The Phonology and Lexicon of Early Modern Mongolian and Late Southern Middle Mongol as Documented in a 17th century Ming Chinese-Mongolian Dictionary

In this article I present a preliminary analysis of Beilu Kao, a 17th century Ming dictionary of Mongolian, and demonstrate its value in elucidating information on the phonology and lexicon of Early Modern Mongolian and Late Southern Middle Mongol. Previous scholarship has largely treated the Beilu Kao and other variants of Beilu yiyu as a unitary source representing a single language. In fact, the Beilu Kao is a mixed lexicographical source, including wordforms copied from early Middle Mongol lexicographical works, as well as late Southern Middle Mongol dialectal forms, and most importantly, transcriptions of Early Modern Mongolian, as I will demonstrate in this paper.