Apatóczky Ákos Bertalan. A linguistic analysis of the 譯語 Yiyu (Beilu yiyu 北虜譯語) a Chinese-Mongolian glossary of the 16th century

Ulaanbaatar: Mongolica, 2004 Vol. 14 (35). pp. 368–374.The manuscript version of the 譯語 Yiyu (or 北虜譯語 Beilu yiyu) – a Chinese Middle Mongolian parallel glossary which was included in the 登壇必究 Dengtan Bijiu (a military handbook for generals compiled during the 萬歷 Wanli period of the Ming dynasty) – conserved by the Library of HAS is an important source of the history of Mongolian language. Although we do not possess any earlier version of this work, yet because of the comparatively large number of the similar glossaries of the Yuan era we may presume that the whole material of the Yiyu was taken from a supposed earlier text. Due to the constraints on size this paper may not contain the whole text of Yiyu, we may only mention the versions of its most important precedents as well as the morphologic characteristics and the grammatical features of the Middle-Mongolian represented by the early Mandarin script.