Language Contacts in Middle Mongolian, especially in the Language of Mongolian Buddhist Works

目前所能找到的蒙古佛教典籍大多是由藏文原文翻译而来的，但佛教典籍并不总是来自藏文典籍，特别是在蒙古中期即十四世纪翻译的典籍中更是如此。仔细考证，十四世纪的作品中充满了许多外来元素，如藏族、维吾尔族、中国元素等等。我们至少可以将其部分视为蒙古帝国或14世纪欧亚大陆东北部社会文化方面的反映。1991年，我发表了一篇文章，对蒙古历史语言学中的语言接触作了简要的介绍。1992年，我对一部原产于蒙古中期的蒙古佛教著作进行了详细的调查，我试图分析出借的来源和渠道，并对十四世纪佛教著作如何被翻译成蒙古文有了一些新的认识。通过对每一种借用形式的详细考察，我们可以更清楚地了解那个时期的语言状况。这不仅从历史语言学或社会语言学的角度来看是重要的，而且从蒙古人的文化史的角度来看也是重要的。我还计划很快发表另一篇关于蒙古佛教著作的研究，以及另一篇关于中蒙古语外来词的文章。

Most of the Mongolian Buddhist works available at present are translations from the Tibetan originals, but Buddhist terms did not always originate from Tibetan ones, especially not in the works translated in the Middle Mongolian period, Namely the XIV century. Careful scrunity shows that the works of the XIV century are full of many foreign elements, such as Tibetan, Uighur, Chinese elements and so on. We can regard this at least partly as a reflection of socio-cultural aspects of the Mongolian Empire, or of the Northeastern Eurasia of the XIV century. In 1991 I published an article, in which I made brief and introductory remarks on language contacts in Mongolian historical linguistics. In 1992 I presented a detailed survey of a Mongolian Buddhist work produced originally in the Middle Mongolian period, in which I tried to analyze the sources and channels of loans and shed some new light on how Buddhist works were translated into Mongolian in the XIV century. Through such detailed examinations of each borrowed form we can make clearer the linguistic state of that period. This is significant not only from the historical linguistic or the socio-linguistic viewpoint, but also from the viewpoint of cultural history of the Mongols. I am also planning to publish soon a study of another Mongolian Buddhist work and another article about loanwords in Middle Mongolian.