Glossary
Iradi words are given in the modern Latin spelling. Most are in everyday use; a few belong to the church or to the valleys.
aka — elder brother; a respectful address to an older man.
aksakal — “white beard”; an elder. The aksakal kengeshi is a council of elders.
apa — mother; a respectful address to an older woman.
ata — father, grandfather; a respectful address to an old man.
bata — a blessing, spoken over a person, a journey, a house or a meal. It ends with omin.
bayge — a long-distance horse race, run at feasts.
biy — the chief and judge of a clan.
boorsok — small pieces of fried dough, served at every feast.
chaikhana — a teahouse.
Chong-ene — grandmother.
El-Choro — the clan militias of the tribal regions, organised in late 2007 from the fighting units of the Popular Front.
elechek — the white headdress of a married woman, put on the bride by her husband’s mother.
jandarm — a gendarme. Not a polite word.
kalpak — the tall white felt hat worn by men.
kalym — bride price, paid by the groom’s family: livestock, money and goods, often a riding horse.
kashysh — a priest of the Syro-Iradi Church.
kuda — the bond between the families of a bride and groom; also the in-laws themselves.
kurut — hard balls of dried, salted yoghurt.
Kyamta — the feast of the Resurrection.
kymyz — fermented mare’s milk.
malka — the holy leaven of the mountain parishes, said to descend from the bread of St. Janyl. It is given and never sold.
Morkhan — the black, bull-headed god of the old religion, whom the church identifies with the Devil. Black things and cattle are his.
omin — amen.
Qurbana — the Eucharist, in the East Syriac rite of the Syro-Iradi Church.
sep — a dowry: felts, bedding, a chest.
shyrdak — a rug of cut and stitched felt in two colours.
toi — a feast; especially a wedding.
tör — the seat of honour, opposite the door of a house or yurt.
Places and institutions
Bill of Sale ₍Satuu Kagazy₎ — the draft treaties, prepared in secret in the winter of 2006–07 by the government of Prime Minister Orozbekov with Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, under which Irad would have been dissolved and divided among them. Read out in Nurzhan on 25 February 2007.
Bishkek Ceasefire — the agreement of September 2007 that ended the main fighting of the Second Civil War and fixed the Qara-Chik line.
DRI — the Democratic Republic of Irad, proclaimed in Talas on 9 December 2006 and dissolved on 4 June 2007.
Gendarmerie — the Republican Gendarmerie, which guards the line and the highways on the ISEZ side.
ISEZ — the Irad Special Economic Zone, proclaimed in Nurzhan on 25 February 2007: the cities, the river valleys and the roads between them.
Joint Liaison Committee — the committee of officers from both sides, chaired by the United Nations, that meets monthly at Kara-Oi to settle incidents on the line.
Popular Front — the alliance of clan militias and strike committees that rose in March 2007 and stormed Talas on 4 June.
Qara-Chik line — the ceasefire line, about 1,890 kilometres long, between the ISEZ and the tribal regions.
UNMI — the United Nations Mission in Irad, established in October 2007, with its headquarters at Kara-Oi.