When I arrived in Armenia back in September there were two Internet resources for which I truly wished. The first was up-to-date and accessible information regarding locations in Armenia (i.e. resteraunts, services, etc…). The second was a tool to translate Armenian to English, and vice-versa.

My Wishes Were Granted

This first of these concerns was obviously colored by my being a newcomer who couldn’t find my way around a city, which even for locals can be a hard city to navigate. This has come along way in the past 9 month, and recently Google announced that it would be offering the ability to get directions within Armenia via Google Maps. Thank you, Google!

Today, thanks to a tweet from Der Ktrij Devejian, I found out that my second wish came true as well (no thanks to the failure that is translator.am). Again I have Google to thank. Google Translate now offers Armenian as one of their many inter-translatable languages.

First, The Fun Stuff

Having this tool isn’t just about being able to visit Google Translate and write or copy-paste some text in the form, and get back a decent translation. Although, that is awesome and very much appreciated. This tool opens up a world of communication between the Armenian speaker and the rest of the world. Here are some fun examples:

Link to an Armenian translation of this or any webpage.

Check it out my blog in Armenian The URL looks like this http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&langpair=en|hy&sl=en&tl=hy&u=http://www.mattash.com. Just change the part that says http://www.mattash.com.

Obviously this would also work on the other direction if you want to post a link to an Armenian language resource that would be translated into English. You would have to change the part of the URL that says langpair=en|hy to langpair=hy|en.

Hear a Robot Speak Armenian

Create an MP3 of a computer generated pronunciation of an Armenian sentence. Click here to hear the Google robot say this in Armenian The URL looks like this http://translate.google.com/translate_tts?tl=hy&q=Ստեղծել+MP3+մի+համակարգչի+արտասանության+որի+հայերեն+նախադասության. You can use Armenian text, or transliterated text.

Let Visitors Translate Your Website

Add a button to your website that will allow visitors to have it translated to and from Armenian. Visit the Google Translate Tools and Resources Page for more info.

Use Google Translator Toolkit for Serious Translation

Coming Soon Use Google Translator Toolkit to aid you in large translations. It allows translators to skip the easy stuff and focus on translating the real meaning of the text. It includes great collaboration and versioning features, and special tools for translating Wikipedia articles. This isn’t fully enabled for Armenian yet, but I’m sure it will be soon.

Watch American Idol with Armenian Subtitles

Or Հայ Սուբերստար with English Subtitles. Coming Soon See automatically generated and Armenian translated subtitles in YouTube videos. This currently exists in other languages, so I’m sure Armenian will be available at some point.

Why This Really Matters…

You may assume that this was something I wished for because it would help me bolster my Armenian skills (I didn’t begin learning Armenian until I was 26). This is partially the case, but as I student at the Gevorkian Theological Seminary, where all the instruction is of course given in the Armenian language, I noticed a pattern which I found very disconcerting. Later conversations with educators confirmed the seriousness of the issue.

From the beginning of the school year I had certain courses, like General Church History or General Theology, which primarily were taught by professors who during class would just read texts that were written in a foreign language. As they read they would translate the meaning from its original language to Armenian for the students to copy down verbatim in their notebooks for later study. At first I thought the teachers were just being lazy, but then it became clear to me. There is no good and/or contemporary literature written in the Armenian language on these topics.

This issue doesn’t just relate to subjects that would be taught in the Seminary, but effects all areas of academics and learning in Armenia.

Armenia is a small nation, and the Armenian language is spoken by a very small percent of the World’s population. As a result we haven’t had the capacity to process and translate the flood of information which has come about from our wired age. Subsequently, It is required that a student understand at least English or Russian to receive a decent education in almost any field. Of course I support multi-lingualism, but this is certainly limiting the potential of many of our people.

It goes without saying that having the entire wealth of the Internet accessible for the Armenian speaker is going to be a great boon for the Armenian Nation.

On the other hand there is a great cache of knowledge, especially regarding the Armenian Church and Armenian History, which is only available in the Armenian language. As time goes on, more and more of these texts will be digitized, and having a worthwhile online translator is again going to be of invaluable for students and faithful alike.