Where is Armenian? Rustam Badasyan is Either Unfamiliar with the Law or Circumventing It

Today, one of the most discussed topics on the internet is the inscriptions on the new patrol service vehicles in Yerevan, where Armenian occupies a very small space. However, according to the law, the state language should be at least equally used in such inscriptions.

The clarification from Acting Minister of Justice Rustam Badasyan regarding this issue seems not to have alleviated the arising concerns and sparked a new wave of discussions.

Badasyan specifically pointed out: “Please look at the first image, where the phrase 'Patrol Service' is written in Armenian. Yes, the word 'Patrol' is also mentioned next to it, which, let’s admit, is widely recognized and understandable to all of us. In addition, there are also tourists in the city, whose numbers are increasing year by year, to our delight. Our foreign guests might need the assistance of patrollers, and seeing 'Patrol' or 'Police' will allow them to call for help more quickly.”

However, the Armenian law states otherwise: “The bill was adopted by the Supreme Council of the Republic of Armenia on March 30, 1993, H.N-0773-I ON LANGUAGE.

Article 3. Linguistic obligations of citizens: State bodies, enterprises, institutions, and organizations of the Republic of Armenia are obliged to create.

g) signs, forms, stamps, letters, postal envelopes, advertisements in Armenian, possibly supplemented by other languages.”

It turns out that Rustam Badasyan is either unfamiliar with this provision of the law or, while holding the position of Acting Minister of Justice, is circumventing the law. Notably, private organizations are fined for circumventing this law.

It is also significant that while studying the inscriptions on the patrol service vehicles of several tourist countries, we noticed that priority is given to the official language of the respective country. One can assume that once again, in Armenia, the state language is being subordinated to foreign terms, and not enough consideration has been given to international experience when creating a new service.