The Monguor language (; also written Mongour and Mongor) is a

Mongolic language The Mongolic languages are a language family spoken by the Mongolic peoples in North Asia, East Asia, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe mostly in Mongolia and surrounding areas and in Kalmykia and Buryatia. The best-known member of this language f ...

of its Shirongolic branch and is part of the Gansu–Qinghai sprachbund (also called the Amdo sprachbund). There are several dialects, mostly spoken by the

Monguor people The Monguor people ( Monguor: Mongghul), also known as Tu people (), White Mongol or Tsagaan Mongol, are a Mongolic people and one of the 56 officially recognized ethnic groups in China. According to the 2000 census, the total population was ...

. A writing system was devised for Huzhu Monguor (Mongghul) in the late 20th century but has been little used. A division into two languages, namely Mongghul in Huzhu Tu Autonomous County and Mangghuer in Minhe Hui and Tu Autonomous County, is considered necessary by some linguists. While Mongghul was under strong influence from

Amdo Tibetan Amdo Tibetan (; also called ''Am kä'') is the Tibetic language spoken in Amdo (now mostly in Qinghai, some in Ngawa and Gannan). It has two varieties, the farmer dialects and the nomad dialects. Amdo is one of the three branches of tradition ...

, the same holds for Mangghuer and

Sinitic languages The Sinitic languages (), often synonymous with the Chinese languages, are a language group, group of East Asian analytic languages that constitute a major branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. It is frequently proposed that there is a p ...

, and local varieties of Chinese such as the Gangou language were in turn influenced by Monguor.

Phonology

Vowels

* Vowel sounds may also be nasalized when preceding a nasal consonant, in different environments. *Vowels may also undergo a devoicing process in certain phonetic environments.

Consonants

* can also be heard as allophones or , occurring in free variation. * can be heard as a voiced fricative within the onset of a stressed syllable, or of a word-initial syllable. It can also be heard as a flap sound intervocalically in the onset of an unstressed syllable. In a syllable-coda position, it is heard as a rhotic vowel sound. * can have a spirantized allophone of strongly in stressed syllables.

Writing system

Cyrillic alphabet

In 1958, a Cyrillic-based alphabet was developed for Monguor, but it's practical use did not begin for political reasons. The Cyrillic alphabet for Monguor had the following letters:

Latin alphabet

From the 1970s to the 1980s, the current

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...

for Monguor based on

Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...

was developed. It consists of 31 letters. The following list shows the letters of the Monguor Latin alphabet along with their pronunciation in the IPA: * A a (/a/) * B b (/p/) * C c (/tsʰ/) * D d (/t/) * E e (/e/) * F f (/f/) * G g (/k/) * H h (/χ/) * I i (/i/) * J j (/tɕ/) * K k (/kʰ/) * L l (/l/) * M m (/m/) * N n (/n/) * O o (/o/) * P p (/pʰ/) * Q q (/tɕʰ/) * R r (/ɻ/) * S s (/s/) * T t (/tʰ/) * U u (/u/) * W w (/w/) * X x (/ɕ/) * Y y (/j/) * Z z (/ts/) * Zh zh (/tʂ/) * Ch ch (/tʂʰ/) * Sh sh (/ʂ/) * Ng ng (/ŋ/) * Gh gh (/q/) * Kh kh (/qʰ/) The letter V is not used.

Long vowel In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived or actual duration of a vowel sound when pronounced. Vowels perceived as shorter are often called short vowels and those perceived as longer called long vowels. On one hand, many languages do not d ...

s are written with double vowel letters.

Numerals

Mongolian numerals such as the followingDpal-ldan-bkra-shis, Slater ''et al.'' 1996: 4 are only in use in the Mongghul dialect, while Mangghuer speakers have switched to counting in Chinese. Note that while the Mongolian script has only ''arban'' for 'ten', Middle Mongolian *''harpa/n'' including *''h'' can be reconstructed from the scripts.Svantesson ''et al.'' 2005: 130

Notes

References

*Dpal-ldan-bkra-shis, Keith Slater, et al. (1996): ''Language Materials of China’s Monguor Minority: Huzhu Mongghul and Minhe Mangghuer''. Sino-Platonic papers no. 69. * Georg, Stefan (2003): Mongghul. In: Janhunen, Juha (ed.) (2003): ''The Mongolic languages''. London: Routledge: 286-306. *Slater, Keith W. (2003): ''A grammar of Mangghuer: A Mongolic language of China's Qinghai-Gansu sprachbund''. London/New York: RoutledgeCurzon. * Svantesson, Jan-Olof, Anna Tsendina, Anastasia Karlsson, Vivan Franzén (2005): ''The Phonology of Mongolian''. New York: Oxford University Press. * Zhàonàsītú 照那斯图 (1981): ''Tǔzúyǔ jiǎnzhì'' 土族语简志 (''Introduction to the Tu language''). Běijīng 北京: Mínzú chūbǎnshè 民族出版社. * * *

External links

* he Tu ethnic minority http://www.china.org.cn/e-groups/shaoshu/shao-2-tu.htm*ELAR archive o
Mongghul language documentation materials