SONGER.

February 14, 2004 by languagehat Leave a Comment

For the purposes of this entry, I am frivolously defining songer as ‘a blog post about songs’; I furthermore decree that it is pronounced SONG-er and not SONG-ger. With that out of the way…
I just ran across the Old Tatar Songs website at un regard oblique and remembered that the lyrical wordturner msg had posted it in the comments to the Yats thread (Howard, are you back yet?) and I decided it was high time I shared it with everyone who missed that comment. Anyone who loves great folk music should have a listen to these songs, and anyone interested in Turkic languages will be glad to know the lyrics to many of them are also on the site. I will post the first stanza of the wonderful “Kara Orman,” linked to by msg in the aforementioned comment; I don’t know what the words mean, but they enhance my enjoyment anyway. (There are three more stanzas on the lyrics page and one more in the recording, but I can’t match it with any of them, given the fact that the sound quality is poor and my ear for the language poorer still.)

Kara da ginay urman, karanggi ton,
Yahshi atlar kirek le uterge;
Kara urmanni chikkan chakta,
Kisip aldim kush kayin.
Ey, ayrilmayik, duskayim.

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