6th International Symposium Oriental Studies

The 6 th International Symposium on Oriental Ancient Documents Studies 18 Kereidjin D. Bürgüd A Study of the Chinese-Mongolian Glossary Known as the Bei-lu yi-yu 北虜譯語 This is an investigation of a version of the Chinese-Mongolian glossary known as the Bei-lu yi-yu 北虜譯語 , which is contained in the Deng-tan bi-jiu 登壇必究 . The Bei-lu yi-yu is a list of words, which comprises 639 vocabulary words divided into 17 sections. The order of each entry is such that the Chinese words are followed by their Mongolian translations also written in Chinese script, which uses phonetic reading of Chinese characters to denote Mongolian pronunciation. The Mongolian words written in Chi‑ nese script represent Mongolian sounds of their counterparts at the time of compilation. Therefore, the phonological reconstruction and understanding of spelling rules by Chinese characters is crucial for building the foundation for researching the Middle Mongolian phonology. The purpose of this paper is to give a comparative study of several edi‑ tions of the Bei-lu yi-yu and provide accurate information taken from the Harvard-Yenching Edition, to reconstruct the dialect sound system and spell‑ ing rules by Chinese characters which denote Mongolian sounds in the Bei-lu yi-yu . As the result, I have arrived to the conclusion, that the Chinese characters used to transcribe Mongolian sounds in the Bei-lu yi-yu were based on the Peking dialect of the late Ming Dynasty, which was strongly influenced by the Nanking dialect. Key words: Chinese-Mongolian glossary, Bei-lu yi-yu , Middle Mongolian phonology, transcription in Chinese characters.