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 Eastern Europe, Central Asia, North Asia and East Asia, mostly in Mongolia and surrounding areas and in Kalmykia and Buryatia. The best-known member of this language ...
of its Shirongolic branch and is part of the
Gansu–
Qinghai
Qinghai (; alternately romanized as Tsinghai, Ch'inghai), also known as Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is the fourth largest province of China by area and has the third smallest po ...
sprachbund (also called the
Amdo
Amdo ( am˥˥.to˥˥ ) is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being U-Tsang in the west and Kham in the east. Ngari (including former Guge kingdom) in the north-west was incorporated into Ü-Tsang. Amdo is also the ...
sprachbund). There are several dialects, mostly spoken by the
Monguor people
The Monguor (; Tu: Mongghul), the Tu people (), the White Mongol or the Tsagaan Mongol, are Mongolic people and one of the 56 officially recognized ethnic groups in China. The "Tu" ethnic category was created in the 1950s.
According to the 200 ...
. A written script 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
Huzhu Tu Autonomous County (), or in short Huzhu County (), is an autonomous county under the jurisdiction of the prefecture-level city of Haidong, in the east of Qinghai province, China, bordering Gansu province to the northeast. It has an area ...
and Mangghuer in
Minhe Hui and Tu Autonomous County
Minhe Hui and Tu Autonomous County (; Xiao'erjing: ) is the easternmost county in Qinghai Province, China. It is under the administration of Haidong (lit. Eastern Qinghai) Region. "Hui" refers to the Chinese Muslims, whereas "Tu" refers to the e ...
, 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 dialects, the farmer dialect and the nomad dialect.
Amdo is one of the three branches of traditional c ...
, the same holds for Mangghuer and
Sinitic languages, and local varieties of Chinese such as the
Gangou language
Gangou ( zh, s=甘沟话, p=Gāngōuhuà) is a variety of Mandarin Chinese that has been strongly influenced by Monguor (Mongol) and Amdo (Tibetan). It is representative of Chinese varieties spoken in rural Qinghai that have been influenced by ...
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.
Numerals
Mongolian numerals such as the following
[Dpal-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
Agglutinative languages
Southern Mongolic languages
Languages of China
L
Mongolic languages
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