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Why Making Translations?

The idea behind this collection of translations is to provide Foreigners and Mongols with a touch of culture and philosophy that tends to be forgotten. To portray the mindset and lifestyle of Mongols’ ancestors is a formidable task and we intend to take on this challenge by sharing, explaining and translating songs and text that we feel represent those specific traits of the Mongols.

NB: We know that translating the beauty, the nuance and the depth of the Mongol language is probably an impossible task. Nonetheless our wish is to provide a translation that can give the overall mood of the poetry encountered in the lyrics in order to allow people who do no understand the Mongol language to at least grasp a portion of the beauty infused in the songs.

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Process of a Translation

Some of you might be curious to know how the translation and explanation happen. Find below the various steps that we follow for each translation in order to provide you with one heritage post.

Collect → Investigate → Explain → Translate → Transpose → Edit → Melisma → Build →
Proofreading → Final Edit → Release

1. Collect

The first step consists of finding the words in the most complete form possible. For that, we need to look into various books, libraries or ask fellow researchers, elders, or cultural bearers for information. It is very common that we find the first few verses in a book, then a few others in another book, and also maybe from elders. We then make sure that all these verses relate to a similar version and compile them to have the most interesting and complete version possible.

2. Investigate

Once we compiled a version to work on, we start analyzing line by line, or even word by word and cross checking our interpretation with knowledgeable people such as researchers, historians, linguists, singers, writers, poets, cultural bearers in order to comprehend the deep and layered meaning of the text.

3. Explain

We then start to have an overall idea of what the text is about and start writing the explanation for the text by summing up all the information collected.

4. Translate

At that point, the lyrics translation from Mongol to English begins, as well as translation of the explanation from English to Mongol. Once the first rough is ready, we submit it again to various people to have their opinion and feedback.

5. Transpose

After a few back and forth, and edit on the explanation, we can suppose that we are close to the final version and can transpose the text into the Classical Mongol Script, as nowadays, most texts are found in Cyrillic, which marks the end of the work on the Mongol part.

6. Edit

The Mongol being ready we can proceed into the edit of the english version to assess the subject, structure, time and grammar of each verse. We also look to improve the quality of the composition by making it more literary and recheck the grammar one last time.

7. Melisma

Now is the time to create the melisma of the urtiin duu to provide a sort of karaoke version for the reader who wishes to learn to sing the song.

8. Build

All information getting close to being ready, we can start building the post for its release, preparing all the eventual images, adding footnotes, as well as translating the English to the French.

9. Proofreading

Once the post is all set, we ask a few people to have a read in order to see if anything feels unclear, or needs extra explanation. We also look for typo that may have popped in the process.

10. Final Edit

We proceed to a final check and proceed to eventual adjustments and / or additions and confirm that everything is accurate, reliable and ready for release.

11. Release

The post is now ready to be published and is finally available to the public, to be discovered.

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Structure of a Translation Post

You can find below the structure of the translation posts as well as the explanation of each of the parts.
Note that the 5 circles (flag and hats) are clickable to make you jump directly to the according section.

Recording (audio / video)

We always start the post with a recording or a video that, we feel, represents the piece in its most raw and authentic form. For this reason we try to keep our diffusion to either archive or field recording and prefer to avoid modern versions.

The recording is followed by our interpretation and explanation for the text which is the fruit of our research. We start with the Mongol version to show respect to the language, to put it in the highlight of the post and also to provide Mongol language content for people who wish to learn and practice the language.

Mongol lyrics

After the explanation we have the actual lyrics of the song in Mongol cyrrilic. The cyrrilic is side by side with its equivalent in latin for people who cannot read the cyrrilic but still want to try to read and pronounce the Mongol.

In an effort to support and promote the Classical Mongol Script it is all natural to add the lyrics in their Mongol Script version. For that we use our font Bambar. It is then followed by the academic latin transliteration if ever fellow Mongolists would require for their paper.

This section is mostly dedicated to either persons that learn how to sing Urtiin Duu (and thus know at least partially the Mongol language) and / or Morin Khuur players who wish to have hints on how to follow a singer, or how to play the Urtiin Duu as a solo piece.

We start by indicating which singer we actually used to write the melisma of the song.
– “Үндэс хөг” indicates the tuning of the Morin Khuur present in the recording or what could be the eventual tuning of a Morin Khuur according to the singer if the recording contain the voice only.
– “Дууны эхлэл, морин хуур дээр” indicates the note (relative) from which we start the melody on the Morin Khuur. In other words, the note indicated here is the note as if the Morin Khuur was tuned in the standard F/Bb (Fa Sib). For example, if the staring note is C (Do) then it means that we start from the position of the C (Do) as if the Morin Khuur was tuned in F/Bb (Fa Sib).
– “Эвтэй морин хуурын барилт” indicates the note from which it is the most comfortable to play the melody on the Morin Khuur.

The colours used in the transcription of the singing are:

Зээ – Дууны үг (the actual words)
хоо-хоо – Энгийн холбоо (the added ornament through simple connection)
хүү – Дан шуранхай
хүү.үү – Давхар шуранхай
Хо.хо.хо – Холбоо (Давхих)
Оо /ээ/ – аялга (pronunciation)
^V – Breathing
{: – Begining or ending

The symbols used in the transcription of the singing are:

— Урт нот, барих (long note, held)
/ Доороос гулсах хөдөлгөөн, шувтрах (glissando upwards)
\ Дээрээс гулсах хөдөлгөөн, гулсуулах (glissando downwards)

^^^ Төвөнхийн цохилт (дээд өнгөөр / хоолой)
°°° Цээжийн цохилт (доод өнгөөр / цээж)
^^°° Цээжийн цохилт хийж байгаад залгуулан төвөнхийн цохилт хийх
°°^^ Төвөнхийн цохилт хийж байгаад залгуулан цээжийн цохилт хийх
~~~ Бөнжигнөх хөдөлгөөн
~ Вибрато

/* Шуранхай гуядах
* Цохилгоор төгсөлт

^V Бүтэн амьсгаа (Full breathing)
^U Нууц (хулгайн) амьсгаа (Semi breathing)

{: Аялгууны эхлэл (Begining of the melody)
:} Аялгууны төгсгөл (Ending of the melody)

Finally, we have the explanation followed by the translated lyrics in English and French side by side.

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