ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3393 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3393 ************************************ From: Melissa Barton 3 Feb 2010 Greetings from the Academy of St. Gabriel! Previously you asked about finding and documenting a Mongol name meaning 'Gray Bear' for a man living between 1250 and 1400. We discussed names based on animals and documented the name <Bora O"tege> in Academy of St. Gabriel Report #3375. [1] You have since asked about a Mongol name of the same period meaning 'Silver Bear'. In this letter, we will discuss the word for 'silver' and the usage of 'gold' and 'silver' as colors in Middle Mongolian names. The Middle Mongolian word for 'silver' was <mo"nggu"(n)> (here <o"> and <u"> represent o-umlaut and u-umlaut respectively; the <n> is inconsistently present even within a single source). This term is found in numerous Middle Mongolian sources from the 13th-14th centuries, in both western and eastern parts of the empire; in the west, it may have been spelled <mo"ngu">. [2, 3, 4] The only example of a personal name using <mo"nggu"(n)> that we could find was the female name <Mo"nggu"lu"n Qo'a> 'silver (+ feminine suffix <-lu"n>) the fair' in the mid-17th century text _Altan tobchi_. [5] The woman mentioned lived prior to the 17th century and nothing about the name construction or spelling is inconsistent with pre-17th century naming practices. The word <mo"nggu"(n)> may have been more commonly used as a name element than textual records suggest; the nature of reconstructing Middle Mongolian names from scripts as diverse as phonetic Chinese and Arabic means that the word may be confused with other name elements, such as <mo"ngge> 'birthmark, mole' or <mo"ngke> 'eternal'. However, <altan> 'gold' and the Turkic form <altun> were common name elements in Middle Mongolian names, and appear to have been treated similarly to words denoting colors. There is no reason to believe <mo"nggu"(n)> 'silver' would not have been used the same way. Some examples of male names using <altan> or <altun> include <Altan> or <Altun>, <Altun Ashuq> 'golden ?helmet/ankle', and <Altun Buqa> 'golden ox' or 'Altun the ox'. [6, 7] The element <altan> or <altun> also appears in a number of female names. We believe that <Mo"nggu"(n) O"tege> 'silver bear' or 'Mo"nggu"(n) the bear' would be a plausible Middle Mongolian name for an individual living anywhere in the Mongol Empire. It would have been pronounced approximately as \mo"ng-gu"n o"-teh-geh\. The <o"> is pronounced by pronouncing the <a> in <able> with your lips positioned to pronounce the <o> in <over>. The <u"> is pronounced by pronouncing the \ee\ in <feel> with your lips positioned as if you were saying <oo> as in <cool>. These sounds are not found in English. I hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Brian Dorcha ua Connail, Bronwyn ferch Gwyn ap Rhys, Gunnvor silfraharr, Talan Gwynek, and Ursula Georges. For the Academy, Leonor Ruiz de Liso/n 3 February 2010 ----------------------------------------------------- References and Notes [1] Academy of Saint Gabriel Report #3375 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3375 [2] Kara, Gyo"ray, _Dictionary of Sonom Gara's Erdeni-yin Sang_ (Leiden: Brill, 2009), s.vv. <mo"nggu">, <mon"nggu"n>. [3] De Rachewiltz, Igor (ed. and trans.), _The Secret History of the Mongols_ (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 2 vols., p. 491. [4] Golden, Peter B. (ed.), _The King's Dictionary: The Rasu:lid Hexaglot: Fourteenth Century Vocabularies in Arabic, Persian, Turkic, Greek, Armenian and Mongol_ (Leiden: Brill, 2000), manuscript p. 205, column C, entry 9, s.v. <silver> Note: Here <u:> indicates a long \u\, indicated by a circumflex in the original title. [5] Rybatzki, Volker, _Die Personennamen und Titel der Mittelmongolischen Dokumente: Eine lexikalische Untersuchung_ (University of Helsinki, 2006). Postdoctoral habilitation, s.v. <mengu"n> [6] De Rachewiltz, op. cit., pp. 10, 152, 294, 564, etc. [7] Rashi:d Al-Di:n; Boyle J.A. (Trans.), _The Successors of Genghis Khan_ (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971). pp. 320, 243. Note: Here the <i:> indicates a long \i\, indicated by a macron in the original title.