Collected Yuan Dynasty Vernacular Inscriptions, Revised Edition

Most of the inscriptions on Yuan-dynasty vernacular steles are translations of official documents originally written in Mongolian during the Yuan dynasty. They are valuable primary historical sources. The value of these steles can be explained from both linguistic and historical perspectives. First, their linguistic value: most Yuan-dynasty official documents were initially written in Mongolian and then translated into vernacular Chinese. Although, owing to the limitations of the translators, this vernacular does not fully match the Chinese actually spoken at the time, it nevertheless reflects Yuan-dynasty colloquial speech to some extent and serves as excellent material for studying the history of the Chinese language during that period. This book is a collection of related materials of this kind.