MWW 29: Сум

Cyrillic	сум
Transcription	sum
IPA	[sʊm]
Layman’s Pronunciation	SOOM
Translation	county, district, village
In Genghis Khan’s time it was sumu.

Map of Mongolian sums: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/Mongolia_sum_map.png

A sum (also transcribed soum sometimes) is a kind of political subdivision in Mongolia. In English it is usually translated as "district" or "county." Here in PC Mongolia, we usually don't translate it and just say sum in English, because we all know exactly what we're talking about, and don't have to say things like "district" that don't really fully convey what we mean by a sum. Sum also has connotations of "rural," and the sums collectively make up the хөдөө (hödöö, "countryside"), which stands in contrast to the various хот ("city"), including aimag centers (аймгийн төв), designated cities (like Дархан / Darhan and Эрдэнэт / Erdenet, which have equal status to provinces), and the capital Улаанбаатар / Ulaanbaatar. (As a matter of fact, Mongolians usually don't say "Улаанбаатар," they just say хот "the city." When unspecfied, it's assumed they mean Ulaanbaatar.)

If you visit a typical sum, you will find yourself in a small and often undeveloped (by American standards) kind of human settlement that would probably fit the image of a "village." They average about 3,000 people. The one exception is Хархорин (Kharkhorin), which is the ancient capital, a major tourist site, has over 14,000 people, and generally fits the description of a town. This part is the "sum center," because technically the sum also includes the out-of-sight nomads who orbit the sum center. Soums are divided into small units (often only a couple hundred people) called bags (баг). Usually the soum center is one bag, with the surrounding steppe divided into several more bags.

Here in Peace Corps we often divide volunteers into UB volunteers (in Ulaanbaatar), aimag volunteers (in aimag centers / provincial capitals), and soumers (out in rural areas). Not many volunteers get put in UB (proportionally much fewer than the 40% or so of Mongolia's population that lives there). Most people get put in aimag centers, which usually have plenty of infrastructure but are still only partly developed. Aimag centers usually have several PCVs together. Sums aren't big enough to warrant having many developers, so soumers, almost by definition, are the only volunteers, and often the only non-Mongolians at their sites. The exception, again, is Kharkhorin, which has two volunteers (but this is still smaller than some aimag centers that have half a dozen volunteers or so). Soumers also generally deal with fewer options in shopping, and fewer or no places to eat out. UB and aimag PCVs are usually put up in apartments. Soum PCVs are never in apartments, and almost only in gers (except some in forested areas who have wooden houses). Six volunteers, including me, have no internet access at site, and we're all soumers. For us, using the internet, visiting friends, or buying fruit means traveling from site. That can be a journey of anywhere from 1 hour in my case, to 6 hours (I hear) in the case of another guy out in the Gobi. Soums may or may not have paved roads or plumbing. Sucks, doesn't it? Well...actually not. Pretty soon you get used to the "deprivation." Furthermore, we get the "жинхэнэ Монгол" ("real Mongolian") experience. Our daily lives are permeated with the kinds of things that tourists pay thousands of dollars to see for a week or two in the summer: gers, airag, horses, ovoos, vast skies and steppes, deel-clad nomads herding sheep, and nothing but Mongolian spoken. And anyway, if you just wanted to sit in a cushy apartment, why join Peace Corps?

MWW 28: Хаан

Cyrillic	Хаан
Transcription	haan
IPA	[χa:ŋ]
Layman’s Pronunciation	HAHNG
Translation	ruler, emperor
In Genghis Khan’s time it was qaγan.

When you see the name “Genghis Khan,” the “Khan” part is not Genghis’s last name, it’s his title, marking him as the supreme ruler of the Mongols. This term didn't originate with Genghis. As a title for rulers, it actually appears throughout history in lots of different Central Asian tribes. Turkish has an equivalent word too, kağan. While it may not have been Genghis's family name, it is probably the origin of the name Khan that is found in some Asian countries.


Хаан is similar to but distinct from хан, which in olden times referred to the ruler of a mere province or region. Genghis on the hand, was the supreme ruler, the хаан, with a double аа: twice the vowel length, twice as important. Actually, the long vowel is only modern Mongolian - originally it was qaghan, with a consonant in the middle. However, since that consonant gh is the voiced counterpart to the q that begins the word, I wonder: was reduplication at work here long ago, and can I find it in any other words? Could a similar process have been at work in making the word for queen, хатан?

MWW 27: Монгол

Cyrillic	Монгол
Transcription	Mongol
IPA	[ˈmɔŋ.ɢəɬ]
Layman’s Pronunciation	MONG-gle
Translation	Mongolia, Mongolian
In Genghis Khan’s time it was Moŋγul.

This one is so obvious it’s a wonder it took me this long to get it up. In addition, it should be easy to remember and pronounce, since it’s almost the same as its English equivalent, largely because the English word is borrowed from the Mongolian word. According to the online etymology dictionary, it may come from a native word meaning brave, though I don't know this word.

At this point I'd like to point out the fact that in Mongolian, country names can be used directly as a modifier without any suffix or other overt! This unlike many Mongolian nouns, and also unlike English usage of country names. Notice that in the English translations, Mongolia has to be turned into an adjective by adding -n.

Монгол - Mongolia

Монгол улс - Mongolia
Монгол хэл - Mongolian (language)
Монгол хүн - a Mongolian (person)
Монгол дуу - Mongolian song

The same thing happens with other country names. The term for all Mongolian people together is Монголчууд, with the collective suffix -чууд.

More about country names: Most country names in modern Mongolian are the same as their Russian equivalents (with the exception that Mongolian usually lops off any final vowels) and also tend to look like their equivalents in other modern European languages. Some other national or ethnic names, however, persist from Pre-Soviet times. Sometimes you get an older word alongside a more modern word. I decided to put in a list of some of those terms I don't think came from Modern Russian

English	Mongolian
China	Хятад (Hyatad)
India	Энэтхэг (Enetheg)
Kazakh	Хасаг (Hasag)
Korea	Солонгос (Solongos)
Mongolia	Монгол (Mongol)
Russia	Орос (Oros)
Tibet	Төвд (Töwd)
Turkish	Түрэг (Türeg)
Tuvan	Урианхай (Urianhai)
Uzbek	Чантуу (Chantuu)

MWW 26: Айраг

A bowl and vat of airag

Cyrillic	Айраг
Transcription	airag
IPA	[ˈæ:rək]
Layman’s Pronunciation	AA-ruck
Translation	fermented mare’s milk, kumiss
In Genghis Khan’s time it was ayiraγ.

Airag is the Mongols’ traditional alcoholic beverage, made from fermented horse milk. The first airag I had was given to me, along with a hadag, in a rinsed-out 1.25L coke bottle when I first arrived at site. (Airag isn’t sold in stores; you get it from your rural cousins in a recycled coke bottle.) It wasn't bad but I didn’t like the milk solids that tended to float in it. I recently had some of the new stuff that’s just coming out this summer, and it was smoother. I could also see the little fermentation bubbles in the drops of airag that stuck to the cup. I drank at least three bowls of it. And an hour later I ran to the bathroom three times. Airag is not for the sensitive stomach: even Mongolians sip it little by little at the beginning of summer, until they rebuild their tolerance.

Making Airag

Airag appears early in the summer as mares produce foals, and thus milk. If you take a walk around where there are lots of horses, you can probably see women milking the mares. Why do we not have cow airag? The answer lies in the composition of the milk. Alcohol is made by fermenting sugar. Horse milk has the most lactose (milk sugar), so it gets the most alcohol. (Goat milk has the least, which is why it's the easiest on the stomach.) Airag is usually left to ferment in a leather bag near the door of a ger. (I’ve also seen a guy with a 60L vat of the stuff.) It’s “stirred” by punching the bag. It’s polite to give the bag a punch if you walk into a ger with someone brewing it. Airag continues to appear through autumn, and the autumn airag is considered especially potent. There was also airag at Tsagaan Sar. I don’t know if mares are still giving milk at this point, or if that stuff was somehow saved since autumn. Airag can also be made into a kind of “Mongolian vodka” (Монгол архи) by freeze distillation. You just leave your airag outside and part of the water content (but not the alcoholic content) will freeze and you can lift it out. That stuff is pretty nasty though. It tastes sort of like vodka with a hint of old cheese.

Airag Customs

At parties airag is usually ladled from from a large ceramic vase into a traditional аяга (bowl for eating and drinking). You drink as much as you can, then hand it back to your server, who refills it and passes it to the next guy (or back to you, if you're the only visitor). An amusing tradition is to make the guest sing, while holding the bowl, and sometimes while standing. Usually after a few lines everyone else joins in. Once you’re done (but not before), you may drink the airag.

Perhaps because airag is traditionally ingrained in the culture, and because its alcohol content is low, it’s not looked at the same way as other drinks like beer or vodka. It’s not “bad.” Mongolians just don’t think of it as “booze” and so they give it to little kids and pregnant women.

So since it’s summer again, here’s to the airag!

School Vacation / Fourth of July

As most of the world knows now, it's July, and thus well into summer. The Mongolian school year ends at the beginning of June / end of May, much like the American school year. And also much like the American school year, this originated for agricultural reasons. Summer is the busiest time of year not only for farmers (originally the majority of the US population), whose crops are growing, but also for herders, who have lots of young animals running around. In both cases, it was assumed that kids should help their parents, and so everything else was planned around it.

Horses, young and old

A lot of Peace Corps volunteers have therefore gone home for vacation or migrated to UB to enjoy its many luxuries. I didn't and had no fixed plans, so I was talked into running a summer English club back in my village. Not about to miss out on Fourth of July for that reason, I then talked my students into having a 4th of July party (it didn't take much talking). They raised the funds and bought the supplies. The original grand vision included fireworks and baseball - both of which are obscure out here - but at least we had marshmallows! So we started a fire and roasted sausages and marshmallows on pieces of abandoned wire.

Mongolian kids' weenie roast

That this took place is a small success and a bit of a miracle. The Fourth was very stormy, to the point that the wind began peeling the canvas cover off some gers, sending me running to my counterpart's house in anxiety that my home was falling apart. Actually, nothing structural was affected, and my stuff didn't even get wet. And by about 8:00 the weather cleared, allowing our party to take place anyway.

My ger on July 4

The rest of the country, meanwhile is gearing up for Naadam, the biggest sporting event of the year, and now I'm in UB running through hoops to get a Chinese visa, which promises to provide more material for blogging eventually.

Updates

This is a housekeeping day. Check the following words of the week for corrections or additions (including pretty pictures!):

тэнгэр
баяр
говь
овоо
сар
хадаг
хавар
салхи
аргал