Hye Sharzhoom Armenian Action
Suren Oganessian
Staff Writer
Armeniapedia
http://www.armeniapedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
Main Page: Provides the best way to navigate the website, listing categories covered in the Wiki, such as history, travel, society and culture, language, food, art, books, and maps.
Armenian Language Lessons: An online textbook is provided to help English-speakers learn Eastern Armenian, accessible on the main page.
Navigation: A sidebar present on all pages of the Wiki, that can instantly take one to the Main Page, to the chat room section, to a random page, and to view recent edits to articles.
Longtime readers of Hye Sharzoom may recall a brief blurb in the May 2005 “Armenians on the Internet” article about a site called Armeniapedia.org, which specialized in Armenian recipes and cooking. A lot has changed in eight years, and now the website deserves a second look. Armeniapedia has since grown to cover nearly every aspect of Armenian history, language and culture, currently boasting 7,035 articles. The site is what is known on the internet as a Wiki; like the well-known site Wikipedia, a Wiki is an online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. So Armeniapedia owes its growth not so much to its creator, but to the scores of individuals who over the years have created accounts and created or edited pages on the Wiki themselves.
According to the “About” page, the website was started in 2004 by Raffi Kojian, who intended it from the start to be “an online, living encyclopedia and general repository of all things Armenian.” The site has expanded to achieve that goal, covering a myriad of subjects pertaining to Armenia. Among its many articles, the site hosts an online textbook that can help English-speakers learn Eastern Armenian, also perfect for anyone who wants to review the basics. A tutorial on Western Armenian is currently in progress. Armeniapedia even hosts the text to Raffi’s novel The Fool, a rare English translation that has fallen into the public domain. And yes, there are still an ample amount of articles about Armenian cuisine as well. The site is quickly becoming an easy resource for all things Armenian. And if it’s missing any information on anything, why not start an account and edit it yourself?