unknown till recently.  Mr. Wylie’s kindness enabled Sir Henry Yule to present a specimen of this. (A much better facsimile of these inscriptions than Wylie’s having since been published by Prince Roland Bonaparte in his valuable Recueil des Documents de l’Epoque Mongole, this latter is, by permission, here reproduced.) The Chinese and Mongol inscriptions have been translated by M. Ed. Chavannes; the Tibetan by M. Sylvain Levi (Jour.  Asiat., Sept.-Oct. 1894, pp. 354-373); the Uighur, by Prof.  W. Radloff (Ibid.  Nov.-Dec. 1894, pp. 546, 550); the Mongol by Prof.  G. Huth.  (Ibid.  Mars-Avril 1895, pp. 351-360.) The sixth language was supposed by A. Wylie (J.  R. A. S. vol. xvii. p. 331, and N.S., vol. v. p. 14) to be Neuchih, Niuche, Niuchen or Juchen.  M. Deveria has shown that the inscription is written in Si Hia, or the language of Tangut, and gave a facsimile of a stone stele (pei) in this language kept in the great Monastery of the Clouds (Ta Yun Ssu) at Liangchau in Kansuh, together with a translation of the Chinese text, engraved on the reverse side of the slab.  M. Deveria thinks that this writing was borrowed by the Kings of Tangut from the one derived in 920 by the Khitans from the Chinese. (Stele Si-Hia de Leang-tcheou ... J.  As., 1898; L’ectriture du royaumes de Si-Hia ou Tangout, par M. Deveria ...  Ext. des Mem ... presentes a l’Ac. des.  Ins. et B. Let. 1’ere Ser.  XI., 1898.) Dr. S. W. Bushell in two papers (Inscriptions in the Juchen and Allied Scripts, Actes du XI.  Congres Orientalistes, Paris, 1897, 2nd. sect., pp. 11, 35, and the Hsi Hsia Dynasty of Tangut, their Money and their peculiar Script, J. China Br.  R. A. S., xxx.  N.S.  No. 2, pp. 142, 160) has also made a special study of the same subject.  The Si Hia writing was adopted by Yuan Ho in 1036, on which occasion he changed the title of his reign to Ta Ch’ing, i.e.  “Great Good Fortune.”  Unfortunately, both the late M. Deveria and Dr. S. W. Bushell have deciphered but few of the Si Hia characters.—­H.  C.]

The orders of the Great Kaan are stated to have been published habitually in six languages, viz., Mongol, Uighur, Arabic, Persian, Tangutan (Si-Hia), and Chinese.—­H.  Y. and H. C.

Ghazan Khan of Persia is said to have understood Mongol, Arabic, Persian, something of Kashmiri, of Tibetan, of Chinese, and a little of the Frank tongue (probably French).

The annals of the Ming Dynasty, which succeeded the Mongols in China, mention the establishment in the 11th moon of the 5th year Yong-lo (1407) of the Sse yi kwan, a linguistic office for diplomatic purposes.  The languages to be studied were Niuche, Mongol, Tibetan, Sanskrit, Bokharan (Persian?) Uighur, Burmese, and Siamese.  To these were added by the Manchu Dynasty two languages called Papeh and Pehyih, both dialects of the S.W. frontier. (See infra, Bk.  II. ch. lvi.-lvii., and notes.) Since 1382, however,