Ordos Mongolian (also ''Urdus''; Mongolian ;

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

鄂尔多斯 ''È'ěrduōsī'') is a

variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

of Central Mongolic spoken in the

Ordos City Ordos ( Mongolian: ''Ordos''; ), also known as Ih Ju, is one of the twelve major subdivisions of Inner Mongolia, China. It lies within the Ordos Plateau of the Yellow River. Although mainly rural, Ordos is administered as a prefecture-level c ...

region in

Inner Mongolia Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a ...

and historically by

Ordos Mongols The Ordos (Mongolian Cyrillic: Ордос; ) are a Mongol subgroup that live in Uxin Banner, Inner Mongolia of China. Ordos literally means plural of Ordo. The Three Tribes of Uriyangkhaid, Tümed in north Shanxi, Ordos Mongols in Ordos and n ...

. It is alternatively classified as a language within the Mongolic language family or as a dialect of the standard

Mongolian language Mongolian 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 residen ...

. Due to the research of

Antoine Mostaert Antoine Mostaert (Dutch: Antoon; 10 August 1881 – 1971) was a Belgian Roman Catholic missionary in China. Life Born in Bruges; studied Latin and Greek during his Secondary education. He joined the CICM Missionaries, and was ordained pries ...

, the development of this dialect can be traced back 100 years. The Ordos

vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...

system in word-initial

syllable A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "bu ...

s is similar to that of

Chakhar Mongolian Chakhar is a variety of Mongolian spoken in the central region of Inner Mongolia. It is phonologically close to Khalkha and is the basis for the standard pronunciation of Mongolian in Inner Mongolia. Location and classification There are thre ...

, the most notable difference being that it has and :instead of �and �: In southern varieties, merged into , e.g. while you still say in

Ejin Horo Banner The Ejin Horo Banner, also known as Ejin Horo Qi or Yijinhuoluo County, is a banner in Ordos City in southwestern Inner Mongolia, China. It borders Shaanxi Province to the southeast. As of 2009, the Ejin Horo Banner covers an area of almost , w ...

, it has become in Uxin or the

Otog Front Banner Otog Front Banner (Mongolian script: ; ) is a banner of southwestern Inner Mongolia, People's Republic of China, bordering Ningxia to the southwest and Shaanxi province to the southeast. It is under the administration of Ordos City Ordos ( Mon ...

. In contrast to the other dialects of Mongolian proper, it retains this distinction in all following syllables including in open word-final syllables, thus resembling the syllable and phoneme structure of

Middle Mongol Middle Mongol or Middle Mongolian, was a Mongolic koiné language spoken in the Mongol Empire. Originating from Genghis Khan's home region of Northeastern Mongolia, it diversified into several Mongolic languages after the collapse of the empire ...

ian more than any other Mongolian variety. E.g. MM Ordos Khalkha 'mouth', Ordos Khalkha () 'short; short sheep's wool'. Accordingly, it could never acquire palatalized consonant phonemes. Due to their persistent existence as short non-initial phonemes, and have regressively assimilated *ø and *o, e.g. * > 'star', > 'offence', > 'power'. An analogous change took place for some sequences of *a and *u, e.g. *arasu > . Ordos retains a variant of the old

comitative case In grammar, the comitative case (; abbreviated ) is a grammatical case that denotes accompaniment. In English, the preposition "with", in the sense of "in company with" or "together with", plays a substantially similar role (other uses of "with", l ...

and shares the innovated directive case. The

verb A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descri ...

system is not well researched, but employs a notable innovated

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry ...

, , that does not seem to adhere to the common division into three Mongolic verb suffix classes. The

lexicon A lexicon is the vocabulary of a language or branch of knowledge (such as nautical or medical). In linguistics, a lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes. The word ''lexicon'' derives from Koine Greek language, Greek word (), neuter of () ...

of Ordos is that of a normal Mongolian dialect, with some

Tibetan Tibetan may mean: * of, from, or related to Tibet * Tibetan people, an ethnic group * Tibetan language: ** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard ** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken dial ...

and Chinese loanwords.Georg 2003: 193-194 (implicitly) based on Mostaert 1941-1944, Sonum 2008: 21-26 (together with C. Norǰin)

References

Bibliography

* Mostaert, Antoine (1937): ''Textes oraux ordos''. Peiping: The Catholic University. * Mostaert, Antoine (1941–1944): ''Dictionnaire ordos, vols. 1-3''. Peiping: The Catholic University. * Sečen, Č. (2003): Ordus aman ayalɣun-daki öbürmiče uruɣul-un ǰokičal buyu iǰilsil + , + -yin tuqai. In: ''Mongγul kele udq-a ǰokiyal 2003/5'': 33–36. * Sečen, Č., M. Baγatur, Sengge (2002): ''Ordus aman ayalγun-u sudulul''. Kökeqota: Öbür mongγul-un arad-un keblel-ün qoriy-a. * Sečenbaγatur, Qasgerel, Tuyaγ-a, B. ǰirannige, U Ying ǰe (2005): ''Mongγul kelen-ü nutuγ-un ayalγun-u sinǰilel-ün uduridqal''. Kökeqota: Öbür mongγul-un arad-un keblel-ün qoriy-a. . * Sonum (2008): ''Ordus aman ayalγun-u üges-ün quriyangγui''. Nemen ǰasaγsan debter. Beijing: Ündüsüten-ü keblel-ün qoriy-a. * Soyultu, I. (1982):''Ordus-un aman ayalγun-u'' ''-u daγaburi''. Öbür mongγul-un yeke surγaγuli 1982/2: 29–43. * Georg, Stefan: Ordos. In: J. Janhunen (ed.): ''The Mongolic Languages''. London: Routledge. , pp. 193-209. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ordos Mongolian Agglutinative languages Mongolic languages Central Mongolic languages Ordos City