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The Phonology and Lexicon of Early Modern Mongolian and Late Southern Middle Mongol As Documented in a 17Th Century Ming Chinese-Mongolian Dictionary

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The Phonology and Lexicon of Early Modern Mongolian and Late Southern Middle Mongol As Documented in a 17Th Century Ming Chinese-Mongolian Dictionary Andrew Shimunek* THE PHONOLOGY AND LEXICON OF EARLY MODERN MONGOLIAN AND LATE SOUTHERN MIDDLE MONGOL AS DOCUMENTED IN A 17TH CENTURY MING CHINESE-MONGOLIAN DICTIONARY ABSTRACT Although the existence of early Ming lexicographical sources on the Mongol language, e.g. Hua-Yi yryu ¥ 3H~H! (1389), has been known for quite a while, certain late Ming dictionaries from the 16th and 17th centuries have also been treated as exclusively "Middle Mongol" sources in the previous literature (e.g. Manduqu 1995, Apatoczky 2009, and Rykin 2011, 2012), despite the fact that such texts were composed centuries after the Mongol Empire, and despite identifiable Modern Mongolian phonological innovations evident in these texts. In this article I present a preliminary analysis of Beilu Kao i~~~, a 17th century Ming dictionary of Mongolian, and demonstrate its value in elucidating information on the phonology and lexicon of Early Modern Mongolian and Late Southern Middle Mongol. Previous scholarship has largely treated the Beilu Kao and other * This paper presents some results from research funded by a postdoctoral fellowship in Mongolian Studies at the Universiti degli Studi di Napoli "L'Orientale". I am grateful to my fellowship advisor Prof. Donatella Guida for selecting me for this fellowship, which has given me the opportunity to continue my research on this topic. I also thank Prof. Michele Bernardini for his helpful advice and for generously giving me a copy of Buhe & Liu's Bonan sketch which I used in this paper; an anonymous peer reviewer who provided helpful comments on a previous draft of this paper; and Jason Glavy for making his freely downloadable Soyombo font (available at <www.reocities.com/jglavy/asian.html». which I have employed in this paper. Any remaining errors are entirely my own. MINGQING YANJIUXVIII (2013-14) ISSN 1724-8574 © Universita degli Studi di Napoli "L'Orientale" Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 08:09:54AM via free access Andrew Shimunek variants of Beilu yryu as a unitary source representing a single language. In fact, the Beilu Kao is a mixed lexicographical source, including wordforms copied from early Middle Mongol lexicographical works, as well as late Southern Middle Mongol dialectal forms, and most importantly, transcriptions of Early Modem Mongolian, as I will demonstrate in this paper. 1. Introduction While relatively good philological data exists on the phonology and lexicon of Middle Mongol, there is very little evidence on the period immediately following it, a stage of Mongolic which we may term 'Early Modern Mongolian', as it deviates significantly from Middle Mongol phonology, exhibiting a number of innovations characteristic of Modern Mongolian (or 'Mongolian Proper,).l See below for my definition of 'Early Modern Mongolian': Early Modem Mongolian: The Mongolian language (i.e. the language which later developed into present-day Mongolian Proper and its dialects, including Khalkha, Baarin, Chakhar, Khorchin, Aru Khorchin, etc.) in the post-Middle Mongol period, beginning around the late 16th century, extending at least through the 17th century, and ending sometime before the early 20th century (the approximate end date remains to be determined) . Very little work has been undertaken on the phonology, morphology, lexicon, or syntax of this period of Mongolian.2 Among the few studies in this area of research, we may note Lee et al.'s (2000) study of 17th century Written Mongol chronicles and Sagdarsiiren's (2006) observations on 17'h -century Mongolian phonology based on 1 In my periodization, 'Early Middle Mongol' (13 th c. to 14th c.) refers to Middle Mongol as spoken during the the Mongol Empire; 'Late Middle Mongol' (15 th c. to early 16th c.) refers to Middle Mongol as spoken after the Mongol Empire; and 'Early Modem Mongolian' denotes Mongolian as spoken beginning around the late 16 th century and extending at least through the 17th century, if not later. 2 Note that Mongolian here refers to Mongolian Proper, excluding other Mongolic languages like Oirat, Buryat, Daur, etc. 98 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 08:09:54AM via free access The Phonology and Lexicon ofEarly Modern Mongolian the identification of a number of non-standard spellings in Written Mongol texts of that time period. Sagdarsiiren's methodology has allowed him to identify several phonological innovations in 17 th century Mongolian, evidence of what I term 'Early Modern Mongolian'. The most important phonological innovation Sagdarsiiren has uncovered is the fact that already by the 17th century, the so-called 'vowel hiatus' of Middle Mongol-which is commonly transcribed in philological works on Middle Mongol as V/V2 (e.g. MMgI ne'ii­ 'nomadize, move' and gijrii'esiin 'game animal' 3 )-had monophthongized. As evidence of this, Sagdarsiiren notes the following "mistakes (an.n,aa)" in the 17th century chronicle Sir-a Tuytiji (2006: 135), which I have arranged in table format for easy comparison. The phonological reconstructions are my own: 4 Table 1. Spoken Early Modern Mongolian phonology in the Sir-a Tuyuji Sir-a Classical Early Modem Mongolian Semantic value Tuyuji Mongol reconstruction <nti-> <negti-> *nu:- 'move, nomadize' 'game animal' (or <gorostin> <gortigestin> *gorosUn 'Siberian Roe Deer') These forms represent contemporary 17th century Mongol speech, and are clear evidence of Early Modern Mongolian forms. Note also the present-day Modern Khalkha Mongolian reflexes Hyy- [nu:-] 'move, nomadize' and ropooc [go'ros] 'game animal' or 'Siberian Roe Deer'. 3 These Middle Mongol forms are from Kuribayashi's (2009) study of the Secret History oj the Mongols. 4 In this paper I follow a linguistic transcription of Mongol, rather than the traditional philological transcription. Thus, what appear as Ii and ii in Mongolistic philological transcription of Middle Mongol and Modern Khalkha are rendered phonologically by me as [0 ~ e] and [u]. Likewise, 0 and u in philological transcription are rendered by me as [::>] and [u], respectively. 99 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 08:09:54AM via free access Andrew Shimunek 2. The Ming Chinese transcriptions In addition to data identified, or potentially identifiable, following Sagdarsiiren's methodology, there are also a significant number of Ming Chinese transcriptions of Early Modern Mongolian attesting phonological innovations that greatly diverge from early Middle Mongol and resemble Modern Mongolian. In particular, Beilu Kao jt~ ~, a 17th century text found in juan 227 of Mao Yuanyi's ~TC{ii (1594 - ca. 1640) Wu Bei Zhi fff:tlr;§, consists of a 57-page Chinese­ Mongolian dictionary. 5 Beilu Kao is believed to be a variant of a Chinese-Mongolian dictionary, the earliest extant copy of which dates to the late 16th century.6 Although previous work on Beilu Kao and other late Ming Chinese­ Mongolian dictionaries (e.g. Manqudu 1995; Apatoczky 2009a, 2009b; and Rykin 2011, 2012) have treated the transcriptions contained therein exclusively as transcriptions of Middle Mongol, 7 careful observation of the texts reveals that Beilu Kao is in fact a mixed lexicon, including a large number of transcriptions of Middle Mongol, most likely copied from earlier lexicographical materials such as Yuan or early Ming dictionaries, and a significant number of transcriptions which show evidence of the beginnings of Modern Mongolian phonology, morphology, and lexicon, which we must conclude are contemporary 17th century Ming transcriptions of Early Modern Mongolian. This article is restricted to Early Modern Mongolian phonology and lexicon in Beilu MO. I plan to address the morphophonology and morpho syntax of the data in a future study. 5 According to Apatoczky (2009a), Beilu Kao (or "Beiluyrytl') is datable to 1621, and it appears to incorporate a significant amount of transcriptions from an earlier Chinese-Mongolian dictionary whose earliest extant copy is datable to 1599. 6 See Rykin (2011, 2012) and Apatoczky (2009a, 2009b) for details on Beilu Kao and related texts. 7 Apatoczky (2009a, 2009b) considers it to be a Middle Mongol dictionary with "dialectal traces". 100 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 08:09:54AM via free access The Phonology and Lexicon of Early Modern Mongolian 2.1. Phonological evidence of Early Modem Mongolian 2.1.1. Periodization of the Chinese transcriptions A considerable number of Mongol words in Beilu Kao are transcribed two or more times-once in Late Old Mandarin transcriptions of Middle Mongol, and sometimes also in genuine contemporary 17th century Ming Mongolian, i.e. Early Modern Mongolian. For example, note the following dual transcriptions: 8 Table 2. Middle Mongol and Early Modern Mongolian dual transcriptions Middle Mongol transcription in BLK Earl~ Modem Mongolian in BLK LOM Gl. MMgl Source MSC Gl. EModM Source BLK BLK [ocS'E)l] [JCS'E)l] *hukh;)r 9948: *ukh~r 9986: (*xukh;)jl) 4- (Ukh3") 4- 7a 2a BLK BLK [;k~] [fJt~] *h3tu-n 9936: *3W 9963: (*xw3tun) £ (W3tU) £ 7a 8b BLK BLK [OC~Jtt£] [fi~~] *hulafian 9980: ~;r *ula1) 9974: (*xulafian)9 U (ulal) 8a 7a BLK BLK [lJ<::~] [~:ff~] *Situ 9949: *Sutii 9973: (*t>itu) 3f (t>utu) 5f 3a 3a 8 The Late Old Mandarin forms are based on Coblin (2007) and Pulleyblank (1991), with considerations from later research. Specifically, I revise Coblin's (2007) syllable-initial glottal stop *[1] (the asterisk is added by me) to * [fi], following considerations in Hill (2009). Note that I have not included the tones of the Late Old Mandarin or Modern Mandarin forms since they are irrelevant to the reconstruction of the Mongol forms. 9 Note that the character tt£ is written in 'Phagspa Script with an initial r2 (Cob. #669), which indicates a *[fi] onset, following considerations in Hill (2009). 101 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 08:09:54AM via free access Andrew Shimunek BLK BLK [n:f;~gl] [fl(;W5l] *utur 9941: B *otiir 9966: (*utw) B (W;)tu3") 8a 4c Note the phonological similarity of the Early Modern Mongolian forms in the table above to present-day Modern Khalkha YX3P ['uxi}r], 0,lJ.
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