A Handbook of 'Phags-pa Chinese (ABC Chinese Dictionary)

'Phags-Pa Chinese is the earliest form of the Chinese language to be written in a systemically devised alphabetic script. It is named after its creator , a brilliant thirteenth-century Tibetan scholar-monk who also served as political adviser to Kublai Khan . 'Phags-Pa's invention of an alphabet for the Mongolian language remains an extraordinary important accomplishment , both conceptually and practically .With it he achieved nothing less than the creation of an unified script for all the numerous people in the Mongolian empire , including the Central-Asian Turks and Sinitic-speaking Chinese.
'Phags-Pa is of immense importance for the study of premodern Chinese phonology . However, the script is difficult to read and interpret , and secondary materials on it are scattered and not easily obtained . The present book is intended as a practical introduction to 'Phags-Pa Chinese studies and a guide for reading and interpreting the script . It consists of two parts , The first part is an introductory section comprising four chapters . This is followed by a glossary of 'Phags-Pa Chinese forms and their corresponding Chinese characters , together with pinyin and stroke order indexes to those characters . The first introductory chapter outlines the invention of the 'Phags-Pa writing system , summarizes the major types of material preserved in it , and describes the historical linguistic contexts in which this invention occurred . Following chapters detail the history the history of 'Phags-Pa studies , the alphabet and its interpretation, and the salient features of the underlying sound system represented by the script , comparing it with those of various later forms of Chinese that have been recorded in alphabetic scores .
This book will be of special importance to Chinese historical phonologists and scholars concerned with the history and culture of China and Central Asia during the Yuan period (1279-1368 A.D.)