Sary Kün, Ejen Kyz

Sary Kün, Ejen Kyz ("Golden Sun, Gentle Girl") is a traditional Iradi song in the extinct Keñsuu dialect, known from a recording made on wax cylinders in 1928. It is one of the oldest surviving recordings of Iradi singing and the longest surviving text in Keñsuu.^[1][2]

Recording

The song was recorded in the Keñ-Suu valley in the autumn of 1928 by the ethnographer Yevgeny Sadovnikov. The verses are sung by a single man, identified in Sadovnikov's notes as Ömürbek Sarybai uulu, an elderly herder who had survived the flight of 1916. Other men of the settlement join him in the choruses. There is no instrumental accompaniment: the singers keep time by stamping their feet on the floor, a practice that folklorists compare to the hoofbeat rhythms of the irda.^[1] Sadovnikov did not record the occasion. Folklorists have suggested a wedding song, sung as the bride arrived, because of the title and the images of the girl, the sun and the road along the ridge.^[3]

The cylinders were sent to Leningrad in 1929 and returned to Talas in copies in the 1960s. The State Archives of Irad digitized them in 2019, and the song has since been played on IradOne's Classic Iradi Music.^[2]

Text

Each verse is a chain of short images: the golden sun, a dark-haired youth, hazel eyes (ala göz), a tale (jomok), stone, mint (jalpız), clouds (bulut) and the mountain. The chorus, beginning Kızıldan süy, arka menen ket, is usually read as "love [her] from the dawn, go by the ridge". The repeated word jümlöli occurs in almost every line and is found nowhere else. Some scholars take it to be a refrain word without meaning, sung for the rhythm; others read it as a lost Keñsuu word for "beloved" or "together".^[3]

No agreed translation exists. Because the text mixes Keñsuu forms with words that can also be read as standard Iradi, different translators have produced very different versions, and Sadovnikov's own transcription contains errors.^[3]

Legacy

Since its digitization the song has become a symbol of the Iradi language revival and of the clans lost in 1916. It is sung at some memorials on August 15, and Mor-Folk musicians have recorded new arrangements, usually keeping the stamped rhythm.^[2]

References

1. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas). Sound Collection: Sadovnikov Expedition Cylinders, 1928 (copies).
2. ^ Journal of Central Asian Linguistics (2023). 'Oghuz Traces in the Talas Basin: The Keñsuu Material Reconsidered.' Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 3–29.
3. ^ Central Asian Folklore Society (2021). Epic Cycles and Horseback Chants of the Northern Valleys. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 159–171.