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A Language Unbroken
A language survives because generations continue to speak, teach, write and create in it. Enter a journey through Western Armenian—its letters, its classrooms, its printed words, and the generations who carried it forward.
Thirty-eight doors into a language.
Select any letter to discover its name and form. Then try writing it in the sand.
Choose a letter to begin. Select a letter, then trace it in the sand.
What the wind cannot keep.
In the deserts of deportation, Armenian families struggled to preserve language and memory. Choose an Armenian letter. Write it in the sand, let the wind erase it, and begin again.
Use your finger, mouse, or stylus to write.
A letter may disappear from the sand. The act of teaching it can endure.
During the Armenian Genocide, 1915–1923, families fought to preserve their language through even the harshest circumstances.
Enter the classroom.
Explore the institutions that sustained Armenian literacy and cultural life before the Armenian Genocide. Select an object to explore the classroom.
A book that carries a century of history.
Explore Հայկական տպագրութիւն (Armenian Printing), a historical work by Leo, published in 1904. Turn the pages of a remarkable work documenting the history of Armenian printing.
Select the book to explore its original pages.
Listen across generations.
Discover the voices and testimonies that carried Armenian language, memory, and experience across generations.
Words preserved in testimony
Survivor accounts carry the sounds, expressions, and lived experiences of Armenian communities. Read the testimonies preserved in the museum’s collection.
Set a word in type.
Armenian printers, writers, educators, and publishers sustained a remarkable written culture. Select a word and create your own virtual printed keepsake.
A Language Unbroken · AGMC
Choose your type
Choose an Armenian word, then create your own print.
A language is carried forward.
Western Armenian lives in family conversations, classrooms, books, music, and new generations of speakers.
Take a letter with you.
Return to the alphabet, choose a letter, and write it in sand. Choose a letter and leave your mark.
Choose what happens next.
Return to your favourite gallery or discover something new.