Udmurt advances
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The Buranovskie Babushki ("Buranovsky Grannies"), Russia's entrants in this year's Eurovision Song Contest, have advanced to the final round of ten with their song "Party for Everybody":
According to the Moscow Times ("Village Grannies Make It to Eurovision Finals", 5/23/2012)
The women, all above the age of 70, come from a village in the Udmurtia republic and have endeared themselves to the country with their mix of traditional singing in Russian and Udmurt with international music hits.
They first tried out to represent Russia in 2010, but didn't win until this year, beating out previous Eurovision winner Dima Bilan and tattooed rapper Timati to become Russia's choice for the contest.
The Ethnologue entry tells us that Udmurt is a Uralic language with around 480,000 speakers, spoken in Udmurtia, which is here:
As Wikipedia explains, "The Uralic languages […] constitute a language family of some three dozen languages spoken by approximately 25 million people. The healthiest Uralic languages in terms of the number of native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Mari and Udmurt."
The Wikipedia entry for Udmurt adds that "[a]mong outsiders, it has traditionally been referred to by its Russian exonym, Votyak". And the entry for the Udmurt people notes that "there have been claims that they are the "most red-headed" people in the world".
Uralistica ("The World of Finno-Ugric and Samoyed Peoples") has pledged its support ("Финно-угорский мир поддерживает Бурановских бабушек" = "The Finno-Ugric world supports the Buranovsky Grannies"). For those who are eager to learn more, Udmurt State University offers a summer program in Language and verbal culture of the Udmurts.
The Eurovision Song Contest is not specifically designed to celebrate linguistic and cultural contact phenomena; but it often seems that way. I mean, is this a great continent, or what?
Update — Victor Steinbok writes:
Your post actually underestimates the degree of BB's use of Udmurt language in their performances. The group nearly made it to Eurovision the last two years before finally breaking through this year, with original content. But the majority of their performances involve covers of Euro-pop and Russian "rock" songs in Udmurt. The covers range from the Beatles to Kino.
Victor sent along youtube links to performances of Hotel California, Satisfaction (Russian hip-hop, not the Rolling Stones), Let It Be, and Besame Mucho.
Peter Metcalfe said,
May 24, 2012 @ 1:44 am
The Eurovision Song Contest – the last bastion of European Unity.
Alex said,
May 24, 2012 @ 4:23 am
On the other hand – the contest has changed its language rules several times over the years. For quite a long time, singers were only allowed to sing in one of the official languages of the country, nowadays most of them sing in English.
The topic even has its own Wikipedia entry: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Languages_in_the_Eurovision_Song_Contest
z said,
May 24, 2012 @ 7:38 am
Little correction: a good translation is not "Buranovsky Grannies" but "Buranovo Grannies" (the form given in the Moscow Times article) – the "-skie" is to make an adjectival form of "Buranovo," the name of the village they're apparently from.
Andy Averill said,
May 24, 2012 @ 3:13 pm
Could have sworn I heard them singing "Everybody dance"…
John Lawler said,
May 24, 2012 @ 3:27 pm
Udmurt was once known in the Uralic literature as Votyak, and is closely related to
Komi, aka Ziryene or Zyrian. Together they constitute the Permian branch of Uralic.
Bobbie said,
May 24, 2012 @ 4:31 pm
"Party for everybody. Come on and dance" repeatedly!
HP said,
May 24, 2012 @ 7:05 pm
There are lot of English phrases that show up in non-Anglophone dance and pop music since the 60s ("Yeah, Yeah", "Party," "Boogie," etc.). I never got the impression that they carried any semantic content, and have just become conventions of the genre.
(Adding, now I'm wondering about all the "hey-nonny-nonny-oh"s that show up old English madrigals. Could it be corrupt Occitan or something?)
Kenny Easwaran said,
May 24, 2012 @ 8:27 pm
Maybe they'll get the votes of Hungary and Finland, in addition to anyone who traditionally votes for Russia!
[(myl) Also Estonia!]
Fred said,
May 25, 2012 @ 3:30 am
Here's a literal-ish translation of the lyrics:
Ӝöккышет тöдьы вöлдисько, пиосме возьмасько
I’ll lay (down) a white tablecloth, wait for my sons
Котэм нянь буй-буй ик будэ, сюлэмы небӟе
Sour bread is rising softly, my heart softens
Party for everybody – dance
Come on and dance (x2)
Come on and boom boom
Корка тыр ик нылпиосы, бертизы, мусоосы (x2)
The house is full of children, they’ve returned, my darlings
Вож дэремме дисяло но тöдь кышетме мон кертто
I put on my green dress and tie my white headscarf on
Вож дэремме дисяло но эктыны пото
I put my green dress and go dancing
Кырӟалом жон-жон-жон, эктом ми куаж-куаж али.
We sing žon-žon-žon [boom-boom-boom], we dance kuaž-kuaž [crackle-crackle] now.
Кырӟалом жон-жон-жон ваньмы ӵошен.
We will sing džon-džon-džon, all of us together.
Party for everybody – dance
Come on and dance (x2)
Come on and
Party for everybody – dance
Come on and dance (x2)
Come on and boom boom
Коӵыше но шумпотэ но, пуные но шумпотэ (x2)
My cat is also happy, my dog is also happy
Мылы-кыды капчия но шумпотонэн пачылме
My mood is good and full of happiness
Мылы-кыды капчия но шумпотонэ но
My mood is good and happy
Кырӟалом жон-жон-жон, эктом ми куаж-куаж али.
We sing žon-žon-žon [boom-boom-boom], we dance kuaž-kuaž [crackle-crackle] now.
Кырӟалом жон-жон-жон ваньмы ӵошен.
We will sing džon-džon-džon, all of us together.
Party for everybody – dance
Come on and dance (x2)
Come on and
Party for everybody – dance
Come on and dance (x2)
Come on and boom boom
Jeremy Wheeler said,
May 26, 2012 @ 4:38 am
"Maybe they'll get the votes of Hungary and Finland, in addition to anyone who traditionally votes for Russia!" Said tongue-in-cheek, I know, but although Hungarian and Finnish speakers have related languages they are not so close that there is any mutual understanding. Udmurt is even less comprehensible to us.
I can't speak for Finland but here in Hungary we will be voting for Compact Disco. (We are also vaguely aware of a bit of history with Russia which doesn't make them our first choice of alternative vote…)
Tom V said,
May 29, 2012 @ 9:12 am
I don't know about votes, but I did see a couple of Finnish flags waving in the background.