chain; M. ssedkil, “heart,” B. chedkil. K in the beginning or
middle of a word is always aspirated.
The noun is declined by the help of appended particles, some of which are independent post-positions, viz. Gen. yin, u, un; Dat. dur, a; Acc. yi, i; Ablat. etse; Instrum. ber, yer; Associative, luga, lūge. The dative and accusative have also special forms which have at the same time a possessive sense, viz. Dat. dagan, degen; Accus. ben, yen. The plural is expressed by affixes (nar, ner, od, ss, d), or frequently by words of plurality, “all,” “many,” e.g. kūmūn nogōd (man, many=men). The oblique cases have the same endings in singular and plural. Gender is not indicated. The adjective is uninflected both as attribute and as predicate; there is no comparative form, this idea being expressed by the construction or by the use of certain particles. The personal pronouns are bi, I; tchi, thou; bida, we; ta, ye; their genitives serve as possessives. The demonstratives are ene, tere (this, that), plural ede, tede; interrogative ken, who? The relative is lacking, and its place is supplied by circumlocutions. The numerals are: 1, nigen; 2, khoyar; 3, gurban; 4, dōrben; 5, tabun; 6, jirgugan; 7, dologan; 8, naiman; 9, yisun; 10, arban; 100, dsagon; 1000, minggan, The ordinals are formed by appending tugar, tūger. The theme of the verb is seen in the imperative, as bari, grasp. The conjugation is rich in forms for tense and mood, but the person and number are with few exceptions unexpressed. The present is formed from the theme by adding mui (barimui), the preterite by bai or luga (baribai, bariluga), the future by ssugai or ssu (barissugai, barissu). The preterite has also in the third person the terminations dsugui and run; the future has in the third person yu, and in the first ya. The conditional ends in bassu (baribassu), the precative in tugai, tūgei, the potential in sa (barimuisa), the imperative plural in ktun, the gerund in the present in n, dsu (barin, baridsu) or tala, “while, till” (baritala, “inter capiendum”), in the preterite it is formed in gad (barigad); the present part. has ktchi (bariktchi), the past part. kssan (barikssan); the supine ends in ra, the infinitive in khu (barikzhu, or when used substantively barikhui). There is but one perfectly regular conjugation, and derivative forms, derived from the theme by infixes, are conjugated on the same scheme. Thus the passive has infixed ta or kda (barikdakhu, to be grasped), the causative gul (barigulkhu, to cause to grasp), the co-operative or sociative ltsa or lda (bariltsakhu, to grasp together).
There are no prepositions, only post-positions. Adverbs are either simple particles (affirmative, negative, interrogative, modal, &c.) or are formed by suffixes from other parts of speech. There are very few conjunctions; the relations of clauses and sentences are mainly indicated by the verbal forms (part., sup., conditional, but mainly by the gerund).
The order of words and sentences in construction is pretty much the opposite of that which we follow. In a simple sentence the indication of time and place, whether given by an adverb or a substantive with a post-position, always comes first; then comes the subject, always preceded by its adjective or genitive, then the object and other cases depending on the verb, last of all the verb itself preceded by any adverbs that belong to it. So in the structure of a period all causal, hypothetical, concessive clauses, which can be conceived as preceding the main predication in point of time, or even as contemporary with it, or as in any way modifying it, must come first; the finite verb appears only at the end of the main predication or apodosis. The periods are longer than in other languages; a single one may fill several pages.
Authorities.—Grammars and dictionaries may be divided according to the three dialects. For East Mongolian, I. J. Schmidt gave the first grammar (St Petersburg, 1831), and a Mongolian-German-Russian dictionary (St Petersburg, 1835). Next Jos. Kovalevski published in Russian a Mongolian grammar (Kasan, 1835), a chrestomathy (2 vols., Kasan, 1836, 1837), and his great Dictionnaire mongol-russe-français (3 vols., Kasan, 1844, 1846, 1849). We may mention R. Yuille, Short Mongolian Grammar (in Mongolian), xylographed at the mission press near Selenginsk beyond Lake Baikal (1838). A. Bobrovnikov’s Russian Grammar of the Mongolian-Kalmuck Language (Kasan, 1849) is also very good. An abridgment of Schmidt’s work is C. Puini, Elementi della grammatica mongolica (Florence, 1878). A. Popov’s Mongolian Chrestomathy appeared in 2 vols. at Kasan (1836). For the Kalmuck we have grammars by Popov (Kasan, 1847), Bobrovnikov, as above, and H. A. Zwick (s. l. et a.), autographed at Donaueschingen (1851). Zwick’s autographed Kalmuck and German dictionary with a printed German index appeared (s. l. et a.) in 1852; B. Jülg’s edition of the tales of Siddhi-kūr (Leipzig, 1866) gives a complete glossary to these stories. There are small Russian and Kalmuck vocabularies by P. Smirnov (Kasan, 1857) and C. Golstunskyi (St Petersburg, 1860). For the Buriatic we have Castrén, Versuch einer burjätischen Sprachlehre, ed. by Schiefner (1857), and A. Orlov’s Russian grammar of the Mongol-Buriatic colloquial language (Kasan, 1878).
Literature.—A clear distinction must be drawn between the higher and nobler written or book-language and the common or conversational language of every-day life. The difference between the two is very considerable, and may be fairly compared to that between the modern High German book-language and the different dialects. All grammars and dictionaries as yet published treat only of the book-language; and so also, with a few exceptions, the published literary documents are written in this higher style. The exceptions are the Gesser-Khan, and the Siddhi-kūr and Djangariad (the last two published by Golstunskyi). The popular or conversational language has been fixed in writing by A. Pozdneev in his Russian work, Specimens of the Popular Literature of the Mongolian Tribes, pt. i., “Popular Songs” (St Petersburg, 1880), which contains rich material for the study of the popular literature.
The literature consists mostly of translations from the Tibetan, the holy language of Buddhism, which is still the language of the learned. The Tibetan Buddhist literature is itself translated from the Sanskrit; hence, now and then, through Mongols and Kalmucks we get acquainted with Indian works the originals of which are not known in Sanskrit. Such is the case, for instance, with the tales of Siddhi-kur. Many books have also been translated from the Chinese. Most of the writings are of a religious, historical, philosophical, medical, astronomical or astrological character. Favourite subjects are folk-lore and fairy tales. Among the religious books, perhaps the most important is that containing the legends entitled ūliger ūn dalai, “ocean of comparisons” (ed. by I. Jacob Schmidt under the title, Der Weise und der Thor, in Tibetan and German (St Petersburg, 1843). To this may be added the boddhi mōr, or “the holy path,” the altan gerel, “gleaming of gold,” the mani gambo and yertüntchü yin toli, “mirror of the world.” What was known of poetical literature before Pozdneev is scarcely worth mentioning. In some parts of the historical and narrative literature we find, wherever the narrative takes a higher flight, an admixture of poetical diction. The poetry appears in a certain parallelism of the phrases, with a return either of the same endings (rhyme) or of the same words (refrain). Frequently we find, besides the rhyme or refrain, alliteration. The essay of H. C. von der Gabelentz in Z. f. d. Kunde des Morgenlandes, i. 20–37, “Einiges über mongolische Poesie, ” has been superseded by the work of Pozdneev.
Among historical works a high place is due to that composed by the tribal prince, Sanang Setzen, in the middle of the 17th century (Geschichte der Ost-Mongolen und ihres Fürstenhauses, Mongolian and German, by I. J. Schmidt, St Petersburg, 1829), and to the Altan tobtchi, i.e. “golden knob” or “precious contents” (text and Russian trans. by the Lama Galsang Gomboyev, St Petersburg, 1858). Of folk-lore and fairy tales, We have the legend of the hero Gesser-Khan (text ed. by I. J. Schmidt, St Petersburg, 1836, and German version, 1839; cf. Schott, Ueber die Sage v. Geser-Khan, Berlin, 1851, and B. Jülg in the Transactions of the Würzburger Philol. Versam. of 1868, pp. 58 sqq., Leipzig, 1869); and the tales about Ardlshi Bordshi (Russian version by Galsang Gomboyev, St Petersburg, 1858; text and German trans. by B. Jülg , Innsbruck, 1867, 1868). A favourite book is the tales of Siddhi-kilr, based on the Sanskrit Vetâla panchavinçati (Russian trans. by Galsang Gomboyev, St Petersburg, 1865, nine of the tales in Mongolian and German, by B. Jülg; Innsbruck, 1868). The fuller collection of these tales in Kalmuck first became known by the German trans. of B. Bergmann in vol. i. of his Nomadische Streifereien unter d. Kalmüken (4 vols., Riga, 1804, 1805); an autographed edition in the vulgar dialect was published b C. Golstunskyi (St Petersburg, 1864); text and German trans. with glossary by B. Jülg (Leipzig, 1866). A poetic heroic story is the Djangariad, extracts from which were given by Bergmann (op. cit., iv. 181 sqq.); a complete Russian version by A. Bobrovnikov (St Petersburg, 1854); a German version by F. v. Erdmann in Z.D.M.G., 1857 (Kalmuck text by Golstunskyi, St Petersburg, 1864). A similar poem is the history of Ubasha Khuntaidshi and his war with the Oirad, Kalmuck text and Russian trans. by G. Gomboyev in his Altan tobtchi as above, and text alone autographed by Golstunskyi (St Petersburg, 1864). Some books of religion for the Christian Buriats (transcribed in Russian characters) represent the Buriatic dialect. The Russian and English Bible Societies have given us a translation of the whole Bible. I. J. Schmidt translated the Gospels and the Acts into Mongolian and Kalmuck for the Russian Bible Society (8 vols., St Petersburg, 1819–1821)—a masterly work. The English missionaries, E. Stallybrass and W. Swan, and afterwards R. Yuille, translated the whole Old Testament into Mongolian (1836–1840). This work was printed at a mission press erected at great cost for the purpose near Selenginsk, beyond Lake Baikal in Siberia. In 1846 the New Testament by the same hands appeared at London.
Authorities.—The richest collections of Mongolian and Kalmuck printed books and MSS. are in the Asiatic museum of the St Petersburg Academy, and in the libraries of Kazan and Irkutsk; there is also a good collection in the royal library at Dresden. Consult in general, besides the already-cited works of Bergmann and Pozdneev, P. S. Pallas, Sammlungen historischer Nachrichten ü. d. mongolischen Volkerschaften (2 vols., St Petersburg, 1776–1801); I. J. Schmidt, Forschungen im Gebiete der älteren . . . Bildungsgeschichte der Völker Mittelasiens, vorz. d. Mongolen und Tibeter (St Petersburg and Leipzig, 1824); B. Jülg, “On the Present State of Mongolian Researches,” Journ. R. As. Soc., xiv. (1882), pp. 42–65. (B. J.)
MŌNG PAI (called Mobyē by the Burmese), the most south-westerly of the British Shan States of Burma. It has an approximate area of 1000 sq. m., and a population (1901) of 19,351. The general character of the country is hilly, rising westwards in a gentle slope from the chief stream, the Nam Hpilu or Balu.
