MWW 60: Барих

Wrestling: "Grabbing Each Other" in Mongolian

Cyrillic	барих	bErieeO
Transcription	barih
IPA	['pærʲɪx]
Layman’s Pronunciation	BARE-ikh
Translation	1. hold, grip, grab, keep 2. put together, build
In Genghis Khan’s time it was bariqu.

Last week in Mongolian Word of the Week #59: Бөх ("wrestler"), I mentioned that wrestling itself is called барилдаан (barildaan). Барилдаан is ultimately derived from the Mongolian verb барих, (barih) meaning to "hold," "grip," "grab," or "keep" something. Getting from барих to барилдаан is an interesting demonstration of what Mongolian verbs can do, but first let me say something about verbal voice.

English and most European languages have an active voice and a passive voice: the active is when the subject does something to something else, and the passive is when the subject gets something done to it. Mongolian has a richer array of voices. In addition to active and passive, it has a reciprocal voice. The reciprocal means two or more people do things to each other. Often, it has a tone of competition or conflict - just like wrestling.

The reciprocal voice is marked with the suffix -лд-. Inserted into бариx, you get барилдах (barildah) "wrestle." Since барих is "grab," барилдах is basically "grab each other." (Isn't wrestling mostly an exalted form of grabbing?) The final step is to add the suffix -аан, which turns the verb барилдах "wrestle" into the noun барилдаан "wrestling." [1]

Hold on: more about барих

You can also мацаг барих (observe a fast), холбоо барих (keep in touch), зай барих (keep at a distance), and биеэ барих (control your temper). Among the many things that Mongolians барих is the жолоо (joloo) "steering wheel," and by extension the entire машин (mashin) "car." So one day while riding across the steppe the driver asked me,

Та машин барьж чадах уу?
Ta mashin barij chadah uu?
Can you drive (hold) a car?

To which I answered "Тийм, Америкийн Нэгдсэн Улсад" (Yes, in the United States).

Барих has a secondary meaning of "put together, build." As such, Mongolians talk about гэр барих, "building a home." (By the way, remember to check out my look at how a Mongolian home, or гэр, is taken apart and put together!) Hence the common word for "building, construction," барилга (barilga).

Барих is an extremely common, useful, and productive verb. Other than барилдах and барилдаан, it has given birth to many other words, such as

• бариул (bariul) "handle"
• баривчилгаа (barivchilgaa) "an arrest"
• бариач (bariach) "chiropractor, masseuse"
• баригдашгүй (barigdashgüi) "elusive"
• баригдмал (barigdmal) "constricted" - баригдмал үзэл "constricted worldview"
  
• барьцаа (baritsaa) "money that you put down: stock, security, collateral, advance, guarantee, wager, deposit bond" and many other uses in finance.

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Notes

1. Mongolian verbs are usually cited in the dictionary in the form ending in -х. However, suffixes are not added to this form, but to the stem, and to get the stem you must remove -х. Thus the stem of барих is бари- and the stem of барилдах is барилд-.