Languagle #38: Mongolian
Ганц мод гал болохгүй, ганц хүн айл болохгүй
Gants mod gal bolokhgüi, gants khün ail bolokhgüi
"One log won't make a fire; one person won't make a household."
What it means
Nobody can manage alone. One log does not make a fire, and one person does not make a household. The two halves mirror each other exactly, a pattern common in Mongolian proverbs.
How to say it
GANTS MOD GAL BO-lokh-gui, GANTS KHUN AIL BO-lokh-gui
Mongolian stresses the first syllable. Kh is the ch in Scottish loch, and ү is said with rounded lips, like the u in French 'tu'.
Word by word
- Ганц gants: one, a single
- мод mod: tree, log
- гал gal: fire
- болохгүй BO-lokh-gui: won't become
- хүн khun: person
- айл ail: household, family
-гүй means 'not' and is tacked onto the end of the verb.
Where it was found
Mongolian calls a proverb a züir tsetsen üg (зүйр цэцэн үг). This one is from the Mongolian arts site Urlag.mn.
Similar sayings
- English: Many hands make light work
How to recognise Mongolian
Mongolian in Mongolia is written in Cyrillic plus two extra letters, ө and ү. It's full of double vowels (аа, оо, өө, үү) and the letter х, and many words end in -гүй (not). Kyrgyz uses ө and ү too, but also ң. In Inner Mongolia, in China, Mongolian is still written in its traditional script, which runs top to bottom.
About the Mongolian language
Mongolian is a Mongolic language spoken by around 6 million people, in Mongolia and in the Inner Mongolia region of China. In Mongolia it has been written in Cyrillic since the 1940s, while Inner Mongolia keeps the traditional Mongolian script, one of the few scripts in the world written in vertical columns from top to bottom. Mongolia has begun reintroducing the traditional script alongside Cyrillic.
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