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En 1890, les répétiteurs de turc des écoles de langues orientales en Europe sont tous Arméniens. Trente ans plus tard, il n’y en a plus qu’un – et encore. La présente enquête revient sur cette séquence arménienne de la turcologie (des années 1850 à la Grande Guerre), au moment où le domaine se disciplinarise. Une séquence généralement oubliée des histoires de la turcologie, qui ont privilégié les grands noms – nationaux – au détriment des subalternes et des Orientaux. Cet oubli tient aussi à la turquification qui touche la discipline au tournant du siècle, et qui débouche sur le remplacement des Arméniens par des répétiteurs « Turcs », considérés plus conformes. Après un état des lieux et une mise au point sur le statut de répétiteur, qui institue une hiérarchie entre professeurs (nationaux) et « répétiteurs indigènes » (orientaux), j’examine les conditions de cette préférence arménienne, les modalités de recrutement et le rôle majeur des Arméniens dans l’enseignement de la langue turque, mais aussi dans son étude. In 1890, the lecturers (répétiteurs) of Turkish in the Schools of Oriental languages in Europe are all Armenians. Thirty years later, there is only one left. This enquiry looks at this Armenian sequence (from the 1850s to the Great War), as the discipline becomes an autonomous field of study. This sequence has often been forgotten in the narratives about Turkology, that privileged great – national – names to the detriment of subalterns and Orientals. The status of lecturer institutes indeed a hierarchy between (national) professors and (Oriental) “indigenous lecturers”. The oblivion also stems from the “Turkification” of the discipline at the turn of the century, that leads to the substitution of Armenians by “Turkish” lecturers, considered as more ideologically compliant. After an inventory of these teachers and clarifications about the status of lecturer, I examine the conditions of this Armenian preference, the modes of recruitment and the critical role played by Armenians in the teaching of the Turkish language and in its study.

Based on observations of a post-Ottoman Armenian family and their network of relatives and friends made over more than fifteen years, this article scrutinizes the switch from an almost exclusively oral to a predominantly written world of perception, expression, and communication. Far from being solely an impediment to social life in the Western world, social and cognitive skills acquired in the Ottoman popular culture and inherited by the family's new generations proved helpful in new places and new settings. Though changes occur over generations, these are relatively slow and are still in progress. The common Ottoman Armenian heritage, including the Armenian language still link together a group of relatives scattered over three continents, be it in a frail way.