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Engraved for "THE BIBLE OF EVERY LAND": Samuel Bagster & Sons, Paternoster Row London.

W. Hughes, se

Page 337.

Plate XI

MONGOLIAN PROPER.

FOR SPECIMEN OF THIS VERSION, SEE PLATE 11, PAGE 337.

MONGOLIA, the vast country which separates Russia from China, has been from time immemorial the domain of the Mongolian race. It was to this race that Attila and Genghis Khan, and the myriads commanded by those mighty warriors, belonged,―men whose rapid conquests are compared by Gibbon to the primitive convulsions of nature which have agitated and altered the surface of the globe. Although Mongolia is now included in the territories of the Chinese empire, the Mongols themselves remain in the same condition as their ancestors in the days of Genghis and Kublai. "The people," says a recent traveller, "live in tents, without any permanent residence. They move from place to place with the changes of the seasons, or when their immense herds of oxen, camels, and horses have exhausted the grass around their encampment. To-day presents an animated scene of hundreds of tents, filled with an active population; to-morrow this picturesque scene will be changed to a dreary and forbidding desert."

The Mongols have extended their wanderings into the dominions of Russia, and some of the many tribes into which they are divided are to be found in the very heart of Siberia. One language is common to all these tribes, but, as might be expected from its wide geographical diffusion, it is subdivided into a multiplicity of petty dialects. The most prominent characteristics of the Mantchou and Turkish are equally remarkable in this language. It possesses the same inverted and artificial style of phraseology, and the same grammatical peculiarities. The substantives, however, although like the Mantchou destitute of terminations indicative of gender, possess a peculiar sign to denote the plural; it consists in the consonant t added to the final vowel, or substituted for n, but is not often employed. The Mongolian dialect, properly so called, is spoken by some tribes of Lamaists (or worshippers of Buddha, impersonated in the Grand Lama), north of the desert of Gobi. The alphabet is derived from the Ouigour, and forms the basis of the Mantchou; it is written in vertical columns from the top to the bottom of the page. Many Tibetan and Sanscrit words exist in Mongolian, which have been introduced with Lamaism from Tibet.

A translation of the New Testament and Psalter into the language spoken by the Mongol conquerors of China is said to have been made, in the thirteenth century, by John de Monte-Corvino, a Minorite friar, who was sent on a mission to the Tartar potentates, by Pope Nicholas IV., in 1289, (soon after the accession of Timur Khan, or Ching-tsung, to the throne of his grandfather, Kublai Khan), and who resided at the court of the Grand Khan for a period of forty years. Of this work no vestiges remain. The only Mongolian versions of Scripture known to be in existence are those in the Calmuc and Buriat dialects, which we must now proceed to notice.

CALMU C.

FOR SPECIMEN OF THIS VERSION, SEE PLATE 7, page 338.

I. GEOGRAPHICAL EXTENT AND STATISTICS.

THE great steppe extending from Sarepta (on the Volga, above Astrakhan) to the Caucasus, is occupied by the Calmucs, a Mongolian tribe, who migrated thither about the beginning of the seventeenth century, from the western borders of Soungaria, in the heart of the Asiatic continent. In 1701, upwards of 15,000 families of this tribe returned to Soungaria with a certain prince who fled from his father, the khan; and in 1770 no less than 60,000 families abandoned their Russian settlements and returned to their native Mongolia. The families who remained in Russia, and who retain their nomadic habits and pagan superstitions, now number about 60,000 individuals. Some baptized members of this nation are settled in a district lying between the Volga and the Kouban, of which Stavropol is the capital; they amount in number to about 10,000, and have for the last century professed adherence to the Russian Church.

The dialect of the Calmucs is the Eleuth, or Western Mongolian, generally supposed to be predominant throughout the whole of Western Mongolia as the dialect of the Eleuth tribes, from whom the Calmucs derive their origin. This dialect is softer and more effeminate than Mongolian proper, and in order to express it, the Calmucs have adopted a modified alphabet of the Mongolian, which contains softer sounds than the original one. It is also more elegant; although it must be said of all these vertical writings that they look very beautiful when well executed. The importance of the Calmuc version will be greatly enhanced should it be found applicable to all the Eleuth tribes of Mongolia, as well as to the Russian emigrants; but this point has not yet been ascertained.

II.-VERSION OF THE SCRIPTURES IN THIS LANGUAGE.

The first translation of the Scriptures into this dialect appears to have been attempted about the middle of the last century, when various detached portions of the sacred text were translated at the Moravian settlement of Sarepta. The principal translator was Conrad Neitz, one of the Moravian missionaries, who, by a long residence among the Calmucs of the Don, had acquired an intimate acquaintance with the language, the modes of thinking, and the habits of the people. In 1808, a correspondence was opened between the brethren at Sarepta and the British and Foreign Bible Society, respecting the preparation of a Calmuc version. The portions previously translated were ascertained to be faithful and accurate, but it was deemed requisite to subject them to careful revision, as well as to extend the translation to the whole of the New Testament. The execution of this translation was undertaken by Mr. James Schmidt (afterwards Dr. Schmidt), a member of the Sarepta society. He had resided many years among the Calmucs, and was thoroughly acquainted with their dialect. The work was aided by the British and Foreign Bible Society, and the translation of the Gospel of St. Matthew was completed in 1812; it was not however committed to the press till 1815, when 1000 copies were printed at St. Petersburg. These were speedily circulated; and such were the pleasing accounts received concerning their distribution, that a second edition of 2000 copies was given in 1817.

The idiomatic accuracy of this version of St. Matthew was attested by native authorities, and likewise by Abel Remusat. “In reading, or rather in analysing it (observed that eminent Orientalist), with a view to deduce the grammatical principles which were the objects of my search, I found but very few instances in which its correspondence with the Greek text did not appear to me to be rigidly exact." That this Gospel was perfectly intelligible to the people for whom it was designed is proved

Consisting of SY MATTHEW. Chap 5. v. 1 to 8.

VERSION.

SPECIMEN OF THE

P 328

KARELIAN

from the Edition printed at St Petersburgh 1320
Consisting of ST MATTHEW, Chap 5.v. I to 8.

VERSION.

Engraved for THE BIBLE OF EVERY LAND": Samuel Bagster & Sons, Paternoster Row, London.