The Zoks, an ethnographic group of Armenians

The Zoks are an ethnographic group of Armenians who moved from Syunik to the district of Goghtn. They spoke Zok, or the Agulis dialect, which is very similar to the dialect of Syunik. This dialect was spoken in the villages of Agulis (Yukhari Aylis), Dasht, Tsghna, Tanakert, Disar, Kaghakik and Andamej. According to academician Manuk Abeghyan, the name Zok comes from the pronoun “zhok” in their dialect. V. Devitsky, who visited Agulis, reports that the Zoks themselves could not explain the origin of their name.

The Zoks are one of the native Armenian communities of Nakhijevan (Nakhchivan), and the distinctive features of their speech come mainly from changes in the vowels. The system of consonants has hardly changed since the time of Grabar (Classical Armenian). The Zok (Agulis) dialect was described as early as 1711 by the German linguist J. Schröder in his work “Thesaurus of the Armenian Language”.

The photograph shows a bearded man wearing a wide-brimmed hat, a white shirt and a tie.