Happy Cyrillic Day!
Happy Cyrillic Alphabet Day, everyone!
In honor of “The favorite Bulgarian holidy” May 24, I give you the lyrics to ‘Cyril and Methodius: a hymn for all schools.’ (Кирил и Методий Български всеучилищен химн), a song you might recognize from my podcasts.
Back in the day, the tradition was for all of Sofia’s school children to march from their schools to the big statues of Cyril and Methodius that stand in front of the Bulgarian National Library. While they marched, they sang this song (thought not necessarily at the same time). Nowadays, the school children don’t all march at the same time, but people still visit the statues and put flowers at their feet, and they still sing this song, the original original text of which appears here, but we’re going to use the modern version.
Върви, народе възродени,
Go forth, people reborn
към светла бъднина върви,
To the bright future go forth
с книжовността, таз сила нова,
With scholarship, this power new
ти чест и слава поднови!
Your honor and glory renew!
Върви към мощната просвета!
Go forth through powerful education
В световните борби върви,
In the global fight, go forth,
от длъжност неизменна воден
From duty unshirking followed
и Бог ще те благослови!
And God will bless you!
Свят светла просвета!
Уча Науката
Напред! Науката е слънце,
Onward! Science is the sun,
което във душите грей!
In which the spirits shine!
Напред! Народността не пада
Forward! The nation will not fall
там, гдето знаньето живей!
There, where the knowlege lives!
Безвестен беше ти, безславен!
Hidden were you, inglorious!
О, влез в историята веч,
Oh, go down in history yet,
духовно покори страните,
Those spiritually subdued countries,
които завладя със меч!
Who conquered with the sword!
And why not take the opportunity to learn some Bulgarian compound words? See, unlike English, which forms most of its high-level vocabulary from French and Latin, Bulgarian uses sticks its own simple words together to make more complex ones. That means that you can often recognize the meaning of a big long word, even if you’ve never seen it before.
The first important root is род (rod), which means birth or generation. In fact, the word hydrogen in Bulgarian is водарод (vodarod), literally ‘water-birth,’ which is exactly what hydro-gen means in Greek.
In the first verse, you saw народе (na-rod-e or on-birth-vocative), which translates into ‘people!’ as in “People of the world, unite!” You also saw възродени (vyz-rod-en-i or re-birth-participle-plural). Together, they translate into ‘reborn people,’ but that translation loses the connection these words share in their roots. Maybe ‘generations regenerated’ would be better? And in the third verse we get Народността (na-rod-nost-ta or on-birth-ness-the), which means “the nation” or literally “the people-ness.”
The next big root is нов (nov), which means new. You see it in сила нова (sila nova or new power), and слава поднови (pod-nov-i or under-power-plural), which means “glory(s) renewed.”
And speaking of слава (slava), it means “glory.” So безславен? Bez-slav-en, or without-glory-participial, gives us “inglorious” or literally, “made without glory.”
Finally, we have дух (dukh), which means “spirit” or”soul” or “ghost” (and is also the root for “breath,” as in Latin spiritus). So душите грей (dushite grei) means souls or spirits shine (the х becomes ш before a closed vowel like и or е because it’s easier to say that way). And what about духовно покори страните (dukhovno pokori stranite)? Those would be духовно (dukh-ovn-o or spirit-of-adverb) spiritually subdued (or conquered, or enslaved) countries.
In other words, although Bulgaria might not have much modern fame or historical military success, it is SPIRITUALLY dominant, because Bulgarians invented the Cyrillic alphabet and brought literacy to the Slavs. Nyah nyah.
