The Secret History of the Mongols (Traditional Mongolian: Mongγol-un niγuca tobčiyan, Khalkha Mongolian: Монголын нууц товчоо, Mongolyn nuuts tovchoo) is the oldest surviving Mongolian-language literary work. It was written for the Mongol royal family some time after Genghis Khan's death in AD 1227, by an anonymous author and probably originally in the Uyghur script, though the surviving texts all derive from transcriptions or translations into Chinese characters dating from the end of the 14th century, compiled by the Ming dynasty under the name The Secret History of the Yuan Dynasty .