29 January 2004

Szekely Armenians, Armeno-Kipchaks, Zipsers, and Other Odd Minorities in Eastern Europe

Language hat has a fact-, factoid-, and fun-filled comment thread in response to a post about a fine poem "A Dish of Peaches in Cluj" by Maria Benet on alembic. Here's a sample:
"Csangos, the Hungarian minority in Romanian Moldavia, usually have Romanian names for their villages, so you have Saboani for Szabofalva (Tailor Village) or Faroani for "Forrofalva" (Boiling Village), but these are rarely on any map since the mere existence of the Csangos is still a controversial theme in Romania." ...

"You know the Redneck Hillbilly family characters who occasionally appear on the Simpsons? Imagine them speaking Hungarian, eating raw bacon and potatoes, drinking quarts of wood alcohol, and chewing coffee beans. Székelys." ...

"Ah, the Zipsers! I presume they came from Spisz / Spis / Zips / Szepes, one of my favorite multilingual Eastern European place names." ...

"The Armenians entered in the late 1600 via the Ukraine and Volynia. There were already communities of them around the black sea but the Jelali Revolts in eastern Turkey around 1610 caused a flood of Anatolian Armenians to flee to the Ukraine, and thence to Moldavia (There are still some in Iasi and Suceava)." ...

"Radio Erevan [call-in] jokes ... --Can bedbugs make a revolution? --In principle, yes, for in their veins flows the blood of peasants and workers."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

hello! i'm interesed for this community, the zipsers community from Europe (from Romania, Ukraina, Slowakia, etc). If you know something, please give me a signal at scridon.ioana@yahoo.com