Studies in Turkic and Mongolic Linguistics (Royal Asiatic Society Books) [Hardcover]

Gerard Clauson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 8, 2002 | ISBN-10: 0415297729 | ISBN-13: 978-0415297721 | Edition: 2

This book, now back in print having been unavailable for many years, is one of the most important contributions to Turkic and Mongolic linguistics, and to the contentious 'Altaic theory'. Proponents of the theory hold that Turkish is part of the Altaic family, and that Turkish accordingly exists in parallel with Mongolic and Tungusic-Manchu. Whatever the truth of this theory, Gerard Clauson's erudite and vigorously expressed views, based as they were on a remarkable knowledge of the lexicon of the Altaic languages and his outstanding work in the field of Turkish lexicography, continues to command respect and deserve attention.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 312 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 2 edition (November 8, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415297729
• ISBN-13: 978-0415297721
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,300,211 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #14 in Books > Education & Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauruses > Foreign Language > Mongolian

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice reprint of an important work, September 3, 2007

By 

Carol Dean (Olympia, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Studies in Turkic and Mongolic Linguistics (Royal Asiatic Society Books) (Hardcover)

I gave this 4 stars only because I don't know enough about the topic to really have a critical opinion of the work, but I am finding it very useful for my own purposes.

This book is the reprint of Clauson's 1962 volume on the linguistic relationship between Turkic and Mongolic languages. I bought the book because I am a speaker of Turkish as a second language, and am trying to use my Turkic studies as a bridge to learn Mongolian. I felt right at home when Clauson describes his experience, reading the Secret History of the Mongols for the first time, being struck by the fact that Mongolian didn't seem to resemble Turkish in any way. Exactly how I felt when I picked up one of Nicholas Poppe's transcriptions of a buddhist sutra in pre-classical Mongolian.

The subtext to this book, that I'm not competent to comment on, is the fight between the two academic opinions that Turkic and Mongolic languages do or don't stem from a common ancestor. Clauson makes the argument that they don't, specifying that the large number of common words are due to a borrowing of Turkic words by the early Mongol peoples. I believe other scholars would argue for a relation based on what seems me to be very similar grammar and syntax of the two branches. Since this work was originally published in 1962 I am sure that further research has been done on the topic, and the debate may now be a moot point.

Either way, I am enjoying this very much as a nice historical overview of the Turkic and Mongol peoples and languages, and I'm learning a lot that will at least help me recognize what Clauson considers to be the borrowed Turkic words in Mongolian. It would have been nice to have a map or two, but I'm sure the author assumes that anyone reading the book already has a good grasp of Asian geography.