Books of the Mongolian Nomads

The fascinating story of the visualized languages, alphabets, and other wriitjng systems, hand-written and block-printed books of the Mongols, Kalmyks, Buryats, and other Mongolian nations is outlined in this study by one of the world's preeminent scholars of the region. The mostly nomadic peoples of the Mongolian language family have a long history of letters. The Khitans had ...

The fascinating story of the visualized languages, alphabets, and other wriitjng systems, hand-written and block-printed books of the Mongols, Kalmyks, Buryats, and other Mongolian nations is outlined in this study by one of the world's preeminent scholars of the region. The mostly nomadic peoples of the Mongolian language family have a long history of letters. The Khitans had two writing systems, both of Chinese inspiration and still not fully deciphered. In Chinggis Khan's world empire and in the later Mongolian societies, a number of various alphabets of Mediterranean and Indo-Tibetan origin were used alternatively, according to the needs and caprices of faith and political power. Similarly, the contents and shapes of books and related monuments, the loose "palm leaves," the accordion-style and the double-leaved "notebook" forms, scrolls, stone inscriptions, and seals reflect the complex cultural history of the Mongols of Mongolia, China, and European and Asiatic Russia.

György Kara is Professor of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University - Bloomington.