The Mongolic languages are a

language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hist ...

spoken by the

Mongolic peoples The Mongolic peoples are a collection of East Asian originated ethnic groups in East, North, South Asia and Eastern Europe, who speak Mongolic languages. Their ancestors are referred to as Proto-Mongols. The largest contemporary Mongolic ethn ...

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

North Asia North Asia or Northern Asia, also referred to as Siberia, is the northern region of Asia, which is defined in geographical terms and is coextensive with the Asian part of Russia, and consists of three Russian regions east of the Ural Mountains: ...

and

East Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea and ...

, mostly in

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...

and surrounding areas and in

Kalmykia he official languages of the Republic of Kalmykia are the Kalmyk and Russian languages./ref> , official_lang_list= Kalmyk , official_lang_ref=Steppe Code (Constitution) of the Republic of Kalmykia, Article 17: he official languages of the ...

and

Buryatia Buryatia, officially the Republic of Buryatia (russian: Республика Бурятия, r=Respublika Buryatiya, p=rʲɪsˈpublʲɪkə bʊˈrʲætʲɪjə; bua, Буряад Улас, Buryaad Ulas, , mn, Буриад Улс, Buriad Uls), is ...

. The best-known member of this language family, Mongolian, is the primary language of most of the residents of

and the

Mongol The Mongols ( mn, Монголчууд, , , ; ; russian: Монголы) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal member of ...

residents of

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 ...

, with an estimated 5.7+ million speakers.

History

The possible precursor to Mongolic is the

Xianbei language The Xianbei (; ) were a Proto-Mongolic ancient nomadic people that once resided in the eastern Eurasian steppes in what is today Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Northeastern China. They originated from the Donghu people who splintered into the ...

, heavily influenced by the

Proto-Turkic Proto-Turkic is the linguistic reconstruction of the common ancestor of the Turkic languages that was spoken by the Proto-Turks before their divergence into the various Turkic peoples. Proto-Turkic separated into Oghur (western) and Common Turk ...

(later, the Lir-Turkic) language. The stages of historical Mongolic are: * Pre-Proto-Mongolic, from approximately the 4th century AD until the 12th century AD, influenced by

Shaz-Turkic Common Turkic, or Shaz Turkic, is a taxon in some classifications of the Turkic languages that includes all of them except the Oghuric languages. Classification Lars Johanson's proposal contains the following subgroups: * Southwestern Common ...

. *

Proto-Mongolic Proto-Mongolic is the hypothetical ancestor language of the modern Mongolic languages. It is very close to the Middle Mongol language, the language spoken at the time of Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire. Most features of modern Mongolic languag ...

, from approximately the 13th century, spoken around the time of

Chinggis Khan Genghis Khan (born Temüjin; ; xng, Temüjin, script=Latn; ., name=Temujin – August 25, 1227) was the founder and first Great Khan (Emperor) of the Mongol Empire, which became the List of largest empires, largest contiguous empire in history a ...

. *

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 ...

, from the 13th century until the early 15th century or late 16th century, depending on classification spoken. (Given the almost entire lack of written sources for the period in between, an exact cutoff point cannot be established.) Again influenced by Turkic. *

Classical Mongolian Classical Mongolian was the literary language of Mongolian which was first introduced shortly after 1600, when Ligdan Khan set his clergy the task of translating the whole of the Tibetan Buddhist canon, consisting of the Kanjur and Tanjur, into M ...

, from approximately 1700 to 1900. * Standard Mongolian The standard Mongolian language has been in official use since 1919, and this form of the language is used in the economic, political, and social fields.

Pre-Proto-Mongolic

''Pre-Proto-Mongolic'' is the name for the stage of Mongolic that precedes Proto-Mongolic. Proto-Mongolic can be clearly identified chronologically with the language spoken by the Mongols during

Genghis Khan ''Chinggis Khaan'' ͡ʃʰiŋɡɪs xaːŋbr />Mongol script: ''Chinggis Qa(gh)an/ Chinggis Khagan'' , birth_name = Temüjin , successor = Tolui (as regent)Ögedei Khan , spouse = , issue = , house = Borjigin , ...

's early expansion in the 1200-1210s. Pre-Proto-Mongolic, by contrast, is a continuum that stretches back indefinitely in time. It is divided into Early Pre-Proto-Mongolic and Late Pre-Proto-Mongolic. Late Pre-Proto-Mongolic refers to the Mongolic spoken a few centuries before Proto-Mongolic by the Mongols and neighboring tribes like the

Merkit The Merkit (literally ''"skillful/wise ones"''; mn, ᠮᠡᠷᠬᠢᠳ ; Мэргид, translit=, Mergid; ) was one of the five major tribal confederations (''khanlig'') of probably Mongol

s and

Kerait The Keraites (also ''Kerait, Kereit, Khereid''; ; ) were one of the five dominant Mongol or Turkic tribal confederations ( khanates) in the Altai-Sayan region during the 12th century. They had converted to the Church of the East ( Nestorianism ...

s. Certain archaic words and features in Written Mongolian go back past Proto-Mongolic to Late Pre-Proto-Mongolic (Janhunen 2006).

Relationship with Turkic

Pre-Proto-Mongolic has borrowed various words from

Turkic languages The Turkic languages are a language family of over 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and Western Asia. The Turkic languag ...

. In the case of Early Pre-Proto-Mongolic, certain loanwords in the Mongolic languages point to early contact with Oghur (Pre-Proto-Bulgaric) Turkic, also known as r-Turkic. These loanwords precede

Common Turkic Common Turkic, or Shaz Turkic, is a taxon in some classifications of the Turkic languages that includes all of them except the Oghuric languages. Classification Lars Johanson's proposal contains the following subgroups: * Southwestern Common ...

(z-Turkic) loanwords and include: *Mongolic ''ikere'' (twins) from Pre-Proto-Bulgaric ''ikir'' (versus Common Turkic ''ekiz'') *Mongolic ''hüker'' (ox) from Pre-Proto-Bulgaric ''hekür'' (Common Turkic ''öküz'') *Mongolic ''jer'' (weapon) from Pre-Proto-Bulgaric ''jer'' (Common Turkic ''yäz'') *Mongolic ''biragu'' (calf) versus Common Turkic ''buzagu'' *Mongolic ''siri-'' (to smelt ore) versus Common Turkic ''siz-'' (to melt) The above words are thought to have been borrowed from Oghur Turkic during the time of the

Xiongnu The Xiongnu (, ) were a tribal confederation of nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu, the supreme leader after 20 ...

. Later

Turkic peoples The Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West, Central, East, and North Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages.. "Turkic peoples, any of various peoples whose members speak languages belonging t ...

in Mongolia all spoke forms of Common Turkic (z-Turkic) as opposed to Oghur (Bulgharic) Turkic, which withdrew to the west in the 4th century. The

Chuvash language Chuvash ( , ; , , ) is a Turkic language spoken in European Russia, primarily in the Chuvash Republic and adjacent areas. It is the only surviving member of the Oghur branch of Turkic languages, one of the two principal branches of the Turk ...

, spoken by 1 million people in European Russia, is the only living representative of Oghur Turkic which split from Proto Turkic around the 1st century AD. Words in Mongolic like ' (brown, Common Turkic ''yagiz'') and ''nidurga'' (fist, Common Turkic ''yudruk'') with initial *d and *n versus Common Turkic *y are sufficiently archaic to indicate loans from an earlier stage of Oghur (Pre-Proto-Bulgaric). This is because Chuvash and Common Turkic do not differ in these features despite differing fundamentally in rhotacism-lambdacism (Janhunen 2006). Oghur tribes lived in the Mongolian borderlands before the 5th century, and provided Oghur loanwords to Early Pre-Proto-Mongolic before Common Turkic loanwords.

Proto-Mongolic

Proto-Mongolic, the ancestor language of the modern Mongolic languages, is very close to Middle Mongol, the language spoken at the time of

and the

Mongol Empire The Mongol Empire of the 13th and 14th centuries was the largest contiguous land empire in history. Originating in present-day Mongolia in East Asia, the Mongol Empire at its height stretched from the Sea of Japan to parts of Eastern Europe, ...

. Most features of modern Mongolic languages can thus be reconstructed from Middle Mongol. An exception would be the voice suffix like -caga- 'do together', which can be reconstructed from the modern languages but is not attested in Middle Mongol. The languages of the historical Donghu,

Wuhuan The Wuhuan (, <

Eastern Han Chinese

: *''ʔɑ-ɣuɑn'', <

, and

Xianbei The Xianbei (; ) were a Proto-Mongolic ancient nomadic people that once resided in the eastern Eurasian steppes in what is today Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Northeastern China. They originated from the Donghu people who splintered into the ...

peoples might have been related to Proto-Mongolic. For

Tabghach The Tuoba (reconstructed Middle Chinese pronunciation: *''tʰak-bɛt''), also known as the Taugast or Tabgach ( otk, 𐱃𐰉𐰍𐰲 ''Tabγač''), was a Xianbei clan in Imperial China.Wei Shou. '' Book of Wei''. Vol. 1 During the Sixteen King ...

, the language of the founders of the

Northern Wei Wei (), known in historiography as the Northern Wei (), Tuoba Wei (), Yuan Wei () and Later Wei (), was founded by the Tuoba (Tabgach) clan of the Xianbei. The first of the Northern and Southern dynasties#Northern dynasties, Northern dynasties ...

dynasty, for which the surviving evidence is very sparse, and Khitan, for which evidence exists that is written in the two Khitan scripts (

large Large means of great size. Large may also refer to: Mathematics * Arbitrarily large, a phrase in mathematics * Large cardinal, a property of certain transfinite numbers * Large category, a category with a proper class of objects and morphisms (or ...

and

small Small may refer to: Science and technology * SMALL, an ALGOL-like programming language * Small (anatomy), the lumbar region of the back * ''Small'' (journal), a nano-science publication * <small>, an HTML element that defines smaller text ...

) which have as yet not been fully deciphered, a direct affiliation to Mongolic can now be taken to be most likely or even demonstrated.

Middle Mongol

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 or voicing. 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/'', *' (~ *'' ', *') are to be reconstructed. 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. 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. ''/h/'' (also called ''/x/'') is sometimes assumed to derive from *', which would also explain zero in ''SM'', ''AM'', ''Ph'' in some instances where ''UM'' indicates /p/; e.g. '' debel'' > Khalkha ''deel''. The palatal affricates *''č'', *''čʰ'' were fronted in Northern Modern Mongolian dialects such as Khalkha. was spirantized to in Ulaanbaatar Khalkha and the Mongolian dialects south of it, e.g. Preclassical Mongolian ''kündü'', reconstructed as ' 'heavy', became Modern Mongolian (but in the vicinity of

Bayankhongor Bayankhongor ( mn, Баянхонгор, lit=''righ soft'', or ''rich sweetheart'') is the capital of the Bayankhongor Province (aimag) in Mongolia. The administration of the Bayankhongor Sum (district) is also located in the same place. The city ...

and

Baruun-Urt Baruun-Urt ( mn, Баруун-Урт; , ''west-long'') is a town in eastern Mongolia and the capital of Sükhbaatar Province. The town with its vicinities creates a sum (district) of Sükhbaatar Province. The Baruun-Urt sum area is 59 km², p ...

, many speakers will say ). Originally word-final *''n'' turned into /ŋ/; if *' was originally followed by a vowel that later dropped, it remained unchanged, e.g. ' became , but ' became . After i-breaking, became phonemic. Consonants in words containing back vowels that were followed by ' in Proto-Mongolian became palatalized in Modern Mongolian. In some words, word-final ' was dropped with most case forms, but still appears with the ablative, dative and genitive. Only foreign origin words start with the letter ''L'' and none start with the letter ''R''.

Vowels

The standard view is that Proto-Mongolic had '. According to this view, ' and ' were

pharyngealized Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound. IPA symbols In the International Phonetic Alphabet, pharyngealization can be indicated ...

to and , then ' and ' were

velarized Velarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of four d ...

to and . Thus, the vowel harmony shifted from a velar to a pharyngeal paradigm. ' in the first syllable of back-vocalic words was assimilated to the following vowel; in word-initial position it became . ' was rounded to when followed by '. VhV and VjV sequences where the second vowel was any vowel but ' were monophthongized. In noninitial syllables, short vowels were deleted from the phonetic representation of the word and long vowels became short; e.g. ' (' becomes , ' disappears) > ' (unstable ''n'' drops; vowel reduction) > /jama(n)/ 'goat', and ' (regressive rounding assimilation) > ' (vowel velarization) > ' (vowel reduction) > /oms-/ 'to wear' This reconstruction has recently 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 ' instead of ''* '. 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 Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju language ** ...

Changes in morphology

Nominal system

"-shaped bracket, and to the right of each such bracket, there are other medium-sized characters, ''

The Secret History of the Mongols ''The Secret History of the Mongols'' (Middle Mongol: ''Mongɣol‑un niɣuca tobciyan''; Traditional Mongolian: , Khalkha Mongolian: , ; ) is the oldest surviving literary work in the Mongolian language. It was written for the Mongol royal fam ...

'' which goes back to a lost Mongolian script original is the only document that allows the reconstruction of agreement in social gender in Middle Mongol. 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. 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. 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 or -''da'' and -''a'' as dative and -''dur'' as locative, in both cases with some functional overlapping. As -''dur'' seems to be grammaticalized from ''dotur-a'' 'within', thus indicating a span of time, the second account seems to be more likely. Of these, -''da'' was lost, -''dur'' was first reduced to -''du'' and then to -''d'' and -''a'' only survived in a few frozen environments. Finally, the directive of modern Mongolian, -''ruu'', has been innovated from ''uruγu'' 'downwards'. Social gender agreement was abandoned.

Verbal system

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

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. For example, Preclassical Mongolian ''ese irebe'' 'did not come' v. modern spoken Khalkha Mongolian ''ireegüi'' or ''irsengüi''.

Classification

The Mongolic languages have no convincingly established living relatives. The closest relatives of the Mongolic languages appear to be the

para-Mongolic languages Para-Mongolic is a proposed group of languages that is considered to be an extinct sister branch of the Mongolic languages. Para-Mongolic contains certain historically attested extinct languages, among them Khitan and Tuyuhun. Languages The ...

, which include the extinct Khitan,

Tuyuhun Tuyuhun (; LHC: *''tʰɑʔ-jok-guənʔ''; Wade-Giles: ''T'u-yühun''), also known as Henan () and Azha (; ), was a dynastic kingdom established by the nomadic peoples related to the Xianbei in the Qilian Mountains and upper Yellow River valley ...

, and possibly also

Tuoba The Tuoba (reconstructed Middle Chinese pronunciation: *''tʰak-bɛt''), also known as the Taugast or Tabgach ( otk, 𐱃𐰉𐰍𐰲 ''Tabγač''), was a Xianbei clan in Imperial China.Wei Shou. '' Book of Wei''. Vol. 1 During the Sixteen King ...

languages.

Alexander Vovin Alexander (Sasha) Vladimirovich Vovin (russian: Александр Владимирович Вовин; 27 January 1961 – 8 April 2022) was a Soviet-born Russian-American linguist and philologist, and director of studies at the School for Adv ...

(2007) identifies the extinct Tabγač or

Tuoba language Tuoba (Tabγač or Tabghach; also Taγbač or Taghbach; ) is an extinct language spoken by the Tuoba people in northern China around the 5th century AD during the Northern Wei dynasty. Classification Alexander Vovin (2007) identifies the Tuoba l ...

as a Mongolic language. However, Chen (2005) argues that Tuoba (Tabγač) was a

Turkic language The Turkic languages are a language family of over 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and Western Asia. The Turkic languag ...

. Vovin (2018) suggests that the

Ruanruan language Ruanruan (; also called Rouran) is an unclassified extinct language of Mongolia and northern China, spoken in the Rouran Khaganate from the 4th to the 6th centuries AD, considered a likely early precursor to Mongolic. Peter A. Boodberg claime ...

of the

Rouran Khaganate The Rouran Khaganate, also Juan-Juan Khaganate (), was a tribal confederation and later state founded by a people of Proto-Mongolic Donghu origin.*Pulleyblank, Edwin G. (2000)"Ji 姬 and Jiang 姜: The Role of Exogamic Clans in the Organizatio ...

was a Mongolic language, close but not identical to Middle Mongolian.

Altaic

A few linguists have grouped Mongolic with Turkic, Tungusic and possibly

Koreanic Koreanic is a small language family consisting of the Korean language, Korean and Jeju language, Jeju languages. The latter is often described as a dialect of Korean, but is distinct enough to be considered a separate language. Alexander Vovin s ...

Japonic Japonic or Japanese–Ryukyuan, sometimes also Japanic, is a language family comprising Japanese, spoken in the main islands of Japan, and the Ryukyuan languages, spoken in the Ryukyu Islands. The family is universally accepted by linguists, and ...

as part of the widely discredited

Altaic family Altaic (; also called Transeurasian) is a controversial proposed language family that would include the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families and possibly also the Japonic and Koreanic languages. Speakers of these languages are ...

. Following

Sergei Starostin Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (russian: Серге́й Анато́льевич Ста́ростин; March 24, 1953 – September 30, 2005) was a Russian historical linguist and philologist, perhaps best known for his reconstructions of hypotheti ...

Martine Robbeets Martine Robbeets is a Belgian comparative linguist. She is known for the Transeurasian languages hypothesis, which groups the Japonic languages, Japonic, Koreanic languages, Koreanic, Tungusic languages, Tungusic, Mongolic languages, Mongolic, and ...

suggested that Mongolic languages belong to a " Transeurasian" superfamily also comprising

Japonic languages Japonic or Japanese–Ryukyuan, sometimes also Japanic, is a language family comprising Japanese, spoken in the main islands of Japan, and the Ryukyuan languages, spoken in the Ryukyu Islands. The family is universally accepted by linguists, and ...

Tungusic languages The Tungusic languages (also known as Manchu-Tungus and Tungus) form a language family spoken in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria by Tungusic peoples. Many Tungusic languages are endangered. There are approximately 75,000 native speakers of the doz ...

and

, but this view has been severely criticized.

Languages

Contemporary Mongolic languages are as follows. The classification and numbers of speakers follow Janhunen (2006), except for Southern Mongolic, which follows Nugteren (2011). ; Mongolic * Dagur (96,000 speakers) * Central Mongolic **

Khamnigan The Khamnigan, Hamnigan Mongols, or the Tungus Evenki, are a Tungusic- Mongolic ethnic (sub)group of Mongolized Evenks. Khamnigan is the Buriat- Mongolian term for all Ewenkis. In the early 16th century, the Evenks of Transbaikalia or Khamnigan ...

(2,000 speakers) ** Buryat (330,000 speakers) ** Oirat (including Kalmyk) (360,000 speakers) ** Mongolian proper (5.2 million speakers) *** Eastern and Central dialect ****

Khalkha The Khalkha (Mongolian script, Mongolian: mn, Халх, Halh, , zh, 喀爾喀) have been the largest subgroup of Mongols, Mongol people in modern Mongolia since the 15th century. The Khalkha, together with Chahars, Ordos Mongols, Ordos and Tum ...

**** Chakhar ****

Khorchin The Khorchin ( mn, Хорчин, ''Horçin''; ''Qorčin''; ) are a subgroup of the Mongols that speak the Khorchin dialect of Mongolian and predominantly live in northeastern Inner Mongolia of China. History The Ming dynasty gave Borjigin pr ...

****

Ordos Ordos may refer to: Inner Mongolia * Ordos City, Inner Mongolia, China **Ordos Ejin Horo Airport * Ordos Loop of the Yellow River, a region of China **Ordos Plateau or "the Ordos", land enclosed by Ordos Loop *Ordos Desert, in Inner Mongolia *Ordos ...

*Southern Mongolic (part of a Gansu–Qinghai

Sprachbund A sprachbund (, lit. "language federation"), also known as a linguistic area, area of linguistic convergence, or diffusion area, is a group of languages that share areal features resulting from geographical proximity and language contact. The lang ...

) ** Shira Yugur (4,000 speakers) ** ***

Monguor Mongour, formerly also known by various names including Tu and Dchiahour, may refer to: * Monguor people * Monguor language The Monguor language (; also written Mongour and Mongor) is a Mongolic language of its Shirongolic branch and is part of ...

(150,000 speakers) *** Bonan (6,000 speakers) ***

Santa Santa Claus, also known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Kris Kringle, or simply Santa, is a legendary figure originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring children gifts during the late evening and overnight ...

(Dongxiang) (200,000 speakers) *** Kangjia (1,000 speakers) *

Moghol The Moghols (also Mogul, Mongul) are Mongolic peoples, Mongolic people as descendants of the Mongol Empire's soldiers in Afghanistan. They live in the Kundur and Karez-i-Mulla villages of Herat Province, Herat province and used to speak the Mogh ...

(extinct) In another classificational approach, there is a tendency to call Central Mongolian a language consisting of Mongolian proper, Oirat and Buryat, while Ordos (and implicitly also Khamnigan) is seen as a variety of Mongolian proper. Within Mongolian proper, they then draw a distinction between Khalkha on the one hand and

Southern Mongolian Southern Mongolian or Inner Mongolian ( ') is a proposed major dialect group within the taxonomy of the Mongolian language. Overview It is assumed by most Inner Mongolia linguists and would be on the same level as the other three major dialect gro ...

(containing everything else) on the other hand. A less common subdivision of Central Mongolic is to divide it into 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). The broader delimitation of Mongolian may be based on

mutual intelligibility In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...

, but an analysis based on a tree diagram such as the one above faces other problems because of the close contacts between, for example, Buryat and Khalkha Mongols during history, thus creating or preserving a

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...

. Another problem lies in the sheer comparability of terminology, as Western linguists use ''language'' and ''dialect'', while Mongolian linguists use the Grimmian trichotomy ''language'' (kele), ''dialect'' (nutuγ-un ayalγu) and ''Mundart'' (aman ayalγu). Rybatzki (2003: 388-389) recognizes the following 6 areal subgroups of Mongolic. * Northeastern Mongolic (NE) = Dagur * Northern Mongolic (N) =

Khamnigan Mongol Khamnigan is a Mongolic language spoken east of Lake Baikal. The Khamnigan people, called the ''Horse Tungus'' or ''Steppe Tungus'', are natively bilingual, speaking both a Mongolic and a Tungusic language, which are inherited from their mixe ...

– Buryat * Central Mongolic (C) = Mongol proper–

– Oirat * South-Central Mongolic (SC) = Shira Yughur * Southeastern Mongolic (SE) = Mongghul– Mangghuer– Bonan–

- Kangjia * Southwestern Mongolic (SW) =

Mixed languages

The following are mixed

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

–Mongolic languages. * Tangwang (mixed

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

–

) * Wutun (mixed

– Bonan)

Writing systems

* The traditional

Mongolian script The classical or traditional Mongolian script, also known as the , was the first writing system created specifically for the Mongolian language, and was the most widespread until the introduction of Cyrillic in 1946. It is traditionally writte ...

(based on the

Old Uyghur alphabet The Old Uyghur alphabet was a Turkic script used for writing the Old Uyghur, a variety of Old Turkic spoken in Turpan and Gansu that is the ancestor of the modern Western Yugur language. The term "Old Uyghur" used for this alphabet is misleading ...

) was first developed for Proto-Mongolic, possibly as early as the 7th century. * In 1931, the

Mongolian People's Republic The Mongolian People's Republic ( mn, Бүгд Найрамдах Монгол Ард Улс, БНМАУ; , ''BNMAU''; ) was a socialist state which existed from 1924 to 1992, located in the historical region of Outer Mongolia in East Asia. It w ...

adopted a Mongolian version of the Latin alphabet as the official script for Mongolian. * Under

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

influence, in 1941 Mongolia switched to a version of the Russian alphabet called

Mongolian Cyrillic The Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet ( Mongolian: , or , ) is the writing system used for the standard dialect of the Mongolian language in the modern state of Mongolia. It has a largely phonemic orthography, meaning that there is a fair degree ...

. * In March 2020, the Mongolian government announced plans to use both Cyrillic and the traditional Mongolian script in official documents by 2025.Official documents to be recorded in both scripts from 2025
Montsame, 18 March 2020.

Notes

References

Citations

Sources

* * * Janhunen, Juha. 2012
Khitan – Understanding the language behind the scripts
SCRIPTA, Vol. 4: 107–132. * * * * * * echenbaatarSečenbaγatur, Qasgerel, Tuyaγ-a, B. ǰirannige, U Ying ǰe. (2005). ''Mongγul kelen-ü nutuγ-un ayalγun-u sinǰilel-ün uduridqal''. Kökeqota: ÖMAKQ. * * * * * Vovin, Alexander. 2007. Once again on the Tabgač language. Mongolian Studies XXIX: 191–206.

External links

Ethnic map of Mongolia

grammars, texts, dictionaries and bibliographies of Mongolian and other Altaic languages {{DEFAULTSORT:Mongolic Languages Mongolic–Khitan languages Languages of Mongolia Languages of China Languages of Russia Languages of Afghanistan Languages of Kyrgyzstan