Mongolian language

“ They may have marched across the island or skirted around its southern cape and spread themselves out in the province of Hyūga, where in the Japanese accounts we first find them. This migration probably occurred long after the first, and came evidently from a more cultured tribe of the great Mongolian race. That they came from the same race is evident from their understanding the same language, and having habits and methods of government which were not a surprise to the new-comers, and in which they readily co-operated. ”

“ To return, however, to the Tamulian family, meaning thereby a branch of the great Mongolian stock, speaking, either now or formerly, a language more or less allied to the Tamul of the Dekhan.
The first members of the class, as we proceed southwards from Behar, are certain hill-tribes of the Rajmahali Mountains—the Rajmahali mountaineers. Their Mongolian physiognomy is unequivocal;—a Mongolian physiognomy but conjoined with a dark skin. They have "broad faces, small eyes, and flattish or rather turned-up [137] noses. Their lips are thicker than those of the inhabitants of the plain." ”

“ The Cossack spoke only Mongol and Russian, and, as neither of us knew a single word of either language, it was difficult to communicate our plans to him. Finally, we found a Chinaman who spoke Mongol and who consented to act as interpreter. The natives at the inn could not understand why we were not able to talk to the Cossack. Didn't all white men speak the same language? Mr. Price endeavored to explain that Russian and English differ as much as do Chinese and Mongol, but they only smiled and shook their heads. ”

“ The eastern steppes and deserts of Mongolia was the region of origin of the Hunnish or Mongolian or Tartar or Turkish peoples—for all these several peoples were akin in language, race, and way of life. And as the Nordic peoples seem to have been continually overflowing their own borders and pressing south upon the developing civilizations of Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean coast, so the Hunnish tribes sent their surplus as wanderers, raiders and conquerors into the settled regions of China. Periods of plenty in the north would mean an increase in population there ”

“ In Central Africa I actually heard words of Mongolian origin, and not only that, but even traced Mongolian characteristics in the type of the ruling classes of natives, as well as in the construction of their language.
It is easy to be occasionally misled. ”

“ The Turanians in respect to their physical conformation are a branch of the Mongolians; the Chinese, Eskimo and others, being members of similar and equivalent divisions. b. In respect to their language, they are the [178] highest group recognized, a group subordinate to none other.
To change the expression of this difference, the anatomical naturalist of the Human Species has in the word Mongolian a term of generality to which the philologist has not arrived. ”

“ There is almost nothing of Mongolian manufacture,—just rugs and felt and saddles; and most of the work is done by the women. Nor does the Mongol till the soil; nothing is found growing near his yurt. Unlike the rice-eating people just across the Great Wall, his diet is almost wholly meat, and milk in some form or other,—cheese, curds, koumiss. The tea which he drinks in enormous quantities, so that even my "boy" opened his eyes, is brought by the Chinese traders.
The Mongol has great endurance; days in the saddle are nothing to him, and he sleeps as soundly on his camel as on the ground. ”

“ Others again by their dark hair, slight beard, sunk nose or rather projecting cheek-bones and oblique eyes, remind us distinctly of the Mongolian race, and finally we meet among them with very fair faces, with features and complexion which lead us to suspect that they are descendants of runaways or prisoners of war of purely Russian origin. ”

“ Early Expansion.—Mongolia, Siberia, China, Indo-China, Malaysia, Mesopotamia (?) . The earlier Mongolians were extremely migratory, but the more settled tribes developed into the later Japanese, Chinese. Burmese, Siamese, and other peoples in the southeast and east of Asia; and the native tribes of the Siberian plains. The wandering tribes developed into the Turks, Magyars (Hungarians) , Finns, Laplanders, and Samoeids, of Europe, and the Esquimaux of America.
Religion.—Animism in the widest sense is the dominant note of Mongolian religions. ”

“ Just as the Caucasian race extends into southwestern and southern Asia, so the Mongolian race extends far into Europe, embracing not only the Lapps of Scandinavia, the Finns, Cossacks, and many other peoples of Russia, and the Turks of southern Europe, but even the Magyars of Hungary, the most advanced of all the Europeans of Mongolian origin. ”

“ Two months in the year of bloom, and sunshine, and colour, and beauty, are all that Nature grants the wandering Mongolian.
Such being the general configuration of the Steppes, one may easily imagine how stern and gloomy is the aspect of these immense plains, with no other interruptions of the soil than their tumuli, no other boundary than the sea. He who has not been habituated from youth to their monotony finds himself wholly unable to struggle against its depressing influence. Their dismal solitudes are in truth an immeasurable prison, where he wanders to and fro without hope of escape. ”

“ They come around and daily hear the Gospel; but, as yet at least, there it ends. I look into their faces to see whom the Lord is going to call, but have not seen him yet apparently. Meantime, I am getting deeper and deeper into Chinese work and connections, and sometimes the thought crosses my mind that my knowledge of Mongolian is not employed to its best advantage here. On the other hand, I see more Mongols here than I could see anywhere on the Plain.'
God's ways of dealing with His work and the workers are often very dim and obscure to finite understanding. ”

“ Many of these people, for whom the old name of MONGOLIANS may be retained, are nomades; others, as the Chinese, have attained a remarkable and apparently indigenous civilization, only surpassed by that of Europe.
At the north-western extremity of Europe the Lapps repeat the characters of the Eastern Asiatics. Between these extreme points, the Mongolian stock is not continuous, but is represented by a chain of more or less isolated tribes, who pass under the name of Calmucks and Tartars, and form Mongolian islands, as it were, in the midst of an ocean of other people. ”

“ They are consequently exceedingly difficult to reach by any other method than that of sharing their roving tent life. In the southeastern district of Mongolia there are large numbers of agricultural Mongols who speak both Chinese and Mongolian. The towns in this part are almost wholly inhabited by Chinese.
The winter in Mongolia is both long and severe; in the summer the heat is often very oppressive, and the great Plain is subject to severe storms of dust, rain and wind.
Buddhism is all-powerful, and the larger half of the male population are lamas or Buddhist priests. ”

“ Three great races have met in Urga and each carries on, in this far corner of Mongolia, its own customs and way of life. The Mongol yurt has remained unchanged; the Chinese shop, with its wooden counter and blue-gowned - 64 - inmates, is pure Chinese; and the ornate cottages proclaim themselves to be only Russian.
But on the street my wife and I could never forget that we were in Mongolia. We never tired of wandering through the narrow alleys, with their tiny native shops, or of watching the ever-changing crowds. ”

“ No arc lamp on Fifth Avenue blazed more brightly than did this one on the edge of the Gobi Desert where none of its kind had ever shone before. With the motor cars which had stolen the sanctity of the plains it was only another evidence of the passing of Mongolian mystery.
Usually when we camped we could see, almost immediately, the silhouettes of approaching Mongols black against the evening sky. Where they came from we could never guess. For miles there might not have been the trace of a human being, but suddenly they would appear as though from out the earth itself. ”

“ There is complete present, and probably previous long-existing, geographical continuity in the area over which they are found. There is also considerable similarity Mongolians. of climate and other conditions throughout the northern half of Asia which they occupy. The extension of modified forms of the Mongolian type over the whole American continent may be mentioned as a remarkable circumstance connected with this branch of the human race.
The Mongolians of the northern half of Asia are almost entirely nomadic, hunters and shepherds or herdsmen. ”

“ Throughout the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth centuries, there was a steady drift of Mongolian peoples westward. The Huns of Attila were merely precursors of this advance, which led at last to the establishment of Mongolian peoples in Finland, Esthonia, Hungary and Bulgaria, where their descendants, speaking languages akin to Turkish, survive to this day. The Mongolian nomads were, in fact, playing a role towards the Aryanized civilizations of Europe and Persia and India that the Aryans had played to the Ægean and Semitic civilizations ten or fifteen centuries before. ”

“ In spite of what may be said to the contrary, there can be no doubt that the Mongolian type grows less and less distinct as we go south from Alaska, though, once grant the Mongols a footing on the continent, and the influence of their religion, languages, or customs may, for all we know, have extended even to Cape Horn. ”

“ Naturally fair, the combined effects of sun, argol smoke, and last, but not least, dirt give to most of them the hue of a negro. Their women are plain and, as a rule, virtuous. Infidelity is rare in Mongolia, and when it does occur the injured husband is easily consoled by payment of a few sheep or a camel or two. The Mongolian woman’s lot is not a happy one. Unlike their Kirghiz brothers, the Mongolian Tartars have no respect whatever for their wives, of which they are allowed any number, though the first married takes precedence over the others. ”

“ Not only does the Mongol inspire you with admiration for his full-blooded, virile manhood, but also you like him because he likes you. He doesn't try to disguise the fact. There is a frank openness about his attitude which is wonderfully appealing, and I believe that the average white man can get on terms of easy familiarity, and even intimacy, with Mongols more rapidly than with any other Orientals.
Ude is the second telegraph station on the road to Urga. It has the honor of appearing on most maps of Mongolia and yet it is even less impressive than Panj-kiang. ”

“ As their great wall secludes them from other nations, so do their mental habits prevent them from a free interchange of ideas with foreigners. The Mongolian race, indeed, from which, like the Hungarians and the Finns, they are descended, is so different from other races in many respects that some anthropologists suppose it to have a separate origin. Phlegmatic and matter-of-fact by nature, exact and careful in practical matters, and to a high degree imitative and industrious, the Chinese are singularly devoid of imagination and indisposed to philosophy. ”

“ It appears to me that very few Chinese words have been introduced into the Mongol language, but that in the neighbourhood of Koko-nor a great deal is derived from the Tangutan. In South-Eastern and Southern Mongolia, Chinese influence prevails, and is evidenced in the character of the people as well as in their language, not so much from the number of foreign words introduced into it as by a general change, and a more monotonous and phlegmatic pronunciation than that of the true Khalka Mongols, who talk in loud, energetic accents. ”

“ By the first century A.D. nomadic Mongolian peoples are in evidence upon the eastern boundaries of Europe, already greatly mixed with Aryan nomads and with uprooted Aryan elements from the Caspian-Pamir region. There are Hunnish peoples established between the Caspian Sea and the Urals. West of them were the Alans, probably also a Mongolian people with Aryan elements ”

“ True Mongolian features are certainly to be met with also, more especially among the women and children of the poorer class; but, though I have seen very few really beautiful Kirghiz women, I have met with quite as few of the grotesque faces so common among other undoubted Mongols. The characteristics are unmistakably more suggestive of a mixed race than of any one sharply defined stock. ”

“ Many of our letters the Mongolian mouth has no capacity for sounding. R he invariably sounds like l, so that the word "rice" he pronounces "lice"—a bit of information which may prevent an unpleasant apprehension when you come to employ a Chinese cook. He rejects the English personal pronoun I, and uses the possessive "my" in its place; thus, "My go home," in place of "I go home."
When he buries a countryman he throws from the hearse into the air handfuls of brown tissue-paper slips, punctured with Chinese characters. ”

“ These reflections might properly be productive of uneasiness did we not reassure ourselves with the self-satisfying assumption of the mental, moral and physical superiority of the Indo-European race, and the conviction that it is our destiny to inherit the earth. We indulge in a comparison of ourselves with the Mongolian in a way which leaves him relatively far down in the human scale, and have taken it for granted, hastily perhaps, that he can not rise. ”