Abstract
Armenians constitute a small diasporic religious minority group residing in different parts of Iran. Isfahan is one of the cities where Armenians have their own community, neighborhood and church, and as such are able to better maintain their Armenian language and identity. By first engaging with some seminal studies on Armenian language and identity in Iran, this chapter then moves to investigate the attitudes of Armenians towards both Persian and Armenian as languages used in the diglossic community of Armenians in Isfahan. The intent is to explore language attitude and identity among Armenians of Jolfa neighborhood. The participants, aged 17 to 71, were 94 Armenians from different social and educational echelon of their community in Isfahan. The results of both the questionnaire and the interviews, along with the ethnographic fieldwork, revealed that Armenians are strongly attached to their language as their source of identity. The results are also discussed from sociolinguistic perspectives such as Armenian as a heritage language, minority language policy in Iran, and the ecology of Armenian language. The chapter will close with proposing some under-researched suggestions for sociolinguistic research on Armenian language in Iran.
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