Reddit reviews The Travel Accounts of Simeon of Poland (Armenian Studies Series)

Here's my response, they don't seem to allow it there for some reason...

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There were Armenian communities spread from India to Western Europe in late Middle Ages, some got assimilated, some maintained their language and culture to a degree. Most were traders/merchants.

You can read the history of the Polish-Armenian community in [1], which explains the migration wave to Easter Europe in general. These were ultimately the remnants of trading and merchant communities of a large and prosperous capital city of Ani in Armenia [4]. They made it to Crimea after the capital city was sacked in 11th century and Bagratid Armenia was destroyed, then gradually moved both East and West from Crimea to form communities in Poland, Hungary, and Russia.

According to [1] in towns like Kamenets and Lviv (then in Poland, now in Ukraine), Armenians had their "court and sword", meaning they had relatively high autonomy in their jurisdictions and could practice their language, customs, laws, and faith in peace. Casimir the Great of Poland bestowed special privileges on the Armenian community in 1300s, including the right for self-rule and mercantile activity [4].

The communities have been largely assimilated, but a lot of notable Poles and Hungarians can trace their ancestry to these Armenian merchants. Some people still keep the language (derivative of Ani dialect, a pre-standardized Western Armenian with a sprinkling of Turkic and Slavic words).

Here's a video of people speaking this dialect in Russia, telling the story of how they met a Hungarian-Armenian speaking their same dialect [2]. They are literally saying "he didn't speak Armenian, he spoke our tongue, we were shocked." They use the word "gallaji" for their tongue, which I think is a Turkic root and is used by them as "common speech" or "patois", to distinguish from proper, standard Armenian.

Hope this helps...

[1] The Travel Accounts of Simeon of Poland (Armenian Studies Series) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1568591616/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_0a6NBbCHYM67V

[2] https://youtu.be/aorkueo7plc

[3] https://www.jstor.org/stable/41055916

[4] http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20160309-the-empire-the-world-forgot

Very interesting, is it this book?

https://www.amazon.com/Travel-Accounts-Simeon-Armenian-Studies/dp/1568591616

The third one was to be expected, Yezidis have always been hated for their religion.

>Kurds brought us dinner, because they have a tradition to feed a guest regardless of his nationality. But when the guest leaves, they will catch up to him and rob him, just like Arabs.

That one kind of made me laugh though. "Just like Arabs" haha