Music in minority languages

[vijayjohn]

This is a song in Udi, another Northeast Caucasian language spoken in a village in Azerbaijan called Nij, another village in Georgia called Zinobiani or Oktomberi, four villages in Armenia, and parts of the Northern Caucasus in Russia. Udi is an Eastern Samur language, as is Lezgian. It may be descended from Caucasian Albanian, but now it is severely endangered with only some 5,000 speakers left.

You can see the title of the song for yourself in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2PCVKpPHz0

[vijayjohn]

This song is in Qashqai, an Oghuz Turkic language spoken in Fars province in southern Iran. It is one of various Oghuz Turkic languages spoken in Iran (Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, and Salar are also Oghuz Turkic languages, so it is particularly closely related to them). I'm not sure how to transliterate the title; in Persian script, it's written as یارا قربان الم, which I guess would be something like "Yârâ qurbân alam":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBe4425ZotA

[vijayjohn]

I've posted some songs in a Turkic language spoken in China on another thread before. This time, I'm posting a song in a Chinese language spoken in a Turkic country! The title of this song is "Mama." It's a song in Dungan, which is a variety of Mandarin spoken in Central Asia. (In the Romanization system used for this language, their own name for it is written as "Xuejzw jyian," which in Hanyu Pinyin would be Huízú yŭyán). The singer's name is Zulfiya Meizer, and IIRC, she is from Kyrgyzstan, and this clip was taken there:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ootXiTL6OmI

[vijayjohn]

Mingrelian, like Laz, is an endangered Kartvelian language with no official status. In fact, it is closely related to Laz. Together, they form the Zan subbranch of the Karto-Zan branch of Kartvelian; the other Karto-Zan language is Georgian. Unlike Laz, though, Mingrelian is spoken in Western Georgia and often considered merely a dialect of Georgian. The number of native speakers is estimated to be between 500,000-800,000.

The title of this song is apparently "Marule," and it is performed by Ensemble Oda:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5ouWirvX_4

[vijayjohn]

This is a song (apparently a drinking song of some sort) in Dehong Dai, a Tai language spoken in Yunnan, China, as well as in neighboring Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos. Apparently, the name that most of these people use to refer to themselves is Tai2 Lə6 [tai˥lə˧] 'Northern Tai'. It has its own script, but I can't read it (yet ). I've posted links both to a YouTube video and to the same video on Youku:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uBw_UaCKXU
Youku link: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjYwMzgyO ... -2.1-1-1-1

EDIT: OK, so apparently, the song is sung in this language by a female singer, then again by a male singer, and finally a translation into Mandarin is sung by both of them together.

[melski]

A very catchy song that I just found, sung in Burgenland-Croatian by Coffeeshock Company

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3V2o5UxIVA

[TeneReef]

Thanks for sharing. I find their dialect cute.

[vijayjohn]

This clip has parts of various songs sung in Kalasha (a.k.a. Kalasha-mondr), a Dardic language spoken in Chitral district in northwestern Pakistan. These songs are all from a Kalasha winter festival called Chaumas. The Kalash people practice their own religion, and during Chaumas, they apparently thank a god named Sorizan for protecting their flocks during the fall and winter, although the festival is dedicated to another god:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtofKhCo5PQ
EDIT: The instrumental piece at the beginning and end of this clip is a Pashto folk song, "Lar sha Pekhawar ta," played on a rubab Hussain.

[vijayjohn]

The title of this YouTube video claims (in Russian) that this is an "Avar song Botlikh." I'm not really sure what that's supposed to mean; Avar is one language, and Botlikh is another, although both are spoken on the border between Dagestan and Chechnya. Either way, Avar and Botlikh are both minority languages (and both Northeast Caucasian languages, within the Avar-Andic branch). The video starts out with some talking, soon accompanied by instrumental music, and finally, two women singing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6DRJ5nuL2Q

[vijayjohn]

Agul or Aghul is a language spoken in southern Dagestan. It is one of the closest linguistic relatives of Lezgian and is spoken very close to the area where Lezgian is spoken; in fact, its speakers use Lezgian as their literary language. This is the only song I have managed to find in Aghul so far. The title apparently means 'death', and it seems to have been performed by Bahauddin Ibrahimov, who also performed the Lezgian song I posted on the "what song are you listening to?" thread:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K8dDaLLlms

[vijayjohn]

Tabasaran is the other language (besides Aghul) that is most closely related to Lezgian. All three languages (Lezgian, Aghul, and Tabasaran) are spoken in areas that are very close to each other. However, unlike the speakers of Aghul, the Tabasarans use the South Tabasaran dialect as their literary language. This is a song in Tabasaran:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzz-Mowb4jw

[vijayjohn]

This is another song in Dungan, also performed by Zulfiya Meizer. I'm not sure what the title in Dungan itself is, but the video suggests (in Russian) that it means 'For You'. I think maybe the equivalent in Mandarin may be 我给你 Wo3 Gei3 Ni3, because the chorus begins with something that sounds a bit like that. This time, I've managed to find a clip of the song both on YouTube and on Youku, so I've included both links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDEZV1OU8Xw
Youku link: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzEyMTk4NzUy.html

[OldBoring]

ima check em out later!

[vijayjohn]

You mean "it"? It's two links to the same song

It basically sounds like a Russian waltz with Mandarin lyrics.

Anyway, this is another song that's...not in Dungan, sorry. It's in Adjaran, which is apparently a dialect of Georgian spoken in Adjara (southwestern Georgia, on the border with Turkey) with more Turkish loanwords and similarities to Mingrelian and Laz. Adjara is an autonomous republic within Georgia, and about half of all Adjarians are Muslim as a direct result of the Ottomans conquering parts of southwestern Georgia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUphzRwo17k

[OldBoring]

I understood the Dungan song. OK, I cheated because on the youku page someone posted the lyrics in Chinese in the comments. In the comments it seems that people from Shaanxi understand everything in the lyrics, while other Chinese have some trouble in understanding it.

[vijayjohn]

I understood the Dungan song. OK, I cheated because on the youku page someone posted the lyrics in Chinese in the comments. In the comments it seems that people from Shaanxi understand everything in the lyrics, while other Chinese have some trouble in understanding it.

OMG, I totally did not realize the lyrics were in the comments! Although it looks like they couldn't figure out two of the words for some reason. And if their lyrics are right, then sometimes the same word sounds different in different parts of the song.

This is another song in Abkhaz, which is the Northwest Caucasian language of Abkhazia. Abkhazia considers itself an independent state, but most countries consider it part of northwestern Georgia (I'll have to listen to this later lol):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMvgr4SDzUM

[vijayjohn]

Ingush is an official language of Ingushetia, alongside Russian; Ingushetia is just west of Chechnya, and Chechen and Ingush are very closely related. This is a song (apparently about love) in Ingush by Tamara Yandieva. I don't know what the title of the song is, though, since the title of the YouTube video just says in Russian (transcribed into Roman script) that it's a beautiful song lol:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvbNVp8y44w

[vijayjohn]

This is a song in Adyghe performed by a folk musician named Aslan Tlebzu in concert. In Adyghe, his name is Аслъан ЛIыбзэу [aːsɬaːn ɬʼəbzaw]. The song is called "Абдзэхэ зек1о орэд" (I'm not going to even try to figure out how to read that right now ). Adyghe is very closely related to Kabardian:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oeoApSBp0g
Lyrics (in Cyrillic):
Ти Абэдзах къумбылмэ щахасэ гущэба
Урысхэри къалэмэ щэджэгух гущэба
Рэнысэщы джэгу нахьи ш1омыш1эу язаох
Ахэм я зэуак1эхэр гуихы гущэба
Джаурэуи хьэжъхэри мэхьакъох гущэба
К1элэц1ык1у гъы-макъэхэр къыдэ1ук1 гущэба
Ой онэкъопит1у гущэр ра зи щыныталэ
Ар щыджалэм хэлъэуи заор къытфешIы гущ
Ра-Абадзэ къархэр шыу шъэмэ рапшъа
Ор ти оркъ пшъыгъэхэр къытфэхэзещэ гущ
Ой онэкъопит1у гущэр ар къызэрэгуредзэ
Ар щышъхьадзкъуадзэк1э къыдэзэращэ гущ
Джаурэуи хьэжъхэр мэхьакъох гущэба
К1элэ хьакъу макъэхэр къыдэ1ук1 гущэба

[vijayjohn]

Moksha is a Uralic language spoken in western Russia. This is a Moksha song being sung by two Finnish students, apparently at Oxford. The person who uploaded the video (their professor, apparently) claims that Moksha is closely related to Finnish, but it's not all that closely related as far as I can tell:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu9908rgT4M

[vijayjohn]

This is a song I encountered on one of the language quizzes on the Omniglot blog almost three years ago. It's in Karelian, which is another Uralic language that really is very closely related to Finnish (in fact, historically, some Finnish linguists considered it a dialect of Finnish). It's spoken in Karelia, which is divided between Finland and Russia. This song, "Terveh, Karjal," was performed by the Karelian group Ensemble Kantele in Petrozavodsk, which is part of Karelia (specifically, the capital of the Republic of Karelia, which is in Russia):

http://www.omniglot.com/soundfiles/blog/quiz220112.mp3