KITAN TRANSCRIPTIONS OF CHINESE VELAR INITIALS

This paper deals with the transcriptions of Chinese velar initials in the Kitan Small Script. We carried out a phonological analysis of the Kitan language as reflected in the transcriptions by comparing the transcriptions of Chinese words in the Kitan Small Script with those in the Mongolian/Uyghur script. This analysis demonstrates that Kitan has two velar consonants and one uvular consonant, and the transcriptions of the Chinese velar initials found in the Kitan Small Script reflect the distinction between velar and uvular consonants as seen in the Mongolian/Uyghur script.