Help: Lezginka - Translation?

Subject: Lezginka - Translation?
From:
Date: 09 Nov 00 - 02:52 AM

Our band plays a Russian tune called Lezginka and we haven't been able to track down a translation after 3 years. Does anyone know what it means?

Thanks heaps, Nigel McLaughlin ------------------------------------ The Chaos Lounge - funky and Flashed http://www.chaos-lounge.com ------------------------------------

Subject: RE: Help: Lezginka - Translation?
From: Charlie Baum
Date: 09 Nov 00 - 02:10 PM

The words transliterate something like "La illahah illah allah." It's Arabic for "There is no God but Allah!" The rest of the words ("zay la la la la," etc.) are just vocables (meaningless singing syllables).

--Charlie Baum, who sang this song with the Yale Russian Chorus for many years.

Subject: RE: Help: Lezginka - Translation?
From: Lena
Date: 10 Nov 00 - 03:52 AM

Hi Nigel.Are you popping up in Sydney,yes or not?!

Lena
(check this to recall...)

Subject: RE: Help: Lezginka - Translation?
From: GUEST,micca at work
Date: 10 Nov 00 - 04:32 AM

There is a tune by this name in Aram Khatchaturians Ballet "Gayaneh" which incorporates a lot of spirited Armenian folk music (whether new or traditional, I dont know) I always assumed it was a style of tune rather than a title.

Subject: RE: Help: Lezginka - Translation?
From: Charlie Baum
Date: 10 Nov 00 - 09:40 AM

Lezginka refers to a musical piece (or other thing) from the Lezgis or Lezghis (fricative voiced g), a tribe living in the Caucasus Mountains (think Chechenia and you've got the right neighborhood). Lezghis are Islamic (which explains the words in Arabic). Russian choruses (especially the famous Don Cossack Choir) have been singing a tune based on or in the style of Lezghi war-chants.

So it's both a style of tune (or more accurately, a tune in the style of a particular ethnic/geographic region), and the title of specific tunes in that style.

--Charlie Baum