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EXPLAINING VERSION 24v OF JOHN STREET'S TEXT OF

THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE MONGOLS
(Draft of 28 April 2014)
Copyright John C. Street 1985-2014

0. Introductory. This document explains a digital version of the Middle Mongolian

text known as the Secret History of the Mongols prepared by myself, John C. Street
of the University of WisconsinMadison, during the years 1985-1991, 1997, and
2013-14. I would hope that my text, while by no means intended as a final and
definitive edition of the SH, might facilitate research into the literary and linguistic
structure of that document in two ways. First, by providing an easily available
version of the SH text which any writer might use to cite a few lines of the text
without having to make his or her own decisions about alternate readings or problems
in the Chinese text; for errors of any sort in such a writer's citation would, in fact, be
mine. And second as a useful tool for a student or professional with some prior
knowledge of Mongolian who wants to learn something about the SH or the early
Mongolian language in general; many portions of the text can be read with only
Lessing's Mongolian dictionary as an aide, and the footnotes in my text plus the
morpheme breaks, capitalization, and punctuation here provided could be of
genuine help to such individuals.
The computer files here were originally produced with old versions 4.2 and 5.1
of the WordPerfect word-processing program, and can still best be utilized by one
who has a working copy of version 5.1 this program which these days seems
reasonably possible only in Windows XP. Therefore my WP 5.1 version of this
version 24v was first converted automatically to Corel WordPerfect X6, and the
resultant file then converted to both PDF and HTML files. In none of the later three,
unfortunately, are the search possibilities as easy and various as in WP5.1 (see 2
below.)
The term SH here refers to the Mongolian text of the Secret History; YCPS to
the late 13th-century Chinese transcription of the text as found, most importantly, in
the Commercial Press photolithographic edition ("C") of 1936 and the Pao-Palladius
manuscript of the YCPS ("PP"); see the end of 3 below.

1. Elements of the transcription. The transcription here attempts to distinguish

various types of text and divisions thereof.

1.1 Text categories.

Quotation. All direct quotation (Street13.16-41) is printed in italics.
Quotation within quotation is further marked by single quotation marks, `...';
a third level of quotation by K...M (or "..." in the PDF version), and in one
single instance a fourth level (lines 9283-84) by `...' again. Indirect
quotation (alone or inside direct quotation) is shown by ....
Poetry. What I assume to be poetic lines are marked by the symbol { at the start
 of each, and } when prose is resumed. Further, I reproduce here Pelliot's
instances of boldface type to mark the syllables he apparently thought
showed initial alliteration in poetic lines. (For further details, see my first
footnote to SH line 1133.)
Proper names. A proper name glossed as such by the interlinear notation of
the YCPS text is here marked by capitalization of the initial letter; and I use
a sequence of an underlined space plus a plain space to mark cases where
the YCPS shows no division within a proper name of more that one word.
(My marking of proper names is probably, in some cases, little less
incomplete and inconsistent than that of the YCPS itself. Names present
special problems in any language.)
Note that a proper name in sentence-initial position is not additionally
marked with the underlining noted under Sentences below.

1.2 Text divisions.

Major parts of the YCPS. At some point in time the YCPS text or some
predecessor was divided into 282 sections of greatly varying length. In
works by western authors these are traditionally marked (as here) by the
symbol plus one to three digits. Eventually these sections were further
grouped into what are loosely termed chapters; some versions, here
exemplified by edition C, split the text into 12 "chapters", while others (e.g.
PP) show 15. Sometimes a new "chapter" begins in the middle of a
sentence.
Lines. The vertical columns of the YCPS are here represented by 4-digit
numbered lines of text (with the system first introduced in Street 1986.14).
The first digit shows the chapter number: the numbers 1-9 are used for the
first nine chapters, while X, Y, Z refer to chapters 10, 11, and 12. The
second and third digits together refer to a leaf ("page") of a chapter; the last
digit (0-9) reflects one of the 10 columns on that leaf. (The five columns on
the recto side of a leaf are numbered 0-4, those on the verso, 5-9. Thus
"line" 2159 is the last column on the verso side of leaf 15 of chapter 2.)
Such numbering makes it relatively easy to locate a particular passage in the
Commercial Press and Yeh editions of the YCPS, the romanized text-
editions of Haenisch, Shiratori, de Rachewiltz, and Kuribayashi, and the
translation of Cleaves 1982.
Sentences. In the text presented here, sentences are demarcated basically
according to a passage's assumed meaning, but with careful consideration
of the spacing of Chinese characters that was originally intended to show
speech pauses. Only the beginning and end of a sentence are consistently
marked. Underlined capitalization is added to the initial letter of a
sentence if the first word is not a proper name. (See Proper names above
for that separate use of capitalization.) And note that the initial letter of a
sentence after a semicolon in parataxis is not capitalized.)
A period is regularly used at the end of what may be termed a full
sentence, i.e. one which is not contained (as a quoted, interpolated, or
paratactic sequence) within some other sentence. A semicolon is used after
what may tentatively be considered a sentence paratactically combined with
a following one. Note, however, that punctuation is avoided for the final
sentence of a quoted sequence, since no pause is assumed before the
 quotative verb kee-, with or without an intervening negative or interrogative
element.1 An em dash () is used when some syntactically irregular
pattern seems to occur within a sentence.
Words. Phonological words (not consistently demarcated in the YCPS) are
here separated by a space, but such divisions often have little to do with the
syntax.
The special symbol ~ before a space represents cases where the YCPS
shows no space between characters and no division within a non-name
sequence longer than one word.
The symbol E marks the following morpheme as a particle; some of these
(like ber) are independent words, others (like interrogative u:) are not.
Morphemes. Many inter-word morpheme divisions are marked. Verbal
inflectional suffixes are preceded by the equals sign =, others by the
hyphen character -; but the special symbol is used before what seems
clearly a plural ending.
A very few derivational endings are tentatively and inconsistently
distinguished, by the symbol ^. These are primarily the ^jin, ^tAy/^dAy and
^Ul of tribal affiliation, and a very few others of some interest.

1.3 Other features of this text.

Endnotes. Edition C, our best exemplar of the YCPS, often has a column-break
within a single word or a multi-part name. In the present text the entirety of
such a word or name is placed in the second line; and a note uses a vertical
line to show the location of that column-break. (Note that the HTML
version of our text doesn't distinguish endnotes from footnotes.)
Footnotes. These discuss a variety of topics, most particularly emendations of
the text in C, differences between C and PP, earlier writers' marking of
poetic lines, alternative translations, and various problems relating to
lexicon, morphology, or syntax.
Note that in footnotes and endnotes simple underlining is used in lieu
of italics so that italicized Mongolian can be distinguished from what
would otherwise be italicized English forms.
Other special symbols. The symbols E K M | have been mentioned
above. A few others are used for still different purposes.
A colon after a vowel (as in caqa:n `white') shows reconstructed vowel
length (often equivalent to a sequence of two identical vowels).
Only in the WP versions is [Index:-]- distinguished (in "Reveal codes")
from the simple hyphen character; the former indicates that the YCPS
bracketing does actually indicate the morpheme division.
Used only in footnotes, square brackets indicate emendation by some
addition to the YCPS text, while angle brackets <...> mark emendation by
deletion. (See the very first text-footnote.)
For the additional symbols see 2 below.
Non-word-initial capital letters are used for two purposes.
(a) One of the past-tense morphemes is written in specially complex ways

1
In the WP versions full sentences are followed by two spaces, others by only one. But that
distinction did not survive transfer into the PDF and HTML versions.
 in the YCPS (see Street "Middle Mongolian past-tense -BA in the Secret
History" in JAOS 128.399-422). In the text here I quite arbitrarily
romanize this as -BA (pronounced vowel-harmonically as /ba/ or /be/)
when it's written with the 15-stroke ba character as opposed to either the
4- or 7-stroke one (romanized as -ba and -be respectively). Likewise I
romanize as -bAy the vowel-harmonic plural (/bay/ or /bey/) which is
written is even more complex ways.
(b) In other cases, non-initial caps are used to show that the YCPS writes the
wrong member of a vowel-harmonic pair at some point within a word.
My text's nemrE in line 8443, for example, is actually written with final
-ra, but using capital E here means that searching for nemre will find
this odd writing as well as the correct vowel-harmonic writing in lines
6171 and Y094.

2. Search procedures. Many searches that are easy in the WP 5.1 and WP X7
versions of this text are either more difficult or impossible in PDF and HTML files.
In the latter two, a person cannot search for many text-features such as italics-onset
and hard-return.
In PDF files, "Find" (Ctrl+F) searches for one instance of an item at a time
in both the text proper and notes of both sorts; "Advanced Search" (Shift+Ctrl+F)
most helpfully provides a full list of all occurrences in their order of occurrence in the
text. Either type of search ignores a space you may put in the search string; only
Advanced Search can distinguish between upper and lower case.
In HTML files, "Find" (Ctrl+F etc.) does not search footnotes or endnotes, but
shows only one instance at a time, going forward or backward through the text
proper. Searching does work for a space in the search string, and most usefully
can (but need not) make a distinction between upper and lower case letters.
Seaching can also highlight all instances of a sequence in the entire SH text, e.g. tere,
Tere, a, s.
In PDF and HTML files, searches involving characters that cannot be directly
typed from your computer keyboard can be a bit tricky. In the present text these are
E (plus K M in HTML, replaced by " " in the PDF file). The
simplest way to get one of these into a search box is to copy it from an instance in the
text or from the list provided for this purpose at the start of my text files. (One of
these elements may show up in the search box as an small, empty square box, but a
search should still be successful.) Alternatively, you may be able to actually type
some of these symbols by holding down the ALT key while typing in the number
shown at the top of the PDF and HTML files; e.g. ALT+174 may give you , and
ALT+248 E. (But typing such sequences into a HTML file can sometimes have
unexpected or undesireable results.)

3. Works cited in the notes. In boldface type below are shown short-form
references used in the text-file footnotes for some of the more important sources.
Cleaves, Frances Woodman: The expression jb ese bol- in the Secret History of the
Mongols. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 11:3/4.311-20 (1948).
Cleaves, Francis Woodman: The Sino-Mongolian inscription of 1362 in memory of
Prince Hindu. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 12:1/2.1-132 (1949).
Cleaves, Francis Woodman: The Sino-Mongolian inscription of 1335 in memory of
Chang Ying-jui. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 13:1/2.1-131 (1950).
Cleaves, Francis Woodman: The Mongolian documents in the Muse de Thran.
Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 16:1/2.1-207 (1953a).
Cleaves, Francis Woodman: Daru(a and gerege. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies
16:1/2.237-59 (1953b).
Cleaves, Francis Woodman (CL82) The Secret History of the Mongols. Vol. 1
(translation). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, for the
Harvard-Yenching Institute (1982).
de Rachewiltz, Igor (deR72): Index to The Secret History of the Mongols. Uralic and
Altaic Series 121. Bloomington: Indiana University (1972). Includes the full text
of the SH in romanization; but the author specifically states that this "cannot claim
to be a definitive edition" (p. 2). Three separate "Additions and Corrections"
sheets were later provided.
de Rachewiltz, Igor: Additions and Corrections sheets I, II, and III [for his 1972
Index...] (1973[?]-1997).
de Rachewiltz, Igor (deR4): The Secret History of the Mongols: A Mongolian epic
chronicle of the thirteenth century. Translated with a historical and philological
commentary. Two volumes. Brill's Inner Asian Library 7/1 and 7/2 (with
continuous pagination). Leiden: Brill (2004).
de Rachewiltz, Igor (deR13): The Secret History of the Mongols...(as above). Volume
3 (Supplement). Brill's Inner Asian Library 7/3 (with separate pagination,
xxiii+266). Leiden: Brill (2013).
Haenisch, Erich (H48tr): Die Geheime Geschichte der Mongolen.... Erstmalig bersetzt
und erlutert. Leipzig: Harrassowitz (1948).
Haenisch, Erich (H62txt): Manghol un Niuca Tobca'an (Yan ch`ao pi-shi) Die
Geheime Geschichte der Mongolen... Teil I: Text. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner
Verlag (1962 reprint of 1937 original).
Haenisch, Erich (H62dict): Same, but ...Teil II: Wrterbuch. (1962 reprint of 1939
original).
Hattori, Shir: The Chinese dialect on which the transcription of the Yan-ch`ao Mi-
shih was based. Pp. 35-44 in Acta asiatica, Bulletin of the Institute of Eastern
Culture 24. Tokyo: The Th Gakkai (1973). [Pp. 40-44 gives Roman equivelents
for all Chinese characters used in the text.]
Kowalewski, Joseph tienne: Dictionnaire Mongol - Russe - Franais. Three volumes,
with continuous pagination; in Russian and French. Kazan, Imprimerie de
l'universit (1844-49).
Kozin, Sergei Andreevich: Sokrovennoe skazanie. Mongol'skaya khronika 1240 g. pod
nazvaniem Mong(ol-un ni(ua tobiyan. Yuan' ao bi i. ... Tom I: Vvedenie v
izuenie pamyatnika perevod, teksty, glossarii. Moscow-Leningrad: Izdatel'stvo
Akademii Nauk SSSR (1941). This work is abbreviated Ko in deR4.1138.
Kuribayashi, Hitoshi, & Choijinjab (Kurib1): Word- and suffix-index to the Secret
History of the Mongols: Based on the romanized transcription of L. Ligeti.
CNEAS Monograph Series 4. Sendai, Japan: Center for Northeast Asian Studies,
Tohoku University (2001). Includes reproduction of manuscript C of the Yan
ch`ao pi-shi, with full text in romanization (with quoted speech marked as such),
plus indexes.
Kuribayashi, Hitoshi: Word- and suffix-index to the Hua-yi Yi-y: Based on the
romanized transcription of L. Ligeti. CNEAS Monograph Series 10. Sendai,
Japan: Center for Northeast Asian Studies, Tohoku University (2003). Includes
reproduction of the text in Chinese characters, with full romanization and indexes.
Lessing, Ferdinand D., et al.: Mongolian-English dictionary. Corrected re-printing, The
Mongolia Society: Bloomington, Indiana (1973; originally published 1960).
Ligeti, Louis (Ligeti71): Histoire secrte des Mongols. Vol. 1 of Monumenta Linguae
Mongolicae Collecta. Budapest: Akadmiai Kiad (1971).
Mostaert, Antoine (MostSQP): Sur quelques passages de l'Histoire Secrte des
Mongols. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard-Yenching Institute (1953).
[Reprinted, with new 26-page introduction, from HJAS 13.285-361 (1950),
14.329-403 (1951), and 15.285-407 (1952).]
Mostaert, Antoine (Most99): Quelque problmes phontiques dans la transcription en
charactres chinois du texte Mongol du Iuen tch'ao pi cheu (edited by Igor de
Rachewiltz and Peter W. Geier). Part II of Antoine Mostaert (1881-1971), C.I.C.M
missionary and scholar (ed. by Klaus Sagaster). Louvain Chinese Studies IV.
(1999, but written in 1927).
Mostaert, Antoine, & Francis Woodman Cleaves (Most/Cl): Trois documents mongols
des Archives Secrtes Vaticanes. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 15.419-506
(1952).
Mostaert, Antoine, & Igor de Rachewiltz (Most/deR): Le matriel mongol du Houa i
i iu... de Houng-ou (1389). Vol. 1, Edit par Igor de Rachewiltz, avec l'assistance
de Anthony Schnbaum, 1977. Vol. 2 (Commentaires), par Antoine Mostaert et
Igor de Rachewiltz, 1995. Mlanges chinois et bouddhiques 18, 27. Bruxelles:
Institut Belge des Hautes tudes Chinoises.
Pankratov, B. I.: Yuan'-chao bi-shi (Sekretnaya istoriya mongolov), Tom I: Tekst.
Izdanie teksta i predislovie B. I. Pankratova. Moskva: Akademiya Nauk SSSR.
1962. [Photographic reproduction of the Pao-Palladius manuscript, PP]
Pelliot, Paul: Histoire secrte des Mongols. [Reconstruction of the Mongol text and
French translation of Chapters 1-6. Posthumously published.] Paris: Adrien-
Maisonneuve (1949).
Poppe, Nicholas (PoppeGWM): Grammar of Written Mongolian. Wiesbaden: Otto
Harrassowitz (1954).
Poppe, Nicholas (Poppe54): Remarks on some roots and stems in Mongolian, pp.
294-300 in Silver Jubilee Volume of the Zinbun-Kagaku-Kenkyusho. Kyoto
University (1954).
Poppe, Nicholas (Poppe57): The Mongolian monuments in hP`ags-pa script. Gttinger
Asiatische Forschunger 8. Wiesbeden: Harrassowitz (1957).
Poppe, Nicholas (Poppe75): Altaic lingustics: an overview, pp. 130-86 in Gengo no
kagaku (= Sciences of Language) vol 6. Tokyo (1975)
Shiratori, Kurakichi: Onyaku-mbun-gench-hishi. A romanized representation of the
Yan-ch`ao-pi-shih (A secret history of the Mongols) in its original Mongolian
sound. Tokyo: The Ty Bunko (1942).
Street, John C. (Street57): The language of the Secret History of the Mongols.
American Oriental Series 42. New Haven, Connecticut: American Oriental Society
(1957).
Street, John C. (Street86): On the 14th century punctuation of Mongolian in the Yuan-
ch'ao pi-shih. Mongolia Society Occasional Paper #12. Bloomington, Indiana:
The Mongolia Society (1986).
Street, John C. (Street90): Nominal plural formations in the Secret History, Acta
Orientalia Hungarica 44:3.345-379 (issue dated 1990, but appeared early in 1993).
Street, John C.(Street08a): Middle Mongolian past-tense -BA in the Secret History,
in Journal of the American Oriental Society 128:3.399-422.
Street, John C (Street08): The interrogative particle in early Middle Mongolian, in
Mongolian Studies 30.43-82 (2008, published in late 2010).
Street, John C. (Street13): On quotation in Middle Mongolian: The verb ke(m)e- `to
say'. Mongolia Society Occasional Paper #27. Bloomington, Indiana (2013).
Vietze, Hans-Peter, & Gendeng Lubsang (Vietze92). Altan Tobi: Eine mongolische
Chronik des XVII. Jahrhunderts von Blo bsa@n bstan 'jin. Text and Index. Tokyo:
Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (1992).
Yan ch`ao pi-shi (YCPS). [The highly sophisticated text of the Secret History in
 Chinese characters, produced around 1400.] The sources utilized for the present
digital text here are those called edition C and ms. PP. The former, C, is the
Commercial Press reproduction of the Ku certified copy of the YPCS: Ssu-pu
ts'ung-k'an, 3rd series, 54-63. Shanghai: The Commercial Press, 1936. (This is
now most conveniently available in Kuribayashi 2001: Kurib1 above). PP is the
less useful Pao-Palladius manuscript of the YCPS, published in Pankratov 1962
(above).

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Afterword (of June 2014). Looking back at my text of version 24v, it strikes me that
several years ago I was overly zealous in marking plurals in the names of tribes. I
hope eventually to go through the text once again and reconsider all of these in
preparation for a version 25.