lingvo.wikisort.org - Language

Mongolian[note 1] is the official language of Mongolia and both the most widely spoken and best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the ethnic Mongol residents of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China.[1] In Mongolia, the Khalkha dialect is predominant, and is currently written in both Cyrillic and traditional Mongolian script. In Inner Mongolia, the language is dialectally more diverse and is written in the traditional Mongolian script. However, Mongols in both countries often use Latin for convenience on the Internet.[5]

Mongolian
монгол хэл ᠮᠣᠩᠭᠣᠯ ᠬᠡᠯᠡ Mongol
Pronunciation	[ˈmɔ̙̃ɴɢɞ̜̆ɮ çe̝ɮ]
Native to	Mongolian Plateau
Region	All of Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, Buryatia, Kalmykia; parts of Irkutsk Oblast, Zabaykalsky Krai in Russia; parts of Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Xinjiang, Gansu and Qinghai provinces in China; Issyk-Kul Region in Kyrgyzstan
Ethnicity	Mongols
Native speakers	5.2 million (2005)[1]
Language family	Mongolic Mongolian
Early forms	Middle Mongolian Classical Mongolian language
Standard forms	Khalkha (Mongolia) Chakhar (China)
Dialects	Khalkha Chakhar Khorchin Kharchin Baarin Xilingol Darkhad Alasha
Writing system	Traditional Mongolian (in China and Mongolia) Mongolian Cyrillic (in Mongolia and Russia) Mongolian Braille ʼPhags-pa (historical, among others)
Official status
Official language in	Mongolia  China Inner Mongolia[2] Xinjiang Bortala Mongol Autonomous Prefecture Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture Hoboksar Mongol Autonomous County Qinghai Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture
Regulated by	Mongolia: State Language Council,[3] China: Council for Language and Literature Work[4]
Language codes
ISO 639-1	mn
ISO 639-2	mon
ISO 639-3	mon – inclusive code Individual codes: khk – Khalkha Mongolian mvf – Peripheral Mongolian (part)
Glottolog	mong1331
Linguasphere	part of 44-BAA-b
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In the discussion of grammar to follow, the variety of Mongolian treated is Standard Khalkha Mongolian (i.e. the standard written language as formalized in the writing conventions and in grammar as taught in schools), but much of what is to be said is also valid for vernacular (spoken) Khalkha and for other Mongolian dialects, especially Chakhar.

Some classify several other Mongolic languages like Buryat and Oirat as dialects of Mongolian, but this classification is not in line with the current international standard.

Mongolian is a language with vowel harmony and a complex syllabic structure compared to other Mongolic languages, this syllablic structure allows clusters of up to three consonants syllable-finally. It is a typical agglutinative language that relies on suffix chains in the verbal and nominal domains. While there is a basic word order, subject–object–predicate, ordering among noun phrases is relatively free, as grammatical roles are indicated by a system of about eight grammatical cases. There are five voices. Verbs are marked for voice, aspect, tense and epistemic modality/evidentiality. In sentence linking, a special role is played by converbs.

Modern Mongolian evolved from Middle Mongol, the language spoken in the Mongol Empire of the 13th and 14th centuries. In the transition, a major shift in the vowel-harmony paradigm occurred, long vowels developed, the case system changed slightly, and the verbal system was restructured. Mongolian is related to the extinct Khitan language. It was believed that Mongolian was related to Turkic, Tungusic, Korean and Japonic languages but this view is now seen as obsolete by a majority of (but not all) comparative linguists. These languages have been grouped under the Altaic language family and contrasted with the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area. However, instead of a common genetic origin, Clauson, Doerfer, and Shcherbak proposed that Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic languages form a language Sprachbund, rather than common origin.[6] Mongolian literature is well attested in written form from the 13th century but has earlier Mongolic precursors in the literature of the Khitan and other Xianbei peoples. The Bugut inscription dated to 584 CE and the Inscription of Hüis Tolgoi dated to 604–620 CE appear to be the oldest substantial Mongolic or Para-Mongolic texts discovered.

Geographic distribution

Mongolian is the official national language of Mongolia, where it is spoken (but not always written) by nearly 3.6 million people (2014 estimate),[7] and the official provincial language (both spoken and written forms) of Inner Mongolia, China, where there are at least 4.1 million ethnic Mongols.[8] Across the whole of China, the language is spoken by roughly half of the country's 5.8 million ethnic Mongols (2005 estimate)[7] However, the exact number of Mongolian speakers in China is unknown, as there is no data available on the language proficiency of that country's citizens. The use of Mongolian in Inner Mongolia, has witnessed periods of decline and revival over the last few hundred years. The language experienced a decline during the late Qing period, a revival between 1947 and 1965, a second decline between 1966 and 1976, a second revival between 1977 and 1992, and a third decline between 1995 and 2012.[9] However, in spite of the decline of the Mongolian language in some of Inner Mongolia's urban areas and educational spheres, the ethnic identity of the urbanized Chinese-speaking Mongols is most likely going to survive due to the presence of urban ethnic communities.[10] The multilingual situation in Inner Mongolia does not appear to obstruct efforts by ethnic Mongols to preserve their language.[11][12] Although an unknown number of Mongols in China, such as the Tumets, may have completely or partially lost the ability to speak their language, they are still registered as ethnic Mongols and continue to identify themselves as ethnic Mongols.[7][13] The children of inter-ethnic Mongol-Chinese marriages also claim to be and are registered as ethnic Mongols so they can benefit from the preferential policies for minorities in education, healthcare, family planning, school admissions, the hiring and promotion, the financing and taxation of businesses, and regional infrastructural support given to ethnic minorities in China.[14][15] In 2020, the Chinese government required three subjects — language and literature, politics, and history — to be taught in Mandarin in Mongolian-language primary and secondary schools in the Inner Mongolia since September, which caused widespread protests among ethnic Mongol communities.[16][17] These protests were quickly suppressed by the Chinese government.[18]

Classification and dialects

Mongolian belongs to the Mongolic languages. The delimitation of the Mongolian language within Mongolic is a much disputed theoretical problem, one whose resolution is impeded by the fact that existing data for the major varieties is not easily arrangeable according to a common set of linguistic criteria. Such data might account for the historical development of the Mongolian dialect continuum, as well as for its sociolinguistic qualities. Though phonological and lexical studies are comparatively well developed,[19] the basis has yet to be laid for a comparative morphosyntactic study, for example between such highly diverse varieties as Khalkha and Khorchin.[20][21]

The status of certain varieties in the Mongolic group—whether they are languages distinct from Mongolian or just dialects of it—is disputed. There are at least three such varieties: Oirat (including the Kalmyk variety) and Buryat, both of which are spoken in Russia, Mongolia, and China; and Ordos, spoken around Inner Mongolia's Ordos City.[22]

There is no disagreement that the Khalkha dialect of the Mongolian state is Mongolian.[23] Beyond this point, however, agreement ends. For example, the influential classification of Sanžeev (1953) proposed a "Mongolian language" consisting of just the three dialects Khalkha, Chakhar, and Ordos, with Buryat and Oirat judged to be independent languages.[24]

On the other hand, Luvsanvandan (1959) proposed a much broader "Mongolian language" consisting of a Central dialect (Khalkha, Chakhar, Ordos), an Eastern dialect (Kharchin, Khorchin), a Western dialect (Oirat, Kalmyk), and a Northern dialect (consisting of two Buryat varieties).[25] Additionally, the Language Policy in the People’s Republic of China: Theory and Practice Since 1949, states that Mongolian can be classified into four dialects: the Khalkha dialect in the middle, the Horcin-Haracin dialect in the East, Oriat-Hilimag in the west, and Bargu-Buriyad in the north.[26]

Some Western scholars[27] propose that the relatively well researched Ordos variety is an independent language due to its conservative syllable structure and phoneme inventory. While the placement of a variety like Alasha,[28] which is under the cultural influence of Inner Mongolia but historically tied to Oirat, and of other border varieties like Darkhad would very likely remain problematic in any classification,[29] the central problem remains the question of how to classify Chakhar, Khalkha, and Khorchin in relation to each other and in relation to Buryat and Oirat.[30][31] The split of [tʃ] into [tʃ] before *i and [ts] before all other reconstructed vowels, which is found in Mongolia but not in Inner Mongolia, is often cited as a fundamental distinction,[32] for example Proto-Mongolic *tʃil, Khalkha /tʃiɮ/, Chakhar /tʃil/ 'year' versus Proto-Mongolic *tʃøhelen, Khalkha /tsoːɮəŋ/, Chakhar /tʃoːləŋ/ 'few'.[33] On the other hand, the split between the past tense verbal suffixes -/sŋ/ in the Central varieties v. -/dʒɛː/ in the Eastern varieties[34] is usually seen as a merely stochastic difference.[35]

In Inner Mongolia, official language policy divides the Mongolian language into three dialects: Southern Mongolian, Oirat, and Barghu-Buryat. Southern Mongolian is said to consist of Chakhar, Ordos, Baarin, Khorchin, Kharchin, and Alasha. The authorities have synthesized a literary standard for Mongolian in whose grammar is said to be based on Southern Mongolian and whose pronunciation is based on the Chakhar dialect as spoken in the Plain Blue Banner.[36] Dialectologically, however, western Southern Mongolian dialects are closer to Khalkha than they are to eastern Southern Mongolian dialects: e.g. Chakhar is closer to Khalkha than to Khorchin.[37]

Besides Mongolian, or "Central Mongolic", other languages in the Mongolic grouping include Dagur, spoken in eastern Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang, and in the vicinity of Tacheng in Xinjiang; the Shirongolic subgroup Shira Yugur, Bonan, Dongxiang, Monguor, and Kangjia, spoken in Qinghai and Gansu regions; and the possibly extinct Moghol of Afghanistan.[38]

As for the classification of the Mongolic family relative to other languages, the Altaic theory (which is increasingly less well received among linguists)[39] proposes that the Mongolic family is a member of a larger Altaic family that would also include the Turkic and Tungusic, and usually Koreanic languages and Japonic languages as well.

List of dialects

Juha Janhunen (2003: 179)[40] lists the following Mongol dialects, most of which are spoken in Inner Mongolia.

• Tongliao group
  • Horchin
  • Jasagtu
  • Jarut
  • Jalait
  • Dörbet
  • Gorlos
• Juu Uda group
  • Aru Horchin
  • Baarin
  • Ongniut
  • Naiman
  • Aohan
• Josotu group
  • Harachin
  • Tümet
• Ulan cab group
  • Cahar
  • Urat
  • Darhan
  • Muumingan
  • Dörben Küüket
  • Keshigten
• Shilingol group
  • Üdzümüchin
  • Huuchit
  • Abaga
  • Abaganar
  • Sönit
• Outer Mongolian group
  • Halh
  • Hotogoit
  • Darhad
  • Congol
  • Sartul
  • Dariganga

Juha Janhunen (2012)

In Juha Janhunen's book titled "Mongolian", he groups the Mongolic language family into 4 distinct linguistic branches:[41]

• the Dagur branch, made up of just the Dagur language, which is spoken in the northeast area of Manchuria in China, specifically in Morin Dawa Daur Autonomous Banner of Hulunbuir, and in Meilisi Daur District of Qiqihar, Heilongjiang.
• the Moghol branch, made up of just the Moghol language, spoken in Afghanistan, and is possibly extinct.
• the Shirongolic (or Southern Mongolic) branch, made up of roughly 7 languages, and which are spoken in the Amdo region of Tibet.
• the Common Mongolic (or Central Mongolic) branch, made up of roughly 6 languages, and which are spoken centrally in the country of Mongolia, as well as Manchuria and Inner Mongolia to the east, Ordos to the south, Dzungaria to the west, and Siberia to the north.

Shirongolic

The Shirongolic branch of the Mongolic languages, part of a Gansu–Qinghai Sprachbund, is made up of roughly 7 languages, grouped in the following way:[41]

• Shira Yughur
• Monguor group
  • Mongghul
  • Mongghuor
  • Mangghuer
• Bonan group
  • Bonan
  • Kangjia
  • Santa

Common Mongolic

The Common Mongolic (or Central Mongolic) branch of the Mongolic languages is made up of roughly 6 languages, grouped in the following way:[41]

• Khalkha (Halh) is spoken in Mongolia, but some dialects (e.g. Cahar) is also spoken in the Inner Mongolia region of China.
• Khorchin (Horchin) is spoken to the east in eastern Inner Mongolia and Manchuria.
• Ordos is spoken to the south, in Ordos City in Inner Mongolia.
• Oirat, is spoken to the west, in Dzungaria.
• Khamnigan (Hamnigan) is spoken in northeast Mongolia and in northwest of Manchuria.
• Buryat (Buriad) is spoken to the north, in the Republic of Buryatia of Russia, as well as in the Barga region of Hulun Buir League in Inner Mongolia.

Phonology

The following description is based primarily on the Khalkha dialect as spoken in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia's capital. The phonologies of other varieties such as Ordos, Khorchin, and even Chakhar, differ considerably.[42] This section discusses the phonology of Khalkha Mongolian with subsections on Vowels, Consonants, Phonotactics and Stress.

Vowels

The standard language has seven monophthong vowel phonemes. They are aligned into three vowel harmony groups by a parameter called ATR (advanced tongue root); the groups are −ATR, +ATR, and neutral. This alignment seems to have superseded an alignment according to oral backness. However, some scholars still describe Mongolian as being characterized by a distinction between front vowels and back vowels, and the front vowel spellings 'ö' and 'ü' are still often used in the West to indicate two vowels which were historically front. The Mongolian vowel system also has rounding harmony.

Length is phonemic for vowels, and each of the seven phonemes occurs short or long. Phonetically, short /o/ has become centralized to the central vowel [ɵ].

In the following table, the seven vowel phonemes, with their length variants, are arranged and described phonetically. The vowels in the Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet are:

Mongolian Cyrillic	IPA	Romanization
а, аа	[a, aː]	a, aa
и, ий/ы	[i, iː]	i, ii
о, оо	[ɔ, ɔː]	o, oo
ө, өө	[ɵ, oː] /o, oː/	ö, öö
у, уу	[ʊ, ʊː]	u, uu
ү, үү	[u, uː]	ü, üü
э, ээ	[e, eː]	e, ee

	Front		Central		Back
	Short	Long	Short	Long	Short	Long
Close	i	iː			u	uː
Near-Close					ʊ	ʊː
Close-Mid	e	eː	ɵ			oː
Open-mid					ɔ	ɔː
Open			a	aː

Khalkha also has four diphthongs: historically /ui, ʊi, ɔi, ai/ but are pronounced more like [ʉe̯, ʊe̯, ɞe̯, æe̯];[43] e.g. ой in нохой (nohoi) [nɔ̙ˈχɞe̯] 'dog', ай in далай (dalai) [taˈɮæe̯] sea', уй in уйлах (uilah) [ˈʊe̯ɮɐχ] 'to cry', үй in үйлдвэр (üildver) [ˈʉe̯ɮtw̜ɘr] 'factory', эй in хэрэгтэй (heregtei) [çiɾɪxˈtʰe] 'necessary'. There are three additional rising diphthongs /ia/ (иа), /ʊa/ (уа) /ei/ (эй); e.g. иа in амиараа (amiaraa) [aˈmʲæɾa] 'individually', уа in хуаран (huaran) [ˈχʷaɾɐɴ] 'barracks'.[44]

Allophones

This table below lists vowel allophones (note that short vowels allophones in non-initial positions are used interchangeably with schwa):[45]

Short	Initial positions	[a]	[e]	[i]	[ɔ]	[o]	[ʊ]	[u]
	Non-initial positions	[ă]	[ĕ]	[ĭ]	[ɔ̆]	[ŏ]	[ʊ̆]	[ŭ]
		[ə]
Long	Initial positions	[aː]	[eː]	[iː]	[ɔː]	[oː]	[ʊː]	[uː]
	Non-initial positions	[a]	[e]	[i]	[ɔ]	[o]	[ʊ]	[u]

ATR harmony

Mongolian divides vowels into three groups in a system of vowel harmony:

	+ATR ("front")	−ATR ("back")	Neutral
IPA	e, u, o	a, ʊ, ɔ	i
Cyrillic	э, ү, ө	а, у, о	и and й

For historical reasons, these have been traditionally labeled as "front" vowels and "back" vowels. Indeed, in Mongolian romanizations, the vowels /o/ and /u/ are often conventionally rendered as ⟨ö⟩ and ⟨ü⟩, while the vowels /ɔ/ and /ʊ/ are expressed as ⟨o⟩ and ⟨u⟩. However, for modern Mongolian phonology, it is more appropriate to instead characterize the two vowel-harmony groups by the dimension of tongue root position. There is also one neutral vowel, /i/, not belonging to either group.

All the vowels in a noncompound word, including all its suffixes, must belong to the same group. If the first vowel is −ATR, then every vowel of the word must be either /i/ or a −ATR vowel. Likewise, if the first vowel is a +ATR vowel, then every vowel of the word must be either /i/ or a +ATR vowel. In the case of suffixes, which must change their vowels to conform to different words, two patterns predominate. Some suffixes contain an archiphoneme /A/ that can be realized as /a, ɔ, e, o/; e.g.

• /orx/ 'household' + -Ar (instrumental) → /orxor/ 'by a household'
• /xarʊɮ/ 'sentry' + -Ar (instrumental) → /xarʊɮar/ 'by a sentry'

Other suffixes can occur in /U/ being realized as /ʊ, u/, in which case all −ATR vowels lead to /ʊ/ and all +ATR vowels lead to /u/; e.g.

• /aw/ 'to take"l' + -Uɮ (causative) → /awʊɮ/

If the only vowel in the word stem is /i/, the suffixes will use the +ATR suffix forms.[46]

Rounding harmony

Mongolian also has rounding harmony, which does not apply to close vowels. If a stem contains /o/ (or /ɔ/), a suffix that is specified for an open vowel will have [o] (or [ɔ], respectively) as well. However, this process is blocked by the presence of /u/ (or /ʊ/) and /ei/; e.g. /ɔr-ɮɔ/ 'came in', but /ɔr-ʊɮ-ɮa/ 'inserted'.[47]

Vowel length

The pronunciation of long and short vowels depends on the syllable's position in the word. In word-initial syllables, there is a phonemic contrast in vowel length. A long vowel has about 208% the length of a short vowel. In word-medial and word-final syllables, formerly long vowels are now only 127% as long as short vowels in initial syllables, but they are still distinct from initial-syllable short vowels. Short vowels in noninitial syllables differ from short vowels in initial syllables by being only 71% as long and by being centralized in articulation. As they are nonphonemic, their position is determined according to phonotactic requirements.[48]

Consonants

The following table lists the consonants of Khalkha Mongolian. The consonants enclosed in parentheses occur only in loanwords.[49]

		Labial		Dental		Velar		Uvular
		plain	pal.	plain	pal.	plain	pal.
Nasal		m	mʲ	n	nʲ	ŋ
Plosive	unaspirated	p	pʲ	t	tʲ	ɡ	ɡʲ	ɢ
	aspirated	(pʰ)	(pʲʰ)	tʰ	tʲʰ	(kʰ)	(kʲʰ)
Affricate	unaspirated			ts	tʃ
	aspirated			tsʰ	tʃʰ
Fricative	central	(f)		s	ʃ	x	xʲ
	lateral			ɮ	ɮʲ
Trill				r	rʲ
Approximant		w̜	w̜ʲ		j

A rare feature among the world's languages, Mongolian lacks the voiced lateral approximant, [l] and the voiceless velar plosive [k]; instead, it has a voiced alveolar lateral fricative, /ɮ/, which is often realized as voiceless [ɬ].[50] In word-final position, /n/ (if not followed by a vowel in historical forms) is realized as [ŋ]. The occurrence of palatalized consonant phonemes seems to be restricted to words that contain [−ATR] vowels.[51] Aspirated consonants are preaspirated in medial and word-final contexts, devoicing preceding consonants and vowels. Devoiced short vowels are often deleted.[52]

Syllable structure and phonotactics

The maximal syllable is CVVCCC, where the last C is a word-final suffix. A single short vowel rarely appears in syllable-final position. If a word was monosyllabic historically, *CV has become CVV. [ŋ] is restricted to codas (else it becomes [n]), and /p/ and /pʲ/ do not occur in codas for historical reasons. For two-consonant clusters, the following restrictions obtain:

• a palatalized consonant can be preceded only by another palatalized consonant or sometimes by /ɢ/ and /ʃ/
• /ŋ/ may precede only /ʃ, x, ɡ, ɡʲ/ and /ɢ/
• /j/ does not seem to appear in second position
• /p/ and /pʲ/ do not occur as first consonant and as second consonant only if preceded by /m/ or /ɮ/ or their palatalized counterparts.

Clusters that do not conform to these restrictions will be broken up by an epenthetic nonphonemic vowel in a syllabification that takes place from right to left. For instance, hoyor 'two', azhil 'work', and saarmag 'neutral' are, phonemically, /xɔjr/, /atʃɮ/, and /saːrmɡ/ respectively. In such cases, an epenthetic vowel is inserted to prevent disallowed consonant clusters. Thus, in the examples given above, the words are phonetically [ˈxɔjɔ̆r], [ˈatʃĭɮ], and [ˈsaːrmăɢ]. The phonetic form of the epenthetic vowel follows from vowel harmony triggered by the vowel in the preceding syllable. Usually it is a centralized version of the same sound, with the following exceptions: preceding /u/ produces [e]; /i/ will be ignored if there is a nonneutral vowel earlier in the word; and a postalveolar or palatalized consonant will be followed by an epenthetic [i], as in [ˈatʃĭɮ].[53]

Stress

Stress in Mongolian is nonphonemic (does not distinguish different meanings) and thus is considered to depend entirely on syllable structure. But scholarly opinions on stress placement diverge sharply.[54] Most native linguists, regardless of which dialect they speak, claim that stress falls on the first syllable. Between 1941 and 1975, several Western scholars proposed that the leftmost heavy syllable gets the stress. Yet other positions were taken in works published between 1835 and 1915.

Walker (1997)[55] proposes that stress falls on the rightmost heavy syllable unless this syllable is word-final:

HˈHLL	байгуулагдах	[pæ.ˈɢʊ.ɮəɢ.təx]	'to be organized'
LHˈHL	хөндийрүүлэн	[xɵn.ti.ˈɾu.ɮəŋ]	'separating' (adverbial)
LHHˈHL	Улаанбаатрынхан	[ʊ.ɮan.paːtʰ.ˈrin.xəŋ]	'the residents of Ulaanbaatar'
HˈHH	ууртайгаар	[ʊːr.ˈtʰæ.ɢar]	'angrily'
ˈHLH	уйтгартай	[ˈʊɪtʰ.ɢər.tʰæ]	'sad'

A "heavy syllable" is defined as one that is at least the length of a full vowel; short word-initial syllables are thereby excluded. If a word is bisyllabic and the only heavy syllable is word-final, it gets stressed anyway. In cases where there is only one phonemic short word-initial syllable, even this syllable can get the stress:[56]

LˈH	галуу	[ɢa.ˈɮʊ]	'goose'
ˈLL	уншсан	[ˈʊnʃ.səɴ]	'having read'

More recently, the most extensive collection of phonetic data so far in Mongolian studies has been applied to a partial account of stress placement in the closely related Chakhar dialect.[57][58] The conclusion is drawn that di- and trisyllabic words with a short first syllable are stressed on the second syllable. But if their first syllable is long, then the data for different acoustic parameters seems to support conflicting conclusions: intensity data often seems to indicate that the first syllable is stressed, while F0 seems to indicate that it is the second syllable that is stressed.[59]

Grammar

The grammar in this article is also based primarily on Khalkha Mongolian. Unlike the phonology, most of what is said about morphology and syntax also holds true for Chakhar,[60] while Khorchin is somewhat more diverse.[61]

Forming questions

When asking questions in Mongolian, a question marker is used to show a question is being asked. There are different question markers for yes/no questions and for information questions. For yes/no questions, уу and үү are used when the last word ends in a short vowel or a consonant, and their use depends on the vowel harmony of the previous word. When the last word ends in a long vowel or a diphthong, then юу and юү are used (again depending on vowel harmony). For information questions (questions asking for information with an interrogative word like who, what, when, where, why, etc.), the question particles are вэ and бэ, depending on the last sound in the previous word.

1. Yes/No Question Particles -уу/үү/юу/юү (uu/üü/yuu/yuü)
2. Open Ended Question Particles -бэ/вэ (be/ve)

Basic interrogative pronouns -юу (yuu 'what'), -хаана (haana 'where'), хэн (hen 'who'), яагаад (yaagaad 'why'), яаж (yaazh 'how'), хэзээ (hezee 'when'), ямар (yamar 'what kind')

Verbs

In Mongolian, verbs have a stem and an ending. For example, the stems бай, сур, and үзэ are suffixed with х, ах, and х respectively: байx, сурax, and үзэx. These are the infinitive or dictionary forms.[62] The present/future tense is formed by adding either на, но, нэ, or нө to the stem. These do not change for different pronouns, so сурна 'I/you/he/she/we/you all/they study' will always be сурна. байна is the present/future tense verb for 'to be'; likewise, уншина is 'to read', and үзнэ is 'to see'. The final vowel is barely pronounced and is not pronounced at all if the word after begins with a vowel, so сайн байна уу is pronounced sain bain uu [sæe̯m‿pæe̯n‿ʊː] 'hello, how are you'.[62]

1. Past Tense -сан/сон/сэн/сөн (san/son/sen/sön)
2. Informed Past Tense (any point in past) -в (v)
3. Informed Past Tense (not long ago) -лаа/лоо/лээ/лөө (laa/loo/lee/löö)
4. Non-Informed Past Tense (generally a slightly to relatively more distant past) -жээ/чээ (zhee/chee)
5. Present Perfect Tense -даг/дог/дэг/дөг (dag/dog/deg/dög)
6. Present Progressive Tense -ж/ч байна (zh/ch baina)
7. (Reflective) Present Progressive Tense -аа/оо/ээ/өө (aa/oo/ee/öö)
8. Simple Present Tense -на/но/нэ/нө (na/no/ne/nö)
9. Simple Future -х (+болно) (h (+bolno))
10. Infinitive -х (h)

Negative form

There are several ways to form negatives in Mongolian.[63] For example:

1. биш (bish) – the negative form of the verb 'to be' (байх baih) – биш means 'is/are not'.
2. -гүй (güi). This suffix is added to verbs, so явах (yawah 'go/will go') becomes явахгүй (yawahgüi 'do not go/will not go').
3. үгүй (ügüi) is the word for 'no'.
4. битгий (bitgii) is used for negative imperatives; e.g. битгий яваарай (bitgii yawaarai 'don't go')
5. бүү (büü) is the formal version of битгий.

Morphology

Modern Mongolian is an agglutinative—almost exclusively suffixing—language, with the only exception being reduplication.[64] Mongolian also does not have gendered nouns, or definite articles like "the".[65] Most of the suffixes consist of a single morpheme. There are many derivational morphemes.[66] For example, the word baiguullagiinh consists of the root bai 'to be', an epenthetic ‑g‑, the causative ‑uul‑ (hence 'to find'), the derivative suffix ‑laga that forms nouns created by the action (like -ation in organisation) and the complex suffix ‑iinh denoting something that belongs to the modified word (‑iin would be genitive).

Nominal compounds are quite frequent. Some derivational verbal suffixes are rather productive, e.g. yarih 'to speak', yarilc 'to speak with each other'. Formally, the independent words derived using verbal suffixes can roughly be divided into three classes: final verbs, which can only be used sentence-finally, i.e. ‑na (mainly future or generic statements) or ‑ö (second person imperative);[67] participles (often called "verbal nouns"), which can be used clause-finally or attributively, i.e. ‑san (perfect-past)[68] or ‑maar 'want to'; and converbs, which can link clauses or function adverbially, i.e. ‑zh (qualifies for any adverbial function or neutrally connects two sentences) or ‑tal (the action of the main clause takes place until the action expressed by the suffixed verb begins).[69]

Roughly speaking, Mongolian has between seven and nine cases: nominative (unmarked), genitive, dative-locative, accusative, ablative, instrumental, comitative, privative and directional, though the final two are not always considered part of the case paradigm.[70][41] If a direct object is definite, it must take the accusative, while it must take the nominative if it is indefinite.[71][72] In addition to case, a number of postpositions exist that usually govern the genitive, dative-locative, comitative and privative cases, including a marked form of the nominative (which can itself then take further case forms). There is also a possible attributive case (when a noun is used attributively), which is unmarked in most nouns but takes the suffix ‑н (‑n) with a minority.[73] Nouns can also take a reflexive-possessive suffix, indicating that the marked noun is possessed by the subject of the sentence: bi najz(-)aa avarsan I friend-reflexive-possessive save-perfect "I saved my friend".[74] However, there are also somewhat noun-like adjectives to which case suffixes seemingly cannot be attached directly unless there is ellipsis.[75]

Mongolian noun cases[76]

Case	Suffix	English preposition	Example (Cyrillic)	Transliteration	Translation
nominative	–	–	ном	nom	book
accusative	‑г (‑g) ‑ыг (‑iig), ‑ийг (‑iig)	–	номыг	nomiig	the book (as object)
genitive	‑н (‑n) ‑ы (‑ii), ‑ий (‑ii) ‑ын (‑iin), ‑ийн (‑iin) ‑гийн (‑giin)	of	номын	nomiin	of (a) book; book's
dative-locative	‑д (‑d) ‑т (‑t) ‑ад (‑ad), ‑од (‑od), ‑өд (‑öd), ‑эд (‑ed) ‑ид (‑id) ‑нд (‑nd) ‑анд (‑and), ‑онд (‑ond), ‑өнд (‑önd), ‑энд (‑end) ‑инд (‑ind)	on, to, at, in	номд	nomd	in (a) book
ablative	‑аас (‑aas), ‑оос (‑oos), ‑өөс (‑öös), ‑ээс (‑ees) ‑иас (‑ias), ‑иос (‑ios), ‑иөс (‑iös), ‑иэс (‑ies) ‑наас (‑naas), ‑ноос (‑noos), ‑нөөс (‑nöös), ‑нээс (‑nees)	from	номоос	nomoos	from (a) book
instrumental	‑аар (‑aar), ‑оор (‑oor), ‑өөр (‑öör), ‑ээр (‑eer) ‑иар (‑iar), ‑иор (‑ior), ‑иөр (‑iör), ‑иэр (‑ier)	with	номоор	nomoor	with (e.g. by means of a) book
comitative	‑тай (‑tay), ‑той (‑toy), ‑тэй (‑tey)	together with	номтой	nomtoi	with (e.g. alongside a) book
privative	‑гүй (‑güy)	without	номгүй	nomgüy	without (a) book
directional	руу (ruu), рүү (rüü) луу (luu), лүү (lüü)	towards	ном руу	nom ruu	towards (a) book

Note: the rules governing the morphology of Mongolian case endings are intricate; particularly in relation to loanwords. The rules given below are only indicative. In many situations, further (more general) rules must also be taken into account in order to produce the correct form: these include the presence of an unstable nasal or unstable velar, and the rules governing when the vowel before the final consonant must be deleted from the stem on the addition of a case ending. The additional morphological rules specific to loanwords are not covered.

Nominative case

The nominative case is used when a noun (or other part of speech acting as one) is the subject of the sentence, and the agent of whatever action (not just physically) takes place in the sentence. In Mongolian, the nominative case does not have an ending.

Accusative case

The accusative case is used when a noun acts as a direct object (or just “object”), and receives action from a transitive verb. It is formed by:

1. ‑г (‑g) after stems ending in long vowels or diphthongs, or when a stem ending in н (n) has an unstable velar (unstable g).
2. ‑ыг (‑iig) after back vowel stems ending in unpalatalized consonants (except г and к), short vowels (except и) or iotated vowels.
3. ‑ийг (‑iig) after front vowel stems ending in consonants, short vowels or iotated vowels; and after all stems ending in the palatalized consonants ж (j), ч (ch) and ш (sh), as well as г (g), к (k), и (i) or ь (i).

Note: If the stem ends in a short vowel or ь, it is replaced by the suffix.

Genitive case

The genitive case is used to show possession of something. It is formed by adding one of the following endings: ‑н (n) ‑ы (i) ‑ий (ii) ‑ийн (iin) ‑ын (in) ‑гийн (giin).[77] For example:

1. ‑н (‑n) is added to all words which end with a diphthong or ий (ii).
2. ‑ы (‑ii) is added to back vowel words ending in -н (n).
3. ‑ий (‑ii) is added to front vowel words ending in н (n).
4. ‑ийн (‑iin) is added to front vowel words ending in short vowels or consonants (except those ending in н), and to back vowel words ending in ж, ч, ш, г, ь, и, and the short vowel will be dropped.
5. ‑ын (‑iin) is added to all other back vowel words ending with short vowels or other consonants (except those ending in н).
6. ‑гийн (‑giin) is added to all front and back vowel word ending with long vowels.

Dative-locative case

The dative-locative case is used to show the location of something, or to specify that something is in something else.[63]

• For regular stems or those with an unstable velar, it is formed by:
  1. ‑д (‑d) after stems ending in vowels or the vocalized consonants л (l), м (m) and н (n), and a small number of stems ending in в (v) and р (r).
  2. ‑т (‑t) after stems ending in г (g) and к (k), most stems ending in в (v) and р (r), and stems ending in с (s) when it is preceded by a vowel.
  3. ‑ид (‑id) after stems ending in the palatalized consonants ж (j), ч (ch) and ш (sh).
  4. ‑ад (‑ad), ‑од (‑od), ‑өд (‑öd) or ‑эд (‑ed) after all other stems (depending on the vowel harmony of the stem).

• For stems with an unstable nasal, it is formed by:
  1. ‑нд (‑nd) after stems ending in vowels.
  2. ‑инд (‑ind) after stems ending in the palatalized consonants ж (j), ч (ch) and ш (sh).
  3. ‑анд (‑and), ‑онд (‑ond), ‑өнд (‑önd) or ‑энд (‑end) after all other stems (depending on the vowel harmony of the stem).

Plurals

Source:[78]

Plurality may be left unmarked, but there are overt plurality markers, some of which are restricted to humans. A noun that is modified by a numeral usually does not take any plural affix.[79] There are four ways of forming plurals in Mongolian:

1. Some plurals are formed by adding -нууд -nuud or -нүүд -nüüd. If the last vowel of the previous word is a (a), o (y), or ɔ (o), then -нууд is used; e.g. харx harh 'rat' becomes xapхнууд harhnuud 'rats'. If the last vowel of the previous word is e (э), ʊ (ө), ü (ү), or i (и) then нүүд is used; e.g. нүд nüd 'eye' becomes нүднүүд nüdnüüd 'eyes'.
2. In other plurals, just -ууд -uud or -үүд -üüd is added without the "n"; e.g. хот hot 'city' becomes хотууд hotuud 'cities', and ээж eezh 'mother' becomes ээжүүд eezhüüd 'mothers'.
3. Another way of forming plurals is by adding -нар -nar; e.g. багш bagsh 'teacher' becomes багш нар bagsh nar 'teachers'.
4. The final way is an irregular form used: хүн hün 'person' becomes хүмүүс hümüüs 'people'.

Pronouns

Personal pronouns exist for the first and second person, while the old demonstrative pronouns have come to form third person (proximal and distal) pronouns. Other word (sub-)classes include interrogative pronouns, conjunctions (which take participles), spatials, and particles, the last being rather numerous.[80]

Personal Pronouns[81]

			Nominative (subject)	Accusative (object)	Genitive (possession)	Oblique stem (all other cases)
1st person	singular		Би bi Би bi	Намайг namaig Намайг namaig	Миний minii Миний minii	Над- nad- Над- nad-
	plural	exclusive	Бид bid Бид bid	Биднийг bidniig Биднийг bidniig	Бидний bidnii Бидний bidnii	Бидн- bidn- Бидн- bidn-
		inclusive			Манай manai Манай manai	Ман- man- Ман- man-
2nd person	singular	familiar	Чи chi Чи chi	Чамайг chamaig Чамайг chamaig	Чиний chinii Чиний chinii	Чам- cham- Чам- cham-
		polite	Та ta Та ta	Таныг tanaig Таныг tanaig	Таны tanii Таны tanii
	plural		Та ta Нар nar Та Нар ta nar	–	Танай/ Tanai/ Та Ta Нарын Napriin Танай/ Та Нарын Tanai/ Ta Napriin	Тан- tan- Тан- tan-
3rd person	singular		Тэр ter Тэр ter	Түүнийг tüüniig Түүнийг tüüniig	Түүний tüünii Түүний tüünii	–
	plural		Тэд ted Нар nar Тэд Нар ted nar	Тэднийг tedniig Тэднийг tedniig	Тэд ted Нарын nariin Тэд Нарын ted nariin	–

Negation

Negation is mostly expressed by -güi (-гүй) after participles and by the negation particle bish (биш) after nouns and adjectives; negation particles preceding the verb (for example in converbal constructions) exist, but tend to be replaced by analytical constructions.[82]

Numbers

Pronunciation and writing of numbers in text

N	Text in Mongolian	N	Text in Mongolian	N	Text in Mongolian
0	тэг teg	10	арав araw	20	хорь, hori
1	нэг neg	11	арван нэг arwan neg	30	гуч guch
2	хоёр hoyor	12	арван хоёр arwan hoyor	40	дөч döch
3	гурав guraw	13	арван гурав arwan guraw	50	тавь tawi
4	дөрөв döröw	14	арван дөрөв arwan döröw	60	жар zhar
5	тав taw	15	арван тав arwan taw	70	дал dal
6	зургаа zurgaa	16	арван зургаа arwan zurgaa	80	ная nai
7	долоо doloo	17	арван долоо arwan doloo	90	ер yer
8	найм naim	18	арван найм arwan naim	100	нэг зуу neg zuu
9	ес yes	19	арван ес arwan yes	200	хоёр зуу hoyor zuu

Syntax

Differential case marking

Mongolian uses differential case marking, being a regular Differential Object Marking (DOM) language. DOM emerges from a complicated interaction of factors such as referentiality, animacy and topicality.

Mongolian also exhibits a specific type of Differential Subject Marking (DSM), in which the subjects of embedded clauses (including adverbial clauses) occur with accusative case.[83]

Phrase structure

The noun phrase has the order: demonstrative pronoun/numeral, adjective, noun.[84][72] Attributive sentences precede the whole NP. Titles or occupations of people, low numerals indicating groups, and focus clitics are put behind the head noun.[85] Possessive pronouns (in different forms) may either precede or follow the NP.[86] Examples:

The verbal phrase consists of the predicate in the center, preceded by its complements and by the adverbials modifying it and followed (mainly if the predicate is sentence-final) by modal particles,[87] as in the following example with predicate bichsen:

In this clause the adverbial, helehgüigeer 'without saying [so]' must precede the predicate's complement, üüniig 'it-accusative' in order to avoid syntactic ambiguity, since helehgüigeer is itself derived from a verb and hence an üüniig preceding it could be construed as its complement. If the adverbial was an adjective such as hurdan 'fast', it could optionally immediately precede the predicate. There are also cases in which the adverb must immediately precede the predicate.[88]

For Khalkha, the most complete treatment of the verbal forms is by Luvsanvandan (ed.) (1987). However, the analysis of predication presented here, while valid for Khalkha, is adapted from the description of Khorchin.[89]

Most often, of course, the predicate consists of a verb. However, there are several types of nominal predicative constructions, with or without a copula.[90] Auxiliaries that express direction and aktionsart (among other meanings) can with the assistance of a linking converb occupy the immediate postverbal position; e.g.

The next position is filled by converb suffixes in connection with the auxiliary, baj- 'to be', e.g.

Suffixes occupying this position express grammatical aspect; e.g. progressive and resultative. In the next position, participles followed by baj- may follow, e.g.,

Here, an explicit perfect and habituality can be marked, which is aspectual in meaning as well. This position may be occupied by multiple suffixes in a single predication, and it can still be followed by a converbal Progressive. The last position is occupied by suffixes that express tense, evidentiality, modality, and aspect.

Clauses

Unmarked phrase order is subject–object–predicate.[91][72] While the predicate generally has to remain in clause-final position, the other phrases are free to change order or to wholly disappear.[92] The topic tends to be placed clause-initially, new information rather at the end of the clause.[93] Topic can be overtly marked with bol, which can also mark contrastive focus,[94] overt additive focus ('even, also') can be marked with the clitic ch,[95] and overt restrictive focus with the clitic l ('only').[96]

The inventory of voices in Mongolian consists of passive, causative, reciprocal, plurative, and cooperative. In a passive sentence, the verb takes the suffix -gd- and the agent takes either dative or instrumental case, the first of which is more common. In the causative, the verb takes the suffix -uul-, the causee (the person caused to do something) in a transitive action (e.g. 'raise') takes dative or instrumental case, and the causee in an intransitive action (e.g. 'rise') takes accusative case. Causative morphology is also used in some passive contexts:

The semantic attribute of animacy is syntactically important: thus the sentence, 'the bread was eaten by me', which is acceptable in English, would not be acceptable in Mongolian. The reciprocal voice is marked by -ld-, the plurative by -cgaa-, and the cooperative by -lc-.[97]

Mongolian allows for adjectival depictives that relate to either the subject or the direct object, e.g. Liena nücgen untdag 'Lena sleeps naked', while adjectival resultatives are marginal.[98]

Complex sentences

One way to conjoin clauses is to have the first clause end in a converb, as in the following example using the converb -bol:

Some verbal nouns in the dative (or less often in the instrumental) function very similar to converbs:[99] e.g. replacing olbol in the preceding sentence with olohod find-imperfective-dative yields 'when we find it we'll give it to you'. Quite often, postpositions govern complete clauses. In contrast, conjunctions take verbal nouns without case:[100]

Finally, there is a class of particles, usually clause-initial, that are distinct from conjunctions but that also relate clauses:

Mongolian has a complementizer auxiliary verb ge- very similar to Japanese to iu. ge- literally means 'to say' and in converbal form gezh precedes either a psych verb or a verb of saying. As a verbal noun like gedeg (with ni) it can form a subset of complement clauses. As gene it may function as an evidentialis marker.[101]

Mongolian clauses tend to be combined paratactically, which sometimes gives rise to sentence structures which are subordinative despite resembling coordinative structures in European languages:[102]

In the subordinate clause the subject, if different from the subject of main clause, sometimes has to take accusative or genitive case.[103] There is marginal occurrence of subjects taking ablative case as well.[104] Subjects of attributive clauses in which the head has a function (as is the case for all English relative clauses) usually require that if the subject is not the head, then it take the genitive,[105] e.g. tüünii idsen hool that.one-genitive eat-perfect meal 'the meal that s/he had eaten'.

Loanwords and coined words

Mongolian first adopted loanwords from many languages including Old Turkic, Sanskrit (these often via Uyghur), Persian, Arabic, Tibetan,[106] Tungusic, and Chinese.[107] However, more recent loanwords come from Russian, English,[108] and Mandarin Chinese (mainly in Inner Mongolia).[109] Language commissions of the Mongolian state continuously translate new terminology into Mongolian,[110] so as the Mongolian vocabulary now has yerönhiilögch 'president' ('generalizer') and shar airah 'beer' ('yellow kumys'). There are several loan translations, e.g. galt tereg 'train' ('fire-having cart') from Chinese huǒchē (火车 'fire cart') 'train'.[111] Other loan translations include mön chanar 'essence' from Chinese shízhì (实质 'true quality'), hün am 'population' from Chinese rénkǒu (人口 'person mouth'), erdene shish 'corn, maize' from Chinese yùmǐ (玉米 'jade rice') and bügd nairamdah uls 'republic' from Chinese gònghéguó (共和国 'public collaboration nation').

• Sanskrit loanwords include shashin (शशन sasana 'religion'), sansar (सँसार sansāra 'space'), awiyas (अभ्यास abhyasa 'talent'), buyan (पुण्य punya 'good deeds'), agshin (क्षण kšana 'instant'), tiw (द्वीप dvipa 'continent'), garig (ग्रह graha 'planet'), cadig (जातक jātaka 'tales, stories'), shüleg (श्लोक šloka 'poems, verses'), badag (पदक padaka 'strophe'), arshan (रसायन rašayana 'mineral water, nectar'), shastir (शास्त्र shastra 'chronicle'), bud (बुध budh 'Mercury'), sugar (शुक्र shukra 'Venus'), barhasvadi (वृहस्पति vrihaspati 'Jupiter'), and sanchir (शनि shani 'Saturn').
• Persian loanwords include anar (anar 'amethyst'), arhi (araq 'brandy', ultimately from Arabic), baishin (pishivân 'building'), bars (fars 'tiger'), bers (farzin 'chess queen/female tiger'), bold (pulâd 'steel'), bolor (bolur 'crystal'), gunzhid (konjod 'sesame'), gindan (zendân 'prison'), dari (dâru 'powder/gunpowder, medicine'), duran (dur 'telescope'), duranbai (durbin 'telescope/microscope'), dewter (daftar 'notebook'), hurmast (Ohrmazd 'high God'), sawan (sâbun 'soap'), sandal (sandali 'stool'), and com (jâm 'cup').
• Chinese loanwords include banz (板子 bǎnzi 'board'), laa (蜡 là 'candle'), luuwan (萝卜 lúobo 'radish'), huluu (葫芦 húlu 'gourd'), denlüü (灯路 dēnglù 'lamp'), chiiden (汽灯 qìdēng 'electric lamp'), biir (笔儿 bǐr 'paintbrush'), gambanz (斩板子 zhǎnbǎnzi 'cutting board'), chinzhuu (青椒 qīngjiāo 'pepper'), zhuucai (韭菜 jiǔcài 'leek'), moog (蘑菇 mógu 'mushroom'), cuu (醋 cù 'vinegar, soy sauce'), baicaa (白菜 báicài 'cabbage'), mantuu (馒头 mántou 'steamed bun'), naimaa/maimaa (买卖 mǎimài 'trade'), goimon (挂面 gùamiàn 'noodles'), dan (单 dān 'single'), gan (钢 gāng 'steel'), lantuu (榔头 lángtou 'sledgehammer'), conh (窗户 chūanghu 'window'), buuz (包子 bāozi 'dumplings'), huushuur (火烧儿 hǔoshāor 'fried dumpling'), zutan (乳脂汤 rǔzhītāng 'cream soup'), bantan (粉汤 fěntāng 'flour soup'), zhan (酱 jiàng 'soy'), wan (王 wáng 'king'), günzh (公主 gōngzhǔ 'princess'), gün (公 gōng 'duke'), zhanzhin (将军 jiāngjūn 'general'), taigan (太监 tàijiàn 'eunuch'), pyanz (片子 piànzi 'recorded disc'), guanz (馆子 guǎnzi 'restaurant'), lianhua (莲花 liánhuā 'lotus'), huar (花儿 huār 'flower'), toor (桃儿 táor 'peach'), intoor (樱桃儿 yīngtáor 'cherry'), zeel (借 jiè 'borrow, lend'), wandui (豌豆 wāndòu 'pea'), yanz (样子 yàngzi 'manner, appearance'), shinzh (性质 xìngzhì 'characteristic'), liir (梨儿 lír 'pear'), bai (牌 páizi 'target'), zhin(g) (斤 jīn 'weight'), bin(g) (饼 bǐng 'pancake'), huanli (皇历 huángli 'calendar'), shaazan (烧瓷 shāocí 'porcelain'), hantaaz (砍兜肚 kǎndōudu 'sleeveless vest'), püntüüz (粉条子 fěntiáozi 'potato noodles'), and cai (茶 chá 'tea').

In the 20th century, many Russian loanwords entered the Mongolian language, including doktor 'doctor', shokolad 'chocolate', wagon 'train wagon', kalendar 'calendar', sistem 'system', podwoolk (from futbolka 'T-shirt'), and mashin 'car'.

In more recent times, due to socio-political reforms, Mongolian has loaned various words from English; some of which have gradually evolved as official terms: menezhment 'management', komputer 'computer', fail 'file', marketing 'marketing', kredit 'credit', onlain 'online', and mesezh 'message'. Most of these are confined to the Mongolian state.^{[citation needed]}

Other languages have borrowed words from Mongolian. Examples (Mongolian in brackets) include Persian کشيكچى kešikci (from heshig 'royal guard'), قرقاول qarqâvol (from girgawl 'pheasant'), جیبه jibe (from zhebseg 'iron armour'), داروغه dâruqe (from darga 'chief of commandant'), قیچی qeyci (from kayichi 'scissors'); Uzbek orol (from aral 'island'); Chinese 衚衕 hutong (from gudum 'passageway'), 站赤 zhanchi (from zhamchi 'courier/post station'); Middle Chinese 犢 duk (from tugul 'calf'); Korean 수라 sura (from shüle 'royal meal'), 악대 akdae (from agta 'castrated animal'), 업진 eobjin (from ebchigün 'chest of an animal'); Old English cocer (from köküür 'container'); Old French quivre (from köküür 'container'); Old High German Baldrian (from balchirgan-a 'valerian plant'). Köküür and balchirgan-a are thought to have been brought to Europe by the Huns or Pannonian Avars.

Despite having a diverse range of loanwords, Mongolian dialects such as Khalkha and Khorchin, within a comparative vocabulary of 452 words of Common Mongolic vocabulary, retain as many as 95% of these native words, contrasting e.g. with Southern Mongolic languages at 39–77% retentions.[112]

Writing systems

Mongolian has been written in a variety of alphabets, making it a language with one of the largest number of scripts used historically. The earliest stages of Mongolian (Xianbei, Wuhuan languages) may have used an indigenous runic script as indicated by Chinese sources. The Khitan large script adopted in 920 CE is an early Mongol (or according to some, para-Mongolic) script.

The traditional Mongolian script was first adopted by Temüjin in 1204, who recognized the need to represent his own people's language. It developed from the Uyghur script when several members of the Uyghur elite who were brought into the Mongol confederation early on shared their knowledge of their written language with the Mongol imperial clan. Among the Uyghurs sharing that knowledge were Tata-tonga (Chinese: 塔塔統阿), Bilge Buqa (比俚伽普華), Kara Igach Buyruk (哈剌亦哈赤北魯), and Mengsus (孟速思).[113] From that time, the script underwent some minor disambiguations and supplementation.

Between 1930 and 1932, a short-lived attempt was made to introduce the Latin script in the Mongolian state. In 1941, the Latin alphabet was adopted, though it lasted only two months.[114]

The Mongolian Cyrillic script was the result of the spreading of Russian influence following the expansion of Russian Empire. The establishment of Soviet Union helped the influence continue, and the Cyrillic alphabet was slowly introduced with the effort by Russian/Soviet linguists in collaboration with their Mongolian counterparts. It was made mandatory by government decree in 1941. It has been argued that the introduction of the Cyrillic script, with its smaller discrepancy between written and spoken form, contributed to the success of the large-scale government literacy campaign, which increased the literacy rate from 17.3% to 73.5% between 1941 and 1950.[115] Earlier government campaigns to eradicate illiteracy, employing the traditional script, had only managed to raise literacy from 3.0% to 17.3% between 1921 and 1940.[115] From 1991 to 1994, an attempt at reintroducing the traditional alphabet failed in the face of popular resistance.[116] In informal contexts of electronic text production, the use of the Latin alphabet is common.[117]

In the People's Republic of China, Mongolian is the official language along with Mandarin Chinese in some regions, notably the entire Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The traditional alphabet has always been used there, although Cyrillic was considered briefly before the Sino-Soviet split.[118] There are two types of written Mongolian used in China: the traditional Mongolian script, which is official among Mongols nationwide, and the Clear Script, used predominantly among Oirats in Xinjiang.[119]

In March 2020, the Mongolian government announced plans to use both Cyrillic and the traditional Mongolian script in official documents by 2025.[120][121][122]

Linguistic history

The earliest surviving Mongolian text may be the Stele of Yisüngge [ru], a report on sports composed in Mongolian script on stone, which is most often dated at 1224 or 1225.[124] The Mongolian-Armenian wordlist of 55 words compiled by Kirakos of Gandzak (13th century) is the first written record of Mongolian words.[125] From the 13th to the 15th centuries, Mongolian language texts were written in four scripts (not counting some vocabulary written in Western scripts): Uyghur Mongolian (UM) script (an adaptation of the Uyghur alphabet), 'Phags-pa script (Ph) (used in decrees), Chinese (SM) (The Secret History of the Mongols), and Arabic (AM) (used in dictionaries).[126] While they are the earliest texts available, these texts have come to be called "Middle Mongol" in scholarly practice.[127] The documents in UM script show some distinct linguistic characteristics and are therefore often distinguished by terming their language "Preclassical Mongolian".[128]

The Yuan dynasty referred to the Mongolian language in Chinese as "Guoyu" (Chinese: 國語), which means "National language", a term also used by other non-Han dynasties to refer to their languages such as the Manchu language during the Qing dynasty, the Jurchen language during the Jin dynasty (1115–1234), the Khitan language during the Liao dynasty, and the Xianbei language during the Northern Wei period.

The next distinct period is Classical Mongolian, which is dated from the 17th to the 19th century. This is a written language with a high degree of standardization in orthography and syntax that sets it quite apart from the subsequent Modern Mongolian. The most notable documents in this language are the Mongolian Kangyur and Tengyur[129] as well as several chronicles.[130] In 1686, the Soyombo alphabet (Buddhist texts) was created, giving distinctive evidence on early classical Mongolian phonological peculiarities.[131]

Changes in phonology

Consonants

Research into reconstruction of the consonants of Middle Mongol has engendered several controversies. Middle Mongol had two series of plosives, but there is disagreement as to which phonological dimension they lie on, whether aspiration[132] or voicing.[133] The early scripts have distinct letters for velar plosives and uvular plosives, but as these are in complementary distribution according to vowel harmony class, only two back plosive phonemes, */k/, */kʰ/ (~ *[k], *[qʰ]) are to be reconstructed.[134] One prominent, long-running disagreement concerns certain correspondences of word medial consonants among the four major scripts (UM, SM, AM, and Ph, which were discussed in the preceding section). Word-medial /k/ of Uyghur Mongolian (UM) has not one, but two correspondences with the three other scripts: either /k/ or zero. Traditional scholarship has reconstructed */k/ for both correspondences, arguing that */k/ was lost in some instances, which raises the question of what the conditioning factors of those instances were.[135] More recently, the other possibility has been assumed; namely, that the correspondence between UM /k/ and zero in the other scripts points to a distinct phoneme, /h/, which would correspond to the word-initial phoneme /h/ that is present in those other scripts.[136] /h/ (also called /x/) is sometimes assumed to derive from */pʰ/, which would also explain zero in SM, AM, Ph in some instances where UM indicates /p/; e.g. debel > Khalkha deel.[137]

The palatal affricates *č, *čʰ were fronted in Northern Modern Mongolian dialects such as Khalkha. *kʰ was spirantized to /x/ in Ulaanbaatar Khalkha and the Mongolian dialects south of it, e.g. Preclassical Mongolian kündü, reconstructed as *kʰynty 'heavy', became Modern Mongolian /xunt/[138] (but in the vicinity of Bayankhongor and Baruun-Urt, many speakers will say [kʰunt]).[139] Originally word-final *n turned into /ŋ/; if *n was originally followed by a vowel that later dropped, it remained unchanged, e.g. *kʰen became /xiŋ/, but *kʰoina became /xɔin/. After i-breaking, *[ʃ] became phonemic. Consonants in words containing back vowels that were followed by *i in Proto-Mongolian became palatalized in Modern Mongolian. In some words, word-final *n was dropped with most case forms, but still appears with the ablative, dative and genitive.[140]

Only foreign origin words start with the letter L and none start with the letter R.[141]

Vowels

The standard view is that Proto-Mongolic had *i, *e, *y, *ø, *u, *o, *a. According to this view, *o and *u were pharyngealized to /ɔ/ and /ʊ/, then *y and *ø were velarized to /u/ and /o/. Thus, the vowel harmony shifted from a velar to a pharyngeal paradigm. *i in the first syllable of back-vocalic words was assimilated to the following vowel; in word-initial position it became /ja/. *e was rounded to *ø when followed by *y. VhV and VjV sequences where the second vowel was any vowel but *i were monophthongized. In noninitial syllables, short vowels were deleted from the phonetic representation of the word and long vowels became short;[142] e.g. *imahan (*i becomes /ja/, *h disappears) > *jamaːn (unstable n drops; vowel reduction) > /jama(n)/ 'goat', and *emys- (regressive rounding assimilation) > *ømys- (vowel velarization) > *omus- (vowel reduction) > /oms-/ 'to wear'

This reconstruction has recently^[when?] been opposed, arguing that vowel developments across the Mongolic languages can be more economically explained starting from basically the same vowel system as Khalkha, only with *[ə] instead of *[e]. Moreover, the sound changes involved in this alternative scenario are more likely from an articulatory point of view and early Middle Mongol loans into Korean.[143]

Changes in morphology

Nominal system

In the following discussion, in accordance with a preceding observation, the term "Middle Mongol" is used merely as a cover term for texts written in any of three scripts, Uighur Mongolian script (UM), Chinese (SM), or Arabic (AM).

The case system of Middle Mongol has remained mostly intact down to the present, although important changes occurred with the comitative and the dative and most other case suffixes did undergo slight changes in form, i.e., were shortened.[145] The Middle Mongol comitative -luγ-a could not be used attributively, but it was replaced by the suffix -taj that originally derived adjectives denoting possession from nouns, e.g. mori-tai 'having a horse' became mor'toj 'having a horse/with a horse'. As this adjective functioned parallel to ügej 'not having', it has been suggested that a "privative case" ('without') has been introduced into Mongolian.[146] There have been three different case suffixes in the dative-locative-directive domain that are grouped in different ways: -a as locative and -dur, -da as dative[147] or -da and -a as dative and -dur as locative,[148] in both cases with some functional overlapping. As -dur seems to be grammaticalized from dotur-a 'within', thus indicating a span of time,[149] the second account seems to be more likely. Of these, -da was lost, -dur was first reduced to -du and then to -d[150] and -a only survived in a few frozen environments.[151] Finally, the directive of modern Mongolian, -ruu, has been innovated from uruγu 'downwards'.[152] Social gender agreement was abandoned.[153]

Verbal system

Middle Mongol had a slightly larger set of declarative finite verb suffix forms[154] and a smaller number of participles, which were less likely to be used as finite predicates.[155] The linking converb -n became confined to stable verb combinations,[156] while the number of converbs increased.[157] The distinction between male, female and plural subjects exhibited by some finite verbal suffixes was lost.[158]

Changes in syntax

Neutral word order in clauses with pronominal subject changed from object–predicate–subject to subject–object–predicate; e.g.

The syntax of verb negation shifted from negation particles preceding final verbs to a negation particle following participles; thus, as final verbs could no longer be negated, their paradigm of negation was filled by particles.[160] For example, Preclassical Mongolian ese irebe 'did not come' v. modern spoken Khalkha Mongolian ireegüi or irsengüi.

Example text

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Mongolian, written in the Cyrillic alphabet:[161]

Хүн бүр төрж мэндлэхэд эрх чөлөөтэй, адилхан нэр төртэй, ижил эрхтэй байдаг. Оюун ухаан, нандин чанар заяасан хүн гэгч өөр хоорондоо ахан дүүгийн үзэл санаагаар харьцах учиртай.

In the (modern) Mongolian Latin alphabet:

Hün bür törzh mendlehee erh chölöötei, adilhan ner törtei, izhil erhtei baidag. Oyuun uhaan nandin chanar zayaasan hün gegch öör hoorondoo ahan düügiin üzel sanaagaar haricah uchirtai.

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Mongolian, written in the Mongolian script:[162]

ᠬᠦᠮᠦᠨ ᠪᠦᠷ ᠲᠥᠷᠥᠵᠦ ᠮᠡᠨᠳᠡᠯᠡᠬᠦ ᠡᠷᠬᠡ ᠴᠢᠯᠥᠭᠡ ᠲᠡᠢ᠂ ᠠᠳᠠᠯᠢᠬᠠᠨ ᠨᠡᠷ᠎ᠡ ᠲᠥᠷᠥ ᠲᠡᠢ᠂ ᠢᠵᠢᠯ ᠡᠷᠬᠡ ᠲᠡᠢ ᠪᠠᠢᠠᠭ᠃ ᠣᠶᠤᠨ ᠤᠬᠠᠭᠠᠨ᠂ ᠨᠠᠨᠳᠢᠨ ᠴᠢᠨᠠᠷ ᠵᠠᠶᠠᠭᠠᠰᠠᠨ ᠬᠦᠮᠦᠨ ᠬᠡᠭᠴᠢ ᠥᠭᠡᠷ᠎ᠡ ᠬᠣᠭᠣᠷᠣᠨᠳᠣ᠎ᠨ ᠠᠬᠠᠨ ᠳᠡᠭᠦᠦ ᠢᠨ ᠦᠵᠢᠯ ᠰᠠᠨᠠᠭᠠ ᠥᠠᠷ ᠬᠠᠷᠢᠴᠠᠬᠥ ᠤᠴᠢᠷ ᠲᠠᠢ᠃

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English:[163]

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

See also

• Mongolian writing systems
  • Mongolian script
    • Galik alphabet
    • Todo alphabet
  • ʼPhags-pa script
    • Horizontal square script
  • Soyombo script
  • Mongolian Latin alphabet
    • SASM/GNC romanization § Mongolian
  • Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet
  • Mongolian transliteration of Chinese characters
    • Sino–Mongolian Transliterations [zh]
  • Mongolian Braille
• Mongolian Sign Language
• Mongolian name

Notes

References

Citations

Sources

For some Mongolian authors, the Mongolian version of their name is also given in square brackets, e.g., "Harnud [Köke]". Köke is the author's native name. It is a practice common among Mongolian scholars, for purposes of publishing and being cited abroad, to adopt a surname based on one's patronymic, in this example "Harnud"; compare Mongolian name.
Some library catalogs write Chinese language titles with each syllable separate, even syllables belonging to a single word.

List of abbreviations used

TULIP is in official use by some librarians; the remainder have been contrived for this listing.

Journals

• KULIP = Kyūshū daigaku gengogaku ronshū [Kyushu University linguistics papers]
• MKDKH = Muroran kōgyō daigaku kenkyū hōkoku [Memoirs of the Muroran Institute of Technology]
• TULIP = Tōkyō daigaku gengogaku ronshū [Tokyo University linguistics papers]

Publishers

• ÖMAKQ = Öbür mongγul-un arad-un keblel-ün qoriy-a [Inner Mongolia People's Publishing House]
• ÖMSKKQ = Öbür mongγul-un surγan kümüǰil-ün keblel-ün qoriy-a [Inner Mongolia Education Press]
• ÖMYSKQ = Öbür mongγul-un yeke surγaγuli-yin keblel-ün qoriy-a [Inner Mongolia University Press]
• ŠUA = [Mongol Ulsyn] Šinžleh Uhaany Akademi [Mongolian Academy of Sciences (MAS)]

Further reading

• Janhunen, Juha A. (2012): Mongolian. (London Oriental and African Language Library, 19.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISSN 1382-3485. ISBN 978-90-272-3820-7

External links

• Lingua Mongolia (a website dedicated to the Mongolian language, mostly as written in the Mongolian Uyghur script)
• Bolor Mongolian-English dictionary

На других языках

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[de] Mongolische Sprache

Die mongolische Sprache (in mongolischer Schrift: ᠮᠣᠩᠭᠣᠯᠬᠡᠯᠡ, in kyrillischer Schrift: монгол хэл) im engeren Sinne gehört gemeinsam mit einigen eng verwandten Sprachen (v. a. Burjatisch und Oiratisch/Kalmückisch) zur Familie der mongolischen Sprachen. Mongolisch wird je nach Schätzung von insgesamt ca. 4,5[1] bis 5[2] oder etwas mehr als 5 Millionen[3] Menschen gesprochen, von denen etwas weniger als die Hälfte (je nach Schätzung 2[4] bis 2,4[5] Millionen) im Staat Mongolei, etwas mehr als die Hälfte (je nach Schätzung knapp 3[6] bis 3,4[7] oder 3,5 Millionen) im Autonomen Gebiet Innere Mongolei sowie in den angrenzenden Provinzen in China, und kleinere Gruppen in der Russischen Föderation (vor allem in Burjatien, aber auch im benachbarten Tuwinien) leben.[3]

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- [en] Mongolian language

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[es] Idioma mongol

El idioma mongol (en mongol, alfabeto cirílico: монгол хэл mongol khel; escritura mongola: [1] Mongɣol kele) es el miembro más conocido de las lenguas mongolas y el idioma principal de la mayoría de los mongoles residentes de la República de Mongolia. También se habla en las zonas fronterizas con este país de la República Popular China y la Federación de Rusia.

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[fr] Mongol

Le mongol (en mongol : ᠮᠣᠩᠭᠣᠯᠬᠡᠯᠡ, API Khalkha : [mɔŋɢɔ̆ɮ xiɮ], VPMC : monggol qele, cyrillique : Монгол хэл, MNS : mongol khel, littéralement : « langue mongole ») est une langue appartenant au groupe des langues mongoles, qui fait lui-même partie de la famille controversée des langues altaïques. Il est parlé en Mongolie, pays dont il est la langue officielle sous le nom de khalkha (ou en cyrillique халх), puisqu'elle était parlée à l'origine par les Khalkhas, peuple mongol s'étant formé autour de la rivière Khalkha (également appelé qalq-a-yin γoul, Халхын гол). Le khalkha vernaculaire est le dialecte mongol sur lequel s'appuie la norme littéraire du mongol en Mongolie, mais il existe également d'autres dialectes mongols.

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[it] Lingua mongola

La lingua mongola o mongolo (in mongolo монгол хэл, ᠮᠣᠨᠭᠭᠣᠯᠬᠡᠯᠡ, translitterato mongol khel) è una lingua mongolica ufficiale della Mongolia e della Mongolia Interna, in Cina, parlata anche in Russia e Kirghizistan.

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[ru] Монгольский язык

Монго́льский язы́к (самоназвание: монг. монгол хэл [mɔŋɢɔ̆ɮ xeɮ], класс. монг.: mongɣol xele) — язык монголов, государственный язык Монголии. Термин может употребляться шире: для монгольского языка Монголии и Внутренней Монголии в Китае, для всех языков монгольской группы, в историческом контексте для таких языков как древний общемонгольский и старописьменный монгольский языки.

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