To my understanding 'horn' is 'eber' in classical Mongolian vs. эвэр in modern Mongolian. Can anyone give some context into how Buryat has seemingly preserved the "original" form? Does it have to do with Mongolian standardization (e.g. from certain dialect), transcription, or what's going on here?

Genuinely not sure what to make of this. According to her, Qing's spatial isolation (空間隔離) was for the safety of both the Han and 生番, which is believable. But surely colonial projects are inherently expansionist, regardless of the "land-hungry Han settlers."

Came across this article arguing that Qing's approach towards the aboriginals in Taiwan wasn't one of exploitation since it was "security-orientated and deliberately non-expansive." I don't see how such a "security-oriented" motif isn't based on territorial exploitation.

Here (百家姓) 'Phags-pa 沈 would transliterate into "zhim", would it not? As in it's not ꡮ, but ꡚ ? Perhaps it's only a relative distinction, but I'm still wondering what would be a semi-accurate latin transliteration of 沈 from some sort of Middle Chinese? It seems close(?) to modern Hakka 'shim'.

This book has Chinese phonetic transliteration marked above the Manchu text. Very cute.