Academic literature on the topic 'Sanskrit and Mongolian'

Introduction. The article deals with semantics and etymology of several basic terms of Mongolian culture vocabulary relating to education and science. Goals. The study shall primarily describe how the lexical layer in question was formed, and trace the sources of such borrowings. Materials and methods. The materials were collected from Mongolian-Russian and Mongolian explanatory dictionaries via continuous sampling. The identified lexemes were checked against corresponding entries to Mongolic / Turkic etymological dictionaries and bilingual dictionaries of Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan. Results. Some of the analyzed words happen to have been borrowed into Mongolian from Uighur, but Uighur was not the ultimate source of the lexemes: Mong. шавь ‘disciple, pupil’ < Uig. šabï had come to Uighur from Sanskrit via Chinese; Mong. багш ‘teacher’ < Uig. baqšı and Mong. бичиг ‘writings’ < Uig. bitig are originally Chinese; Mong. ном ‘book’ < Uig. nom had come to Uighur from Greek via Sogdian. Some other words, such as Mong. боловсрол ‘education’, эрдэмтэн ‘scientist’, ухаан ‘intelligence’ (in шинжлэх ухаан ‘science’), оюутан ‘student’ ― have common Turko-Mongolic (bol- ‘become’, uqa- ‘comprehend’) or even common Altaic (ere- ‘male’, oyu- ‘mind’) stems, but their new semantics referring to various phenomena of education and science appeared comparatively recently, to a large extent, as a result of attempts to find new words for the notions introduced by Chinese culture and Uighur Buddhism. The words зүй and судлал, as well as derivatives from the stem sur- belong to common Mongolic lexis. Conclusions. Most of the analyzed words were borrowed into Mongolian from Uighur as part of religious vocabulary. Some of these terms originally derive from Chinese, Sanskrit or even Greek. Indigenous Mongolic lexemes are derivatives from sur- ‘to study’, and the terms зүй ‘theory’ and судлал ‘study’ that are used as parts of science names.

Introduction. The articles examines etymologies and semantics of Mongolic words denoting the sky. The system of astronomical terms in Mongolic languages is structurally complicated due to multiple layers of pre-Buddhist, Buddhist and other beliefs adopted by proto-Mongols. Goals. The work aims to identify etymological and semantic dominants characterizing this thematic group within the common Mongolic vocabulary. The concept of sky clusters with most basic ones, and lexemes to denote it are to be found in each and every language. Materials and methods. The study examines dictionaries of Mongolic languages, involves reliable proto-Mongolian lexical reconstructions by H. Nugteren and O. Mudrak. Furthermore, the paper analyzes various etymological works and Altaic dictionaries, as well as databases on semantic transitions and colexifications. Results. The Mongolic vocabularies contain four lexemes denoting the sky and two for air/airspace — all of them being largely associated with different beliefs and faiths across different areas and in different eras. So, the word *teŋgeri attests to some elements of the cult of heaven had been practiced by earliest Mongols and the latter had maintained contacts with Turkic groups. The second lexeme *hogtorgui is a Buddhist scholarly term semantically derived from the one denoting emptiness, i.e. a suggested semantic calque from the Sanskrit word that was borrowed to northern Mongolic languages from translated texts of the Buddhist Canon. The third name *köke is a hapax from the Muqaddimat al-Adab that may have arrived in western Middle Mongolian from Chagatai Turkic. The fourth word *asman is a later borrowing from Persian to vocabularies of Muslim Mongols, sometimes via Turkic languages. The fifth lexical unit *agaɣar may have been included from Buddhist Sanskrit, and the sixth word *kei — from Middle Chinese. The unexpected conclusion is that the original proto-Mongolian word to have denoted the sky simply cannot be reconstructed. Evidently, the ancient word had been displaced by the loanwords throughout most intensive cultural contacts.

Many words and terms of Buddhism have entered the vocabulary of Mongolian literature and enriched the Mongolian language. They are inseparable from the culture of the Mongolian people. This paper analyzes some examples of Mongolian words and terms borrowed from Sanskrit and Tibetan and their English translation in the “Sutra of the Wise and the Foolish,” “Tears of a Venerable Lama,” and “Tales of an Old Lama”. It also compares the translation experience of S.Frey, De.Natsagdorj, and Ch. Bawden. This paper concludes that along with linguistic competence, the knowledge of culture is vital regarding the translation of words and terms of Buddhism.

The article considers published historical documents related to the language and history of the nomadic peoples of Central Asia from the eighth to the eleventh centuries and preserved to this day. Such as Old Turkic scripts (runic), ancient Sogdian, Manichean texts. In 1974, a pillar written in ancient Sanskrit in the Brahmi alphabet was first discovered in Central Mongolia. Until 2017, the text of the column was not deciphered, and the inscription had been ignored for 43 years. In 2017, German Sanskrit specialist Dieter Maue found the key to this text and published only transliteration (D. Maue,2017). Transliteration D. Maue was used by A. Vovin and L. Khurtsbatar presented the text as a document in the ancient Mongolian language. Unfortunately, their work was not crowned with success. The author of the article read the text in the ancient Turkic language using the Brahmi alphabet, reproduced and performed its historical and linguistic analysis. The text was written 1400 years ago.It provides information about historical events related to the First AncientTurkic Khaganate. There has been left reliable information about the fate and death of the leaders of the period when the First Ancient Jurassic Kaganate was divided into western and eastern. It considers two large rival groups on the Mongolian plateau, the Kipchaks and the main tribes of the Oguz group. At the same time, It informs about religion and paleoethnography.

This paper aims to provide an overall explanation of the translations of Sanskrit PrajnaParamita Heart Sutra into Chinese, Tibetan and Mongolian languages and spread among the corresponding nationalities and its significant role in cultural exchanges.

The article introduces the Oirat handwritten text “Coqtu Zandan” (‘Shining Sandalwood’) from the collections of the Russian National Library. The text “Coqtu Zandan” is a translation of the prayer of repentance common in the Tibetan-Mongolian buddhist tradition, which is read out during the ritual of restoring the sojong vows. This prayer is mentioned under no. 23 (as “bodhi sadv-yin unal namančilaxui kemekü sudur”) in the list of translations of Zaya Pandita Namkhaijamts. The Tibetan original of this work, researchers call the text “Ltung Bshags” or one of the versions of the “Sutra of the Three Piles” (tib. phung po gsum pa’i mdo), included in the collection of the terma-works “Rinchen Terdzo”. The Sanskrit text of the Sutra “Aryatriskandha sūtram” has also reached our time, a digital copy of which is available on the website of the Digital Sanskrit Buddhist Canon Input Project. The publication of parallel Sanskrit and Tibetan Sutra texts within the framework of this article is also very relevant.

The article introduces the Oirat handwritten text “Coqtu Zandan” (‘Shining Sandalwood’) from the collections of the Russian National Library. The text “Coqtu Zandan” is a translation of the prayer of repentance common in the Tibetan-Mongolian buddhist tradition, which is read out during the ritual of restoring the sojong vows. This prayer is mentioned under no. 23 (as “bodhi sadv-yin unal namančilaxui kemekü sudur”) in the list of translations of Zaya Pandita Namkhaijamts. The Tibetan original of this work, researchers call the text “Ltung Bshags” or one of the versions of the “Sutra of the Three Piles” (tib. phung po gsum pa’i mdo), included in the collection of the terma-works “Rinchen Terdzo”. The Sanskrit text of the Sutra “Aryatriskandha sūtram” has also reached our time, a digital copy of which is available on the website of the Digital Sanskrit Buddhist Canon Input Project. The publication of parallel Sanskrit and Tibetan Sutra texts within the framework of this article is also very relevant.

With the year winding down, when people tend to reflect on their accomplishments in the past months, we dare offer miscellaneous to boast the broadness that ALA has been gaining. This number of the ALA journal thus includes different views on a language, a variety of different methodologies used and languages discussed, as well as several applicable fields the research outcomes take us to. LI Wenchao in her work "Adjective Distribution in Modern Mongolian" investigates a scalar structure of adjective distribution in Mongolian to find out that, compared to Japanese, English, French, Mongolian only tolerates inherent resultatives. Jasmina BAJRAMI's article "Speech level shift in Japanese and Slovene" is a part of her PhD thesis, which she has just submitted to University of Ljubljana. In it she discusses formality and politeness in general, as well as the extent and the ways they are executed in a Japanese and Slovene conversation. "Interpretation of Daba Script: Gemu from Wujiao Villag" written by XU Duoduo is a result of a fieldwork research on the Daba script found in the Daba Calendar entitled Gemu, which origins in Wūjiǎo village, the province of Sichuan. Nina GOLOB conducted a bidirectional perception experiment entitled "L1 Prosodic Interference: the Case of Slovene Students of Japanese", in which she evaluates L1 prosodic interference in recognizing (lexical) accent place in declaratives and interrogatives.An interesting project report on the successful implementation of the e-learning system for Japanese, Korean, Hindi and Sanskirt comes from Croatia. Written by Sara LIBRENJAK, Kristina KOCIJAN, and Marijana JANJIĆ it is entitled "Improving Students' Language Performance Through Consistent Use of E-Learning: An Empirical Study in Japanese, Korean, Hindi and Sanskrit". Last but not least is a technical note by Qasier ABBAS "Semi-Semantic Annotation: A Guideline for the URDU.KON-TB Treebank POS Annotation", in which the author proposes annotation guidelines of semi-semantic parts of speech for the URDU.KON-TB treebank.