential crisis.
I sat on a bench, trying to figure out plan B, when I heard Armenian behind me. Two older women were arguing energetically about politics. Encouraged by past experience, I approached and explained, in Armenian, that I had missed my train.
Over the next 20 minutes I had been fed, handed a bottle of water, and reassured that everything was going to be fine. One of the women, Anahit, was already on the phone, mobilizing what appeared to be the entire Armenian diaspora of Belgium. Fifteen minutes later, I was placed on a bus to Brussels, occupying a seat that had materialized despite the bus being “completely full” according to every official source. I never fully understood how this happened. I was simply grateful that it did.
Ice-Skating Rink in Moscow
It was January, and we were celebrating a friend’s daughter’s birthday: snooker, dinner, and finally ice skating. By the time we reached the rink, however, the last session had already begun. No entry. The children were devastated.
My friend Masha attempted negotiation. “You know, our friends came from Yerevan and are leaving soon. Maybe there’s a way…?”
“Yerevan?” the guard paused, thinking. “Go to the next door. It’s for Armenians.” Sic: this quote is reported exactly as it was said.
At the next door stood a young Armenian man leaning slightly against the frame.
“From Yerevan? Come in, come in. Welcome [Arm.: hametsek],” he said. Then nodded to the rental desk, and three pairs of skates appeared. My younger boy politely squeaked in Armenian: “Thank you, have a good evening, sir [Arm.: shnorakalutyun, dzez lav yereko, paron], making the young man grin.
The children and I skated for an hour, grateful for the privilege of what we now privately refer to as the Armenian door.
The Pattern
By this point, the pattern was hard to ignore. You can meet Armenians everywhere, scattered by genocide, by the collapse of the Soviet Union, by labor markets and opportunity. Yet dispersion has not diluted connection. Language, kinship, and a distinctly forceful form of hospitality persist despite distance.
I explain the pattern to myself the following way (please, correct me if I am wrong): Armenian is obscure enough that when a non-Armenian speaks it, beyond hello even if badly, this produces an immediate bond. Speaking Armenian marks you as kin. It might make no rational sense. But it is what it is.
In Armenia, kinship is not a concept but an organizing principle – a fact documented in scholarly literature and evident in everyday life through awkward personal questions, comments, and unsolicited advice. As argued by the social anthropologist Tamar Shirinian, the Armenian nation is practiced as family: everyday encounters are intimate, demanding, caring, and occasionally overwhelming. Another scholar, Stephanie Platz, once quoted an Armenian saying, “We don’t have capitalism, we only have kinship” – a complaint about corruption and nepotism, yes, but also an accurate description of the social infrastructure through which things actually get done. The web of obligations and mutual support are not just supplementary to official institutions, they are the core INSTITUTION which travelled globally.
What this means in practice: when you speak Armenian to an Armenian abroad, you are not just demonstrating linguistic ability. You are signalling that you understand, or at least respect, a particular way of organizing social relationships. You are acknowledging membership – even honorary, even if temporary – in a network that operates on principles of reciprocal obligation rather than transaction, care rather than efficiency. And once you’re in, the rules apply.
So, yes, learn Spanish if you want practical communication across multiple continents. Learn Chinese if you want access to business opportunities and economic power. Learn French if you want to feel sophisticated while eating cheese. Learn Arabic if you want to unlock vast cultural heritage, literary tradition, or engage in trade. But if you want a secret key to a global network of loyal, improbably generous people who will treat you like kin the moment you open your mouth? Learn Armenian. Sometimes the real reward of learning a language is not professional polish or institutional usefulness, but accidental belonging. As one of my closest friends likes to joke: “Janik will never be left without help․”
