1897.] 



to Mr. Gait's paper on AJiom coins. 



13 



hand for reference, nor had I visited Mongolia or studied that language. 

 'Now, however, I have looked up as far as I can the authorities quoted by- 

 Mr. Sandberg. ^ The Society's library contains two out of the three 

 dictionaries quoted by him. Of these, however, only Castren's is in 

 Romanized characters, the other by Schmidt being in Mongolian and 

 Russian type. And it is remarkable fco find that although Mr. Sandberg 

 says he writes " in the interests of accuracy " he is most inaccurate 

 in his quotations. So much so that the alleged differencies between the 

 versions of his dictionaries and of the Mongol Lama have been much 

 magnified. The few discrepancies which do exist are dialectic of a 

 kind which are more apparent than real, as they consist mainly in the 

 difference between the written and spoken forms of Tibetan, a fact 

 which it is strange Mr. Sandberg did not perceive, as he has studied 

 Tibetan. 



In the following table I have arranged the various lists for compari- 

 son. The last two columns show how far the only available one of the 

 three dictionaries quoted by Mr. Sandberg justifies his claim for ac- 

 curacy. It will also be evident that, pace Mr. Sandberg, the Mongol 

 Lama's list is quite as near the dictionary version as Hue's, or even still 

 nearer to it ; while it has the merit of giving at first hand by a learned 

 Mongol an independent version of the spoken form of the words in 

 question. 





Mongolian Lama's 



List in Tibetan 



Characters. 



Hue's List.2 



Castren and others, 



according to Mr. 



Sandberg. 



Castren's own 



spelling. 



8. = Selengin 



dialect. 





As pro- 

 nounced. 



As Spelled. 



T. = Tunkin dia- 

 lect. 



Wood 



Mot 



Mod 



Moto 



Modon 



Modo 8.', Modorj 



T. 

 Gal 



Sabar 8. Ojor. 

 Turner T.jTomor 



8. 

 Oso 8. 



Fire 



Earth 



Iron 



Kal 



Sho-ra 

 T'u-mer 



Kal 



So'-ra 

 T'u-mer S 



Gal 



Che-re 



Te-mur 



Gal 



Shiroge 

 Temiir 



Water 



0-su 



0-su 



Oussou 



Usun 



/* Khulughana in 



Mouse 



Hul-kan 



Hul-kan 



Khouloukhana 



\ (N. Mong.jand 

 J Hulghana (in 

 C S. Mong.). 



XulganaS.andT. 



1 His statement too that "there is no letter ' p' in Mongol" seems remarkable 

 as his authority Castren frequently uses ' p ' in transliterating Mongol words. 



2 Hazlitt's translation of Hue's Travels in Tartary, Tibet and China, II, 212. 

 8 By a mistake this was printed T'uled. 



