Introduction to Altaic Philology ─ Turkic, Mongolian, Manchu

Rybatzki (Altaic studies, Helsinki University) and Rachewiltz (history, Australian National University at Canberra, emeritus) have produced an impressive introduction to Altaic philology: Chuvash-Turkic, Mongolian and Manchu-Tungus. Each chapter gives the known history of the language with grammatical explanations, tests transliterated into the Roman alphabet and translated into English. Plates at the end show the texts in their original form. They also discuss the various dialects of the languages, some now extinct, and the difficulty entailed in deciphering a document written in one language but using a foreign alphabet. The concluding chapter discusses the Altaic Hypothesis, a topic still debated among philologists as to which languages belong in this group. While serious students will have to venture into many scripts to work on these languages, for scholars interested in the background of these largely Central Asian languages, the use of English will allow them to make comparisons without the struggle of learning new alphabets. Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Igor de Rachewiltz, Ph.D. (1961) in History at the Australian National University, Canberra, and currently Emeritus Fellow in the same university, is a historian and philologist specializing in China and Mongolia in the 12th - 14th centuries. He is the author and editor of numerous books and articles on the subject, his major work being an annotated translation of the epic chronicle known as the Secret History of the Mongols (Brill, 2004).
Volker Rybatzki, Ph.D.(2006) in Altaic Studies, University of Helsinki, is Associate Professor of Altaic Studies at Helsinki University. He has published chiefly on Mongolian language and culture from the 13th to the 15th century. He is at present engaged in the preparation of an etymological dictionary of the Mongolian language of that period.