Book Description

The Yiyu (Beilu yiyu) – a Chinese-Middle Mongol glossary included in the Dengtan Bijiu (a military handbook for generals compiled during the Wanli period of the Ming dynasty) – is an important source regarding the history of the Mongolian language. The manuscript version of Yiyu is a copy made for Louis Ligeti on his first expedition to China (1928-31) and is now conserved by the Oriental Collection of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In his edition the author reconstructs the often chaotic material of the Yiyu with the help of other available Yiyu texts. Next to its contribution in transcription and reconstruction, this work is indispensable in terms of linguistic analysis, dealing with much investigated issues of Middle Mongol (e.g. suffixes, unstable -n nouns, representation of the initial h-, loanwords in the lexicon, lack or presence of intervocalic velar fricatives etc.). A full word index, a classical Mongolian reference wordlist and four other indexes are included in this edition as well as the facsimile photocopies of both the manuscript and a block print version of the glossary.