Mongolian Word of the Week #67: Хэнз

Since it's autumn now, today's Mongolian word of the week is хэнз. Хэнз (henz) means “late-born” and refers to late animals, children, and even plants. It may not be a particularly common word - as a matter of fact, I found it by randomly flipping through a dictionary - but, it is useful for people who herd animals.

Cyrillic	хэнз	IMG
Transcription	henz
IPA	[xents]
Layman’s Pronunciation	HENDZ
Translation	late-born
In Genghis Khan’s time it was kenze.

Lateborn animals are called хэнз төл (төл / töl = newborn animal), which includes хэнз хурга (henz hurga) "late lambs," хэнз ишиг (henz ishig) "late kids," хэнз унага (henz unaga) "late foals," and хэнз тугал (henz tugal) "late calves." Animals aside, it is also possible to talk about хэнз ногоо (henz nogoo) "late vegetables" which mature after the weather turns cool in autumn, and хэнз өрөм (henz öröm) "late 'Mongolian butter'," which is also collected in the autumn. (Өрөм is a special kind of Mongolian dairy product - please check Mongolian Word of the Week #38: Өрөм.) [1]

Хэнз is a special word for things that are born, appear, or come of age late, and is different from the more common Mongolian word for late, which is оройтсон (oroitson). You would use хэнз for talking about baby animals, but оройтсон for talking about the meeting you missed.

This lamb was born on time.

Хэнз хүүхэд

A хэнз хүүхэд (henz hüühed) is a child who is born to older parents. Хэнз has also given rise to a verb, хэнздэх (henzdeh), meaning “to appear too late, be born to older parents.” Here the expression is used in a passage from a Mongolian website: [2]

Ялангуяа, анхны хүүхдээ хүлээж буй хосууд, "хэнз" хүүхдээ төрүүлэх буй эцэг эхчүүд хүүхдээ хэрхэн асран халамжлах, хэрхэн шинэ дадлуудад сургаж, бие даасан нэгэн болоход туслах зэргийг судалж үзээрэй.
In particular, couples who are waiting to have their first child, and mothers and fathers who are about to give birth to a "late" child, please try to learn how to take care of your child, and how to teach them new new things and help them become independent.

This is an interesting issue for Mongolia. Mongolians have children younger than Americans. [2] Many couples meet in high school. Other volunteers who taught at university told me sometimes students brought babies to class - making for challenging lessons, to be sure. On the other hand, Mongolia has many educated, professional women - in fact, more than men. This professional ambition would seem to conflict with raising children. On the third hand, I also encountered some children who had older mothers - some of them had mothers in their forties when they were born. So what’s up?

Aside from having children earlier, another pattern I noticed is large age gaps between siblings - often ten years or more. As an example, when I arrived in Mongolia, my school’s director had just had her second baby. Her first child was in tenth grade - fourteen years ahead of his little brother! It seems that a lot of women go to school, have a baby right after, then go on to pursue their career, and years later, when they’re well established, continue adding to the family. Many women have children both early and late. By contrast, once families in the U.S. start having kids, they usually have them all in quick succession. There rarely seems to be more than 4 years between kids unless there’s been a breakup and remarriage. It would be interesting to find statistics on the age gaps between children in the two countries, but I couldn’t find any.

Миний хэнз хурга

Хэнз is perhaps best-known as хэнз хурга (henz hurga), a "late lamb," which is born in autumn, instead of spring like most lambs. Such an out-of-season lamb is likely to be smaller, and unlikely to put on much more weight, given the lack of grass during its formative months. [4] For that reason, it may not be a good choice to use it for furthering one's stock of sheep. As the Mongolians say,

Хэнз төлөөр хуц битгий тавь
Хэрүүлч хүнээр ноён битгий тавь
Henz tölöör huts bitgii tavi
Herüülch hüneer noyon bitgii tavi
Do not make a ram of a autumn-born lamb
Do not make a king of an ill-tempered man [5]

Late-born lambs were the subject of a 1933 poem by one of Mongolian’s most famous modern poets, Д.Нацагдорж (D. Natsagdorj), which begins:

Mongolian	English
Миний хэнз хурга Магнай халзан зурвастай Мянган хонины дундаас Би хармагц таньдаг Мярс мярс майлж Намайг чиглэсээр ирдэг [6]	My little autumn lamb With a bald spot on its head I can tell it right away From a thousand other sheep Bleating baa, baa, baa It comes running my way

The poem has been set to music, and several versions exist on Youtube, including this one with a little boy singing...



...and another one with a little girl and a grown man. Both of them have lambs.


So let's celebrate all the late lambs which are born this autumn!

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Notes

1. All the various definitions are given (in Mongolian) on the Mongolian government's encyclopedia's website: "Хэнз." Монгол хэлний их тайлбар толь. http://www.mongoltoli.mn/search.php?ug_id=120245&opt=1&word=%D0%A5%D0%AD%D0%9D%D0%97. Accessed August 11, 2015.
2. Н.Должин, “Хэзээ хүүхэдтэй болох нь тохиромжтой вэ?” http://psychology.mn/index.php?newsid=23.
3. According to the CIA’s World Fact Book, the average age of the mother at first birth is 20.5 in Mongolia but 25.6 in the United States. In other words, Mongolians start having babies about 5 years earlier. See https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2256.html.
4. "...ewes giving birth in autumn and winter tend to have fewer lambs than their spring born counterparts, and the mean birth weights of those lambs are lighter by up to 1.2 kg. Autumn-lambing ewes had lower milk yields over the first week of lactation, while lamb growth rates were slower in autumn-born compared with winter- and spring-born lambs. ...farm management skills need to be optimal though to avoid underfeeding during periods of slow grass growth." - Fisher, M. W. "A review of the welfare implications of out-of-season extensive lamb production systems in New Zealand" - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301622603001271.
5. My translation. The literal meaning of тавь (tavi) is "put." This proverb is also mentioned in the encyclopedia entry quoted in Note #1.
6. The complete poem can be found here: http://www.urlag.mn/post/117.htm. Accessed August 11, 2015. The translation is my own.