Ամերիկահայոց հայապահպանման մակարդակը՝ ըստ բանավոր մշակույթի գրառված նյութերի

The present paper is dedicated to the popular life of the Armenian-Americans, their demeanor, their way of living and speaking in that important period, rich in significant events. This work is the first attempt to present the oral tradition of the Armenians living in the USA, which, regrettably, has never been written down, nor subjected to a scientific study before. Whereas, as a reflector of popular life, it includes answers to a great number of questions. The comparative analysis of the popular materials and the sex-age groups of the Armenian-Americans narrators, studied by the method of quantitative analysis, shows the correlation of the numerical scheme of the sex-age groups of the 206 Armenian-American narrators and of the 1,165 units of materials they have com municated us. We have elucidated the quantitative and qualitative changes of the traditional folklore, as well as the level of Armenian-preservation of the 5 genera tions in the course of a 100 years. During our five research trips to the USA (in 1979, 1990, 2001, 2004, 2008), we have, though intermittently, writing down, audio- and video-recording word for word, fragment for fragment, assembled the unique primary source relics of the Armenian popular oral tradition of the Armenian-Americans. That is the reason, why a particular importance was attached to those diverse historico-cognitive popular and cultural national values communicated by the representatives of the various generations of the Armenian community in the USA with the purpose of saving them from total loss and bequeathing them to the coming generations.