Re: Mongolian (was: Re: Fluency Wish-List

On Mon, 17 Apr 2000, BP Jonsson wrote:

> The name was Samtsuren -- probably the same person as Zhamtsarano.
> (I got the info from Poppe, IIRC, and it is only natural if he wanted
> to downplay his own rôle.)
The story of his life :)  When did you know him?  I met him a few times
not long before he died, in Seattle.

> >given that 15th-ct. Korea was fairly cut off from dealings with the
> >Chinese court, while it's known to have continued training people in
> >Mongolian and 'phags-pa script up through the end of the 14th ct. (IIRC).
>
> I didn't know that!
There were some gaps, but there were translators' schools at the Korean
court teaching Mongol as well as Chinese at least up to the early 1600s.
I don't remember the details of the institutional history, but if I
understood things correctly, Mongolian was being taught in Korea in the
14th century according to Yuan standards, which implies 'Phags-pa script -
in addition, I think there are contemporary references to it in Korean
literature or histories.  I'll ask around here and see if anyone can cite
some details/references.

> Or padma -> pE:ma, vajra -> bendzire in demotic Tibetan.  Anyway the
> Koreans seem to be consistently using _m_ for _v_ and _n_ for _l_ and _r_,
> and the old Hangyl character looking like a Greek Delta for _ñ_, while _mb_
> and _nd_ are used for the Sanskrit plain nasals as well as Sanskrit _mb_,
> _nd_.  I know the Chinese rime tables seem to have used a similar
> rendering, but given the relatively high quality of contemporary documents
> written in Siddham in both Korea and japan it is really strange!
That's interesting -- I never knew this before.  But then, after being one
of the few and foolish to get an undergraduate degree in Sanskrit, I've
tried to avoid dealing with it again, outside its original habitat :)

> I tried to scan some pages of the book.  Since it is already a photocopy of
> a not-to-good print the results are measly.  I can transcribe the Tibetan
> names and what I think the Mongolian spellings look like, tho.
Sure, send it along!  It's not like I'm any sort of expert with this, but
a second or third pair of eyes might help.

Kenji

ObConlang: Uh...