Medz Yeghern, the Silenced Name: Language, Politics, and the Armenian Genocide

Abstract

This study overviews some of the issues surrounding the use, abuse, and misuse of Medz Yeghern, the most common proper name for the genocide of the Armenian, tracing the genealogy of the term yeghern and the evolution of its primary meaning from “evil” to “(heinous) crime,” “massacre,” and “genocide” over the past century and half. An erudite conflation of the Classical Armenian homophone words yeghern (եղեռն, “evil, crime”) and yegher (եղեր, “lamentation”) in the nineteenth century resulted in the secondary meaning “tragedy, calamity, catastrophe.” It also marked the conflation of cause and consequence in a single word, despite the use of yeghern accompanied by active verbs only, which indicates cause. The use of Medz Yeghern, therefore, point out to the central role of the perpetrator; the word yeghern has been used to translate “cultural genocide” and “genocide recognition” as synonym to tseghasbanutiun (ցեղասպանութիւն). This ambiguity was exploited during the first two decades of the current century, especially in Turkey and the United States. Interpretive denial adopted the name Medz Yeghern to avoid the use of “genocide,” choosing the meanings “Great Catastrophe” and “Great Calamity” and turning the cause into consequence. The article offers a reconsideration of the semantic and political issues behind the use of Medz Yeghern and suggests, on the basis of linguistic evidence, that the literal translation of the proper name, according to context and time of use, should be “Great (Heinous) Crime” or “Great Genocide.”