4Grammar and explanations
Reading a poem
A Mongolian poem uses the grammar you already know, but it bends it in a few predictable ways. Natsagdorj's refrain shows two of them at once.
Энэ бол миний төрсөн нутагthis is I-GEN be.born-PAST land"This is the land where I was born"
Монголын сайхан оронMongolia-GEN beautiful land"the beautiful country of Mongolia"
A whole clause in front of one noun
миний төрсөн нутаг packs a sentence, "I was born there", into a participle in front of the noun (lessons 102 and 146). The doer is in the genitive, миний, as in таны бичсэн ном. English needs "the land where I was born"; the poem needs three words.
A line with no verb
The second line, Монголын сайхан орон, has no verb at all. It is a noun phrase standing alone, which prose would rarely allow but poetry loves: a picture rather than a statement.
The words of poetry
| Poetic or literary | Everyday | Meaning |
|---|
| орон | улс, нутаг | country, land |
| мэт | шиг | like, as |
| буй | байгаа | being, which is |
| эх орон | (same) | motherland |
Нуур нь толь мэт.The lake is like a mirror.
Алсад буй уулсthe mountains far away
эх орон is the one poetic word that everybody also uses in speech. орон on its own sounds like a poem or a speech.
Word order bends
In prose the predicate closes the sentence. In poetry and in emotional speech, the subject can come after it, like an echo:
Миний нутаг ямар сайхан бэ!How beautiful my land is!
Ямар сайхан бэ, миний нутаг!How beautiful it is, my land!
The words and the endings are the same; only the order, and with it the feeling, has changed. When you read a poem, find the predicate first, wherever it stands.
The sound of the lines
English poetry rhymes at the end of the line. Traditional Mongolian verse often works the other way round: lines that belong together begin with the same sound. Read a poem aloud and listen to the starts of the lines.
Go deeper in the grammar guide: Mongolian participles: the relative clause goes first · Mongolian word order
5Good to know
Generations of Mongolian schoolchildren have learnt "Миний нутаг" by heart, and many adults can still recite its refrain. The poem names the great mountain ranges of the north, the Gobi in the south, the rivers and the lakes, as if the poet were travelling across the map.
Natsagdorj also wrote the drama Учиртай гурван толгой ("Three Fateful Hills"), which became Mongolia's best-known opera. He died at only thirty, and his short life is part of his legend.
