Manoogian Postdoctoral Lecture | Purist Pursuits: Language, Global Ideas, and the Creation of Western Armenian in the Ottoman Empire

This lecture follows Armenians in the Ottoman Empire through a dramatic linguistic transformation, the aftershocks of which are still being felt today throughout the Armenian diaspora. It chronicles how and why Armenians in the Ottoman Empire fashioned a new language called Western Armenian in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and explores the evolution of an ever-changing ideology that undergirded all phases of the language's formation: linguistic purism. Manoukian will examine the power of global intellectual movements in crafting new language ideologies in the Ottoman Empire and reimagines what language histories can be for Ottoman-era language communities.

Jennifer Manoukian is a historian of language. Her work explores the language practices and ideologies of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and post-genocide diaspora. She earned her PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures from the University of California, Los Angeles; her MA in Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies from Columbia University; and her BA in French and Middle Eastern Studies from Rutgers University. She is the author of Purist Pursuits: Language, Global Ideas, and the Creation of Western Armenian in the Ottoman Empire and two book-length literary translations from Western Armenian: The Gardens of Silihdar by Zabel Yessayan and The Candidate by Zareh Vorpouni. She is also the author of a number of articles and the co-founder of Gesaria Armenian Research and Academic Services.