Page:Red Rugs of Tarsus.djvu/93

 THE RED RUGS OF TARSUS

find a dozen races rubbing elbows there. The predominating four are Turks, Arab Fellahin, Armenians and Greeks. There is a babel of these four tongues. One hears also Russian, Persian, Hindustani and Italian. We manage with French in Mersina, but it is little spoken in Tarsus. The Turkish language rules in in- ter-racial transactions. Armenians must use this language. Educated Armenians strug- gle valiantly to maintain the two surviving ele- ments of national identity: the church and the language. But oddly enough the mother- tongue of the average Armenian is Turkish. Greek has. a strong hold upon the Greeks here. It is something like the tenacious hold of the French language in Canada. The Fellahin speak a form of Arabic, but are too ignorant to care whether they make themselves understood or not. Some weeks ago Jeanne Imer and I were being carefully escorted through a Fella- hin village by one of the students. Suddenly a little boy ran into the road. He took hold [73]

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