Armenians in Jordan

Armenians in Jordan
Total population
3,000[1]
Regions with significant populations
Amman, Ma'an, Shobak, Al Karak, Madaba, Russeifa, Zarqa, Irbid, Aqaba
Languages
Armenian, Jordanian Arabic[2]
Religion
Armenian Apostolic Church
A house inside Armenian Quarter in Amman, Jordan.

Armenians in Jordan are ethnic Armenians living in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. There are an estimated 3,000 Armenians living in the country today with an estimated 2,500 of them being members of the Armenian Apostolic Church,[1] and predominantly speak Western Armenian dialect.[3] Armenians make up the biggest majority of non-Arab Christians in the country.[4]

There were about 6,000 Armenians living in Jordan during the period 1930-1946. After the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, a new wave of immigrants came from Palestine to Jordan increasing the number of Armenians to about 10,000. However starting in the 1950s, and particularly after the 1967 Arab-Israeli Six-Day War, Jordan witnessed the emigration of many Armenians to Australia, Canada and the United States a trend that continued in the 1970s, reducing the numbers of Jordanian Armenians to about 3,000.

The majority of these Armenians are the descendants of survivors from the Armenian genocide during World War I who were deported from the Ottoman Empire in Anatolia and Cilicia or fled to Syria and then Jordan. The early Armenian refugees in Jordan resided mainly in places like Ma'an, Shobak, Al Karak and Madaba and Russeifa. Nowadays, the majority of the Armenians lives in the capital Amman, with a few families in Irbid, Aqaba, Madaba and Zarqa.

Armenians have worked in photography, fashion, car mechanics and in professional businesses and small trade.

Most Armenian organizations and schools and religious structures are located in Amman's Jabal Al-Ashrafieh neighborhood also commonly called the Armenian Neighborhood (in Arabic: حي الأرمن pronounced Hayy al-Arman).

  1. ^ a b "Jordan: Religions & Peoples". Archived from the original on 2017-12-22. Retrieved 2008-06-16.
  2. ^ Al-Khatib, Mahmoud A. (2001-12-20). "Language shift among the Armenians of Jordan". International Journal of the Sociology of Language. 2001 (152): 153–177. doi:10.1515/ijsl.2001.053. ISSN 1613-3668.
  3. ^ Ethnologue 14 report for language code:ARM
  4. ^ Jordan :: Religion - Britannica Online Encyclopedia

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