Happy First Month of Winter Festivus!

In the previous post on Ulaanbaatar Christmas-ness, I found it amusing that I had commenters named Minnie and Pixie. It was like having my own elves! Especially since it’s more and more like the North Pole around here. This is the latest shot of my courtyard flower box:

Oh, and responding to the bags of letters I’ve received on the subject, the Mongolian term for Christmas is зул сарын баяр (zul sariin bayar), which, in keeping with the ongoing Secular War on Christmas, means “First Month of Winter Festivus”.

I also just done bought me the big, fat Third Revised Edition of Mongolian Grammar, 450 pages of sheer intimidation exhaustively detailing every last lateral fricative of both classical and modern Mongolian. But one strange quality I possess is finding the comedy in most anything, the current regime in America notwithstanding. So it was that I yukked it up (by myself, it’s pathetic) over the authors’ highlighting of one of the Mongolian language’s longest words. They proudly trotted it out just under the choo-choo train graphic illustrating how Mongol words are “agglutinated” by adding on “morphemes” (sounds like the recipe for what I ordered at a Chinese restaurant yesterday). OK. Ready? Here 'tis: хамтралжуулагдсанаараа (khamtraljuulagdsanaaraa). And this, as you must have guessed, neatly expresses the phrase, “in that they were caused to be organized into collective farms.”

Oh and if you (and by “you” I mean Carol) want to get your very own edition of Mongolian Grammar ("Awarded as 'Best Academic Book of the Year 1997' by the Ministry of Education of Mongolia"! Only 500 available!) so you too can blithely drop terms for Communist economic theory in perfectly agglutinated Mongolian at your New Year's party (and remembering these words is a royal pain in the agglutinus maximus, believe me), InMongolia is selling it online here, along with lots of other cool stuff.

I actually do have important and interesting things to write about, but most of them, because they're important and interesting, will have to wait until after the holiday season. You guys are way too distracted in your swirly-eyed fever of consumption right now, and some of you are clearly one eggnog over the line as well.

So in the meantime, here are three items I have cleverly avoided on local menus:

Camel’s Foot with Garlic
Beef Covered with Garbage (they meant cabbage and totally redid their menus after I pointed out what they were offering their clientele)
Gold Medal Mixed Food

I’m also compiling bizarre Google searches that led folks to DODR but, frankly, your stocking is full enough. You haven’t been that good this year.

Comments

[Julie]

I think I made Gold Medal Mixed Food for dinner last night. :)

[Pixie]

Hi Konchog,
thought you might like to know it's not just the Mongolians who have a liking for long words. Try this baby on for size...

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysili-ogogogoch

Yes, I know it looks like the cat has just walked over my keyboard....
This verbal anaconda is actually a Welsh word meaning "The church of St. Mary in the hollow of white hazel trees near the rapid whirlpool by St. Tysilio's of the red cave"...fairly trips off the tongue, no?

Camels foot with garlic? If you dont fancy that hansome dish then the Larousse Gastronomique boasts the following recipe for 'Pieds de chameau a la vinaigrette' (camels foot in a vinegar dressing - yum!)

XXPixieXX

[Carol]

Konchog-I'm very punchy today, having spent the last 2 solid days writing my master's thesis, only to missave it some how last night and write over the version that included my last 6 hours worth of work. Luckily I was a buddhist scribe in a past life, so I was able to retype in a mere 4 hours, though I think my hands are broken... I'm still laughing about what a perfect karmic moment it was.
Anyway, long words... my dad's an airplane engineer. His contribution would be one he told me when I was a kid that is the term for the way air changes speed as it curves over the plane wing.

Yes, I will purchase a copy of my own (nice of you to provide me the reference!) and I am now even more glad that there are no ancient buddhist manuscripts in Welsh!

Still snorting over beef with garbage!

[Carol]

Oh yah, that engineering term was in German, another lovely agglutinative language. There are some doozies in Turkish to but I can't remember them off hand.

[Carrie]

First Month of Winter Festivus! How long does Winter Festivus last? I'd like to know so I don't remove my Festivus decorations too early. It's so hard to tell on calendars these days.

[Franklin]

Gold Medal Mixed making is my stomach the happy smiling.

[joan]

I'm sure the garlic does wonders for the flavor of Camel's Foot. In fact, I might venture to say that I wouldn't eat one without it! Happy Frozen Window-box Days.

[Unenlightened]

I'll remember to leave some yak milk for Santa Genghis.

[Janet]

HI-larious post - thanks for the Mongolian goodness!! Gotta share with you MY favorite-ever German word, more for the agglutination that the length - in a description about toilet hygiene, it remarked on the all-too common affliction of men: "mangelnde Zielgenauigkeit" (which would translate as a defect or scarcity of goal-exactitude). Exactly! Merry, merry, MERRY! Janet

[Ariel]

Konchog, I thought you might want to se this recent article on Mongolia in The Economist:

http://www.economist.com/world/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8401179

[minnie]

ha ha ha! my name really is Minnie! and i'm not THAT short (ok, i'm 5'3")

[minnie]

ok, i saw that bit about elves again, and it made me wonder: do buddhist monks have groupies? in either the real or hypothetical sense of the word? (it's late and i'm knitting christmas gifts in a big hurry!)

[Todd]

Please just one mention of the great Mongolian moving sidewalk (winter only). The ultra high low tech ice slides! my personal fav.
Todd