The Mongolic Languages (Routledge Language Family Series) [Hardcover]

Juha Janhunen (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0700711333 | ISBN-13: 978-0700711338 | Publication Date: September 11, 2003 | Edition: 1

Once the rulers of the largest land empire that has ever existed on earth, the historical Mongols of Chinggis Khan left a linguistic heritage which today survives in the form of more than a dozen different languages, collectively termed Mongolic. For general linguistic theory, the Mongolic languages offer interesting insights to problems of areal typology and structural change. An understanding of the Mongolic language family is also a prerequisite for the study of Mongolian and Central Eurasian history and culture. This volume is the first comprehensive treatment of the Mongolic languages in English, written by an international team of specialists.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'The book is a useful handbook for all who are interested in Mongolic languages and a long-awaited fundamental work for researchers of Mongolistics.' - Acta Orientalia

'...Remarkably useful and carefully edited... it is a volume that will surely serve its field well for years to come, and also one that, even in these days of astonishingly high prices, is well worth what it costs.' - International Journal of Uralic and Altaic Studies

About the Author

Juha Janhunen is Professor and Chair of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Helsinki. His publications include Manchuria: An Ethnic History (1996), Material on Manchurian Khamnigan Evenki (1991) and Material on Manchurian Khamnigan Mongol (1990). His research interests include, in particular, the Samoyedic, Tungusic and Mongolic languages, though he has also worked on Japanese, Korean, Tibertan and Palaeo-Siberian.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (September 11, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0700711333
• ISBN-13: 978-0700711338
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,051,104 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A strong entry in the Routledge Langage Family Series sure to entertain, October 6, 2008

By 

Christopher Culver - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Mongolic Languages (Routledge Language Family Series) (Hardcover)

THE MONGOLIC LANGUAGES ed. Juha Janhunen is another entry in the Routledge Language Family Series. As is common with the other volumes in the series, it contains a chapter each for the various languages in a family which provide a mainly synchronic sketch of their grammar and lexicon. The languages examined here are Written Mongol, Middle Mongol, Khamnigan Mongol, Buryat, Dagur, Khalkha (the official language of the Republic of Mongolia), Ordos, Oirat, Kalmuck, Moghol, Shira Yughur, Mongghul, Mangghuer, Bonan, and Santa.

Besides these articles on individual languages, there are also several chapters in a comparative vein, most interesting to me because of their diachronic goodness. We find articles on Proto-Mongolic, Mongol dialects, and Intra-Mongolic taxonomy. Juha Janhunen contributed a fascinating chapter on "Para-Mongolic", the languages that must have been descended from a common ancestor with Proto-Mongolic, but cannot be grouped with the surviving Mongolic languages. One such language is Khitan, which we can guess at from its still little-understood script and loanwords in Manchu. The final chapter of the book is on "Turko-Mongolic relations", which shows how so many of the similarities between the two language families are due to long contact, and (pace Ramstedt) Proto-Mongolian was in contact with a Chuvash-type language.

The volume is beautifully typeset and bound, a feast for the eyes. My own research involves the Indo-European, Uralic/Finno-Ugrian and Turkic language families, and I'm very much an outsider in Mongolic linguistics. Therefore, I cannot give a professional evaluation of this volume. Nonetheless, as a dilettante, I found it very informative and entertaining.