Thursday, October 6, 2011

Steve Jobs might have spoken ARMENIAN?

Some of you know my background is Armenian and so this (that's the link for the article below) completely surprised and fascinated me:

Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who passed away on Wednesday at age 56, is said to have had a good command of the Armenian language.  (Z; sounds like he was better than I am at it)

Conducting a probe into the great legend's biography, the Arab language website Khabararmani.com has found out that Jobs, who was raised in the family of an Armenian mother and an American father, spoke Armenian fluently.

"[Jobs' adoptive mother] Claire
Hagopian played a very big role in bringing up the genius," the website said, adding that Jobs had never been keen to speak about his biological parents.  (*Z: of course, it takes an Armenian to raise a genius :-)

Jobs was born in San Francisco and was adopted by the family of Paul and Clara Jobs (née Hagopian) of Mountain View, California. Paul and Clara later adopted a daughter, Patti. Jobs' biological parents – Abdulfattah John Jandali, a Muslim Syrian immigrant to the U.S from Homs, who later became a political science professor, and Joanne Schieble (later Simpson), an American graduate student who went on to become a speech language pathologist – eventually married. Together, they gave birth to and raised Jobs' biological sister, novelist Mona Simpson.


Jobs experimented with different pursuits before starting Apple Computers with Stephen Wozniak in the Jobs' family garage. Apple's revolutionary products, which include the iPod, iPhone and iPad, are now seen as dictating the evolution of modern technology.


A book about Jobs' life is coming soon. iSteve: The Book of Jobs, authored by a former CNN CEO and an editor of the British Times, Walter Isaacson, is the first official biography of the Apple legend. 

I just got information that Armenian was one of the first languages installed into Mac.  WHO KNEW?
z

13 comments:

Big Fat Tio Mike said...

and he was lutheran, at least according to this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=102kvQ1dWoY

bftm

Z said...

actually, he's an avowed Buddhist, but maybe his adoptive Dad was Lutheran!? His mother might have been, too, for all I know, but he didn't seem to be!

I had a post below, Mike...had some good conversation re Jobs if you'd like to check it out.x

Big Fat Tio Mike said...

Z
Did you check out the video? It's kind of a Chanakah Song writ Lutheran. I find it amusing.

I didn't know Jobs was a Buddhist. I heard a speech he gave at Stanford where he said death is a good thing because it clears out the old to make room for the new...something like that. It reminded me of something I'd heard in Sunday School about death being a bad thing--a reult of the fall--in the creationist worldview while death is a good thing--the driving force behind survival of the fittest--in the evolutionist world view.

bftm

Z said...

Sunday School taught you death is a bad thing? Yikes! yes, it's the result of the fall, and that's a 'bad thing', but Sunday School ought to know that death for a Christian is not a bad thing...!?

Ya, Jobs was definitely a Buddhist, by the way.......

Gramma 2 Many said...

He gave much to us. I heard him called the Einstein of our generation. He certainly had a prolific mind that he did not waste.

Bob said...

Fascinating movie on last night about the Apple and Microsoft founders. I didn't know those guys were such crooks. Jobs stole the GUI from Xerox, and Gates stole it from Jobs. Both Jobs and Gates were consummate jerks.

I didn't know that all the Microsoft guys had been at Harvard together. Good story, but I forgot the title.

Bob said...

Z said "he's an avowed Buddhist"...

The movie showed Jobs going to India and becoming a Zen Buddhist. Jobs also credited his creativity to his days of doing LSD. He was a very spiritual guy, he thought.

Bob said...

Movie : "Pirates of Silicon Valley"

It ran last night on TNT.

Z said...

I didn't know that, Bob. He's being treated now as MOTHER THERESA!

My sis said she'd seen a quote by him , something like "it takes an Armenian to raise a genius"
I loved that! :-)

Z said...

boy, there must be an AWFUL lot of ARmenians on line because my sitemeter is up to my normal amount of 3pm and it's 8:31 am! and they're mostly on this article....... :-)

MathewK said...

That's an interesting piece of news. I had no idea he was adopted.

Raymond said...

I am immigrant Armenian and my children are born here in US. I find it hard to believe that being brought up in a household where the communication between parents took place exclusively in English one would learn to speak Armenian, let alone "fluent" Armenian. This story was published only in an Arabic language Armenian website, and picked up bu an Armenian paper tert.am, and now is spreading to Armenian cyberspace after his death when the poor guy cannot "defend" himself! On Facebook, I see my Arab friends posting that he was an Arab American, some saying that he was a Muslim American, and of course Armenians saying that he is Armenian, and now that he spoke FLUENT Armenian, which I find far-fetched because most diaspora Armenians don't speak fluent Armenian! Has anyone actually ever heard him speak Armenian? Has he ever made a mention of his Armenian background? Contributed whatever little of his billions to various Armenian organizations, or causes? Did he ever acknowledge publicly that his ADOPTIVE mother is Armenian? Or that he is anything but AMERICAN and a product of America?

The only facts are that his biological father is a Muslim Syrian, his biological mother a Christian American (Swiss-German), His adoptive father an American, and adoptive mother (Clara Hagopian-Jobs) was an Armenian-American. Everything else is just blown out of proportion.

Anonymous said...

Steve did not speak Armenian at all and neither did our mother.
We were raised Lutheran.

His sister