A much needed new introduction to the study of the pre-Islamic, pre-Latin, and pre-Cyrillic written languages of the Turks, Mongols, and Manchus, this volume is an indispensable textbook or a guide for the student, young or old, to many, if not all, written sources of the Altaic world whose importance for Eurasian history and culture is undeniable.
The Preface (pp. xi–xv) tells how the idea of the book became flesh. In an introduction (pp. 1–4) to the Introduction, the notion philology receives its due defense. In the authors’ vision, it is linguistics in culture, the two components equally treated.
The Turkic languages (now spoken by some two hundred million people in Eurasia), their classification, periods, historical background, their indigenous sources in several writing systems, and the pre-Islamic religions of the Turks are dealt with in Chapter 1 (pp. 5–135). A discussion of systems of transcription and transliteration and the basic tools for the study of Old Turkic is followed by the text samples with transcription, thoroughly annotated and translated: lines from the Buddhist tale of the Hungry Tigress as in the typeset Uygur script edition of the St. Petersburg manuscript of the Altun yaruq sudur, from the similar tale of the Good and the Bad Prince from a Dunhuang Uygur-script manuscript; the beginning of Tonyukuk's runiform inscription (early 8th century); Alp Urungu's runiform epitaph from Tuva; excerpts from the Dunhuang runiform manuscript Book of Omens; Uygur-script and Manichean-script Manichean writings; a syncretistic Buddha-legend and the Xuanzang-vita in Uygur script; the Säkiz yükmäk yaruq in Uygur and Brahmi letters; the Lotus Sutra in Sogdian script; Emperor Möngke's Syriac-script Turkic order. The latest is from the cursive Uygur-script Book of the Dead of 1350. The rest of this chapter is a summary of what is known about the type and structure of Old Turkic, with a history of the research and state of the field. A similar survey ends each of the next two chapters.
The Mongol section, Chapter 2, (pp. 136–254), dealing with fewer languages and later monuments, has the same framework. The text selection comprises Yisüngge's Uygur-script inscription (after 1224); the Uygur-script seal inscription on Güyük's Persian letter to the Pope (1246); three badge inscriptions (one in Uygur script, one in 'Phags-pa script, and one whose Mongol part repeats in Uygur and 'Phags-pa letters); the beginning of Argun's Uygur-script letter to Philip the Fair; an excerpt from Èosgi Odsir's Bodhicaryāvatāra-version (Uygur-script print, 1312); passages from the Secret History and the Hua-Yi yiyu of 1389; Uygur-script passages from Lubsangdanjin's chronicle and Sagang Sechen's Jewel Summary (both mid-17th-century); the Geser cycle (1716); the Hungry Tigress of Siregetü's Üliger-ün dalai; a prayer to the Fire Goddess; the frame story of the Vetāla-tales in an Oirat version and in a southern, Uygur-script version.
The Manchu section (pp. 255–347) treats two written languages and scripts of the southern group of the rapidly shrinking Tungusic family, namely the extinct Jurchen, official language of the Jurchen Empire (1115–1234) with a Kitan- and Chinese-inspired writing system, and the almost extinct Manchu, official language of the Manchu Empire (1644–1911), written in Manchu script, adapted from the Mongol alphabet. This Chapter 3 discusses geographic, demographic, classification and historical issues, offers a concise history of Kitan, Jurchen, and Manchu as well as Sibe writing, presents excerpts from Jurchen inscriptions (1184, 1210), a 15th-century petition in “broken” Sino-Jurchen; Nurhachi's Mongol-script Proclamation; samples in Manchu script; excerpts from the Veritable Records and a shamanistic prayer; a letter of the Kangxi emperor (ca. 1696); a weather report (1778); a story from Sungyun's One Hundred and Twenty Old Men; a passage from the Nišan saman, and another from the Sibe History.
Chapter 4 (pp. 348–355) covers the Altaic hypothesis, laid to rest by some, questioned by many, sustained or extended by others. I may add that even if there never existed a common Altaic language, the manifold interrelations of these tongues and the cultures behind or in them provide enough justification for Altaic linguistics and philology.
Bibliography (pp. 357–403), List of Suffixes and Particles (pp. 405–422), General Index (pp. 423–446), text facsimiles, and figure plates close the book.
Some corrections to the text: Yakut čiŋ is is from Mongol; Yakut has s for Old Turkic initial č; Yenisey Turkic čiŋ iz and Anatolian dial. čingiz can hardly come from Chinese (p. 42); Middle Mong. has intransit. quri- and qura- alternating, vs. quriya- transit.; note final zayin and šin on Chinggis’ Stone (p. 163); may Mong. dalay-in qan and Turk. taluy-nung xan[ï] render ‘universal ruler’, cf. dalai lama? (p. 169); Mong. eči- is a southern, oči- a northern dialectal form for classical od- (p. 222); read dolōn yelbiči and künesü (p. 234); the Oirat Vetāla preserved some Middle Mongol features (see in Acta Orient. Hung. XXXVIII [1984], pp. 241–243); Oiratβ šaγā- and Khalkha šaγā- = Mong. siγayi-, not siqaγa- (p. 236); read Manchu noyen instead of nojen (p. 299). Finally, delete the little horizontal stroke, which is my fault from a previous work, from the Oirat final ü in fig. 16.
