Usurpation of Mongolia: My father-in-law is Genghis Khan

Chapter 42: The Creation of Mongolian Writing and the Khuriltai Assembly
Next, under Su Lun's guidance, Zhao Shuo and Hua Zheng visited various workshops together to learn about the workers' treatment and diet.

The craftsmen had never imagined that the high-ranking Mongolian prince consort, also known as the bravest warrior on the grassland, would attach such importance to them. Coupled with the generous reward announced by the workshop managers, they were truly filled with enthusiasm.

When Zhao Shuo announced that their lives would be improved today and people could eat as much mutton as they wanted, the craftsmen cheered loudly.

After the tour, Zhao Shuo sat down and said to Su Lun, "Su Lun, I heard that you want to go to the battlefield and make achievements?"

Su Lun said, "Yes, although the grasslands are now unified. However, we still have to avenge our feud with the Jin Kingdom, so we must fight. I want to be like my father and brother, fighting for my own future with my sword and spear, at least... at least I can get a centurion."

Zhao Shuo asked with great interest, "Oh? A sword and a spear? A hundred households? Let me ask you, do you prefer the feeling of fighting on the battlefield, or do you prefer being an official?"

"Isn't this the same thing? How can you be an official if you don't fight in the battlefield?" Su Lun asked in confusion.

Zhao Shuo said meaningfully, "If you want to be an official, you don't necessarily have to go to the battlefield."

"What the Prince Consort means is..."

Zhao Shuo kept it a secret, saying, "You'll find out later. Six months from now, the Great Khan will take a step further and become the Great Khan of the entire grasslands. He just hasn't decided on a title yet. He'll definitely reward meritorious officials with great honors, and I'll have plans for you."

In the blink of an eye, half a year passed.

A lot has happened in the past six months.

For example, Zhao Shuo officially married the beautiful lady Su Na with heterochromatic eyes.

For example, Sun Wei was young and inexperienced, so crafting the tendon and feather armor wasn't going smoothly. However, Zhao Shuo had great confidence in him and didn't push him. He provided him with money and supplies, allowing him to experiment freely without regard for cost.

For example, Tatatong'a, who created the Mongolian script, was found by Zhao Shuo among the Naiman captives.

As a top scholar on the grassland, Tatatong'a certainly understood what a new unified grassland empire meant.

It will be a great country like the Xiongnu, Turks, and Xianbei of the past.

Becoming the founder of the creation of writing in this great country, and having your name passed down through the ages and recorded in history forever, is such a good thing that you would wake up smiling even in your dreams.

Therefore, he not only had no psychological resistance to the task assigned to him by Zhao Shuo, but instead tried his best to complete it.

However, Tatatong'a was initially quite disapproving of Zhao Shuo's decision to get deeply involved in this matter.

So what if Zhao Shuo was a man of both literary and military talents? This was academic work, not military leadership. What help could a twenty-something Zhao Shuo offer?

But, then again.

After Tatatong'a told Zhao Shuo about the difficulties of creating Mongolian characters, Zhao Shuo realized how shallow his original idea was.

"There are two main difficulties in creating a Mongolian script. First, while Mongolian and Turkic share some vocabulary, the vast majority are not. Using the Naiman script's letters, many Mongolian sounds cannot be pronounced. Second, the Naiman script has inherent flaws: the same pronunciation can have many meanings, making it easily ambiguous when written down. To thank the Prince Consort for sparing my life, I created a Mongolian script. Of course, I must strive for perfection and minimize these flaws. However, I have pondered for days and still haven't found the right solution."

Naiman script is actually a phonetic script.

Using the same pinyin for two languages ​​naturally leads to many incompatibilities. In real history, the Mongols themselves were not entirely satisfied with the Mongolian script created by Tatatong'a using the Naiman script. Later, various other Mongolian scripts emerged, including Phagspa Mongol, Gyabandida Mongol, Tote Mongol, Wakinda Mongol, and Cyrillic Mongol.

This shows, on the one hand, that the Mongolian script created by Tatatong'a did have many inconveniences. On the other hand, it also shows that creating Mongolian was extremely difficult - there were so many versions of Mongolian, but none of them satisfied the Mongols, and they kept changing.

But for Zhao Shuo, creating Mongolian characters was not that difficult.

First of all, let’s talk about pronunciation. Isn’t there an international phonetic alphabet?
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is not the same as the phonetic alphabet taught in middle and high school English. That phonetic alphabet is a variation of the IPA, adapted for English learning. In fact, the IPA can accurately pronounce the pronunciation of any language in the world; even Chinese Pinyin can be considered a variation of the IPA.

If we add some techniques of the International Phonetic Alphabet to the Naiman alphabet, wouldn't it be possible to accurately pronounce all Mongolian sounds?

Problems that are prone to ambiguity due to the same pronunciation are easier to resolve.

There are a large number of Chinese characters in Japanese, which are designed to solve this problem: write the Chinese character directly, but pronounce the corresponding Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese character.

As a result, the more advanced Japanese language exams there are, the more Chinese characters they include. For native Chinese speakers, learning Japanese quickly feels like it gets easier: you know what a word means at a glance, and all you have to do is learn the Japanese pronunciation. How could it be easy?
Therefore, the overall plan for creating Mongolian writing is to use the Naiman alphabet improved from the International Phonetic Alphabet as the basis, and then use Chinese characters to solve problems that are prone to ambiguity.

What? Traditional Chinese characters are too difficult to learn and won't be popularized? Why not use simplified Chinese?

Well, after conquering the Central Plains, Zhao Shuo promoted simplified Chinese characters in the region. When Han Chinese saw Mongolian characters, even though they couldn't pronounce them, they could still understand the general meaning. Similarly, Mongolians could understand the general meaning of Chinese characters.

The bones are broken but the tendons are still connected, it's perfect!
"Homophones with different characters? Integrating Chinese characters into Mongolian?"

As a top scholar on the grasslands, Tatatong'a certainly had some understanding of Chinese characters. However, due to his limited knowledge, he had never dreamed of this method of creating characters.

The more he thought about it, the more he felt that Zhao Shuo was extremely talented. Thinking of the special pronunciation symbols that Zhao Shuo had just used, he finally understood what kind of person this Mongolian prince consort in front of him was.

Tatatong'a stood up, bowed deeply to Zhao Shuo, and said sincerely, "I have always been a little proud of my knowledge. I thought that if anyone from the grassland scholars was to be chosen to create a Mongolian script, it would have to be me.

"After listening to the Prince Consort's words today, I finally realized that I was truly a frog in a well, unaware of the immensity of the world. The ancestor of the creation of the Mongolian script can only be Prince Consort Zhao Shuo. At best, I participated in it and made a small contribution."

Zhao Shuo curled his lips into a smile and said, "So, are the methods I mentioned feasible?"

Tatatong'a said without hesitation, "It's completely feasible. Given enough time, I will be able to create a perfect Mongolian script according to your design."

"It's not necessary to be completely perfect. Now that the Khan is about to ascend the throne, it's best to create a rough outline first."

"That's even easier. The rough outline of the characters is only 20 to 30 letters and a few dozen Chinese characters. I can come up with it today."

"Then it's hard work for you."

Sure enough, early the next morning, Tatatong'a gave the rough outline of the Mongolian script to Zhao Shuo for review.

After another half month of research, this new writing system was barely practical.

Upon learning of this, Temujin was overjoyed and immediately summoned Tatatong'a to the royal court. The kurultai assembly was about to be convened, and the golden seals for awarding the generals needed to be carved first. The old man, Tatatong'a, was not only an expert in languages ​​and characters, but also a master of seal carving.

(End of this chapter)