A Workbook
Language and Identity

• Text zum Nachlesen

  The Workbook about Itself

  I am a workbook. For the first grade – and my subject is Armenian. Many children in Armenia have learned to read and write with my help. So, I was curious when one day I was packed up and shipped to Germany. Not only because of the language – they don‘t even use my letters there.

  I became even a bit more curious when I was unpacked again – there was no elementary school child, but a teenage girl. For a moment, I thought I had been delivered to the wrong address, but then I found out that she already spoke Armenian. And anyway: It‘s never really too late to learn something new. It was just unusual for me.

  So, she learned with me – and not like an elementary school child, but, how should I say, like someone who cares about something else, so consciously, as if she would gain something else besides just knowing the alphabet. She didn‘t really need it anyway. She read in me and soon also in Armenian poetry collections, for practice she copied down poems – it seemed to already make a difference just that I lay in her nightstand.

  Today I know the answer. She felt German and Armenian. And as long as she hadn‘t mastered the Armenian language along with its alphabet, she felt something was missing. By now she‘s an adult, but other than when I‘m on display in this museum, I still lie in her nightstand – and still, I‘m brought out from time to time.

  Zusatzinfos

  The parents of the now 21-year-old owner of this workbook originate from Armenia and moved to Bielefeld in the 1990s for professional reasons – the father being a laser physicist – and then to Siegen-Wittgenstein. She herself was born in Germany, grew up with both languages, and never felt solely German or solely Armenian. By her teenage years, as her first trip to relatives in Armenia approached, she also wanted to learn the alphabet – and had this workbook sent to her.

  The Poster of „Siegerländer Wörter“ to the Workbook

  am a poster. Essentially, I only offer a colorful selection of vocabulary samples from a Moselle Franconian dialect, but I often make people laugh with it. Although – not everyone. Some just look stoically, some study me eagerly, some are not particularly interested – it depends on who is looking at me at the moment – and, I would say, what the person „identifies“ with.

  I can very well imagine how excited the girl was back then when you arrived in the mail! Because you were a kind of key. Only with your help she could eventually feel „complete“ – not only „completely German“, but also „completely Armenian“. She just felt that speaking Armenian wouldn‘t be enough. Reading, writing, mastering the alphabet was also necessary.

  In any case, I thank you. You showed me that I can do something very similar to you, even though I‘m just a poster – I‘m not at your level, one can really learn a lot from you. But both of us can help people not only find their words but also find each other, if not even find themselves.

  How about you – do you also find yourself when you hear certain languages or dialects? Or read? Or write yourself? Or speak?