The classical or traditional Mongolian script, also known as the , was the first

writing system A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable fo ...

created specifically for the

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 ...

, and was the most widespread until the introduction of

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...

in 1946. It is traditionally written in vertical lines . Derived from 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 misleadi ...

, Mongolian is a true

alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllab ...

, with separate letters for consonants and vowels. The Mongolian script has been adapted to write languages such as Oirat and

Manchu The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. The Later Jin (1616–1636) an ...

. Alphabets based on this classical vertical script are used in Mongolia and

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 ...

to this day to write Mongolian, Xibe and, experimentally, Evenki.

Computer operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

s have been slow to adopt support for the Mongolian script, and almost all have incomplete support or other text rendering difficulties.

History

The Mongolian vertical script developed as an adaptation of the

for the Mongolian language. From the seventh and eighth to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Mongolian language separated into southern, eastern and western dialects. The principal documents from the period of the

Middle Mongol language 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 ...

are: in the eastern dialect, the famous text ''

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 ...

'', monuments in the Square script, materials of the Chinese–Mongolian glossary of the fourteenth century, and materials of the Mongolian language of the middle period in Chinese transcription, etc.; in the western dialect, materials of the Arab–Mongolian and Persian–Mongolian dictionaries, Mongolian texts in Arabic transcription, etc. The main features of the period are that the vowels ''ï'' and ''i'' had lost their phonemic significance, creating the ''i''

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-wes ...

(in the Chakhar dialect, the Standard Mongolian in

, these vowels are still distinct); inter-vocal consonants ''γ''/''g'', ''b''/''w'' had disappeared and the preliminary process of the formation of Mongolian long vowels had begun; the initial ''h'' was preserved in many words; grammatical categories were partially absent, etc. The development over this period explains why the Mongolian script looks like a vertical Arabic script (in particular the presence of the dot system). Eventually, minor concessions were made to the differences between the Uyghur and Mongol languages: In the 17th and 18th centuries, smoother and more angular versions of the letter ''

tsadi Tsade (also spelled , , , , tzadi, sadhe, tzaddik) is the eighteenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ṣādē , Hebrew ṣādi , Aramaic ṣāḏē , Syriac ṣāḏē ܨ, Ge'ez ṣädäy ጸ, and Arabic . Its oldest phone ...

'' became associated with and respectively, and in the 19th century, the

hooked ''

yodh Yodh (also spelled jodh, yod, or jod) is the tenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Yōd /𐤉, Hebrew Yōd , Aramaic Yod , Syriac Yōḏ ܝ, and Arabic . Its sound value is in all languages for which it is used; in many l ...

'' was adopted for initial . '' Zain'' was dropped as it was redundant for . Various schools of orthography, some using

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

s, were developed to avoid ambiguity. Traditional Mongolian is written vertically from top to bottom, flowing in lines from left to right. The Old Uyghur script and its descendants, of which traditional Mongolian is one among Oirat Clear,

, and Buryat are the only known vertical scripts written from left to right. This developed because the Uyghurs rotated their Sogdian-derived script, originally written right to left, 90 degrees counterclockwise to emulate Chinese writing, but without changing the relative orientation of the letters.György Kara, "Aramaic Scripts for Altaic Languages", in Daniels & Bright ''

The World's Writing Systems ''The World's Writing Systems'' is a reference book about the world's writing systems. The book is edited by Peter T. Daniels and William Bright and was first published by Oxford University Press in 1996. ''The World's Writing Systems'' systema ...

,'' 1994. The reed pen was the writing instrument of choice until the 18th century, when the

brush A brush is a common tool with bristles, wire or other filaments. It generally consists of a handle or block to which filaments are affixed in either a parallel or perpendicular orientation, depending on the way the brush is to be gripped durin ...

took its place under Chinese influence. Pens were also historically made of wood, reed,

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, ...

, bone,

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids suc ...

, or iron. Ink used was black or

cinnabar Cinnabar (), or cinnabarite (), from the grc, κιννάβαρι (), is the bright scarlet to brick-red form of mercury(II) sulfide (HgS). It is the most common source ore for refining elemental mercury and is the historic source for the bri ...

red, and written with on

birch bark Birch bark or birchbark is the bark of several Eurasian and North American birch trees of the genus ''Betula''. The strong and water-resistant cardboard-like bark can be easily cut, bent, and sewn, which has made it a valuable building, craftin ...

, paper, cloths made of

silk Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons. The best-known silk is obtained from th ...

or cotton, and wooden or

silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...

plates. File:Kalam2.jpg, Reed pens File:Pinceaux chinois.jpg, Ink brushes File:Богд хааны бичгийн хэрэглэл.jpg, Writing implements of the

Bogd Khan Bogd Khan, , ; ( – 20 May 1924) was the khan of the Bogd Khaganate from 1911 to 1924, following the state's ''de facto'' independence from the Qing dynasty of China after the Xinhai Revolution. Born in Tibet, he was the third most importa ...

Mongols learned their script as a

syllabary In the linguistic study of written languages, a syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent the syllables or (more frequently) moras which make up words. A symbol in a syllabary, called a syllabogram, typically represents an (option ...

, dividing the syllables into twelve different classes, based on the final phonemes of the syllables, all of which ended in vowels. The script remained in continuous use by Mongolian speakers in

in the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

. In 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 ...

, it was largely replaced by the

Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet 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 ...

, although the vertical script remained in limited use. In March 2020, the Mongolian government announced plans to increase the use of the traditional Mongolian script and to use both Cyrillic and Mongolian script in official documents by 2025. However, due to the particularity of the traditional Mongolian script, a large part of the Sinicized

Mongols in China Mongols in China or Mongolian Chinese () are ethnic Mongols who were integrated into the nation-building of the Republic of China (1912–1949) after the fall of Qing Empire (1636–1911). Those not integrated broke away in the Mongolian Revolu ...

can't identify the script, and in many cases the script is only used symbolically on plaques in many cities.

Names

The script is known by a wide variety of names. As it was derived from the

, the ''Mongol script'' is known as the ''Uighur(-)Mongol script''. From 1941 onwards, it became known as the ''Old Script'', in contrast to the ''New Script'', referring to Cyrillic. The Mongolian script is also known as the ''Hudum'' or 'not exact' script,, in comparison with the Todo 'clear, exact' script .

Overview

The traditional or classical

Mongolian alphabet Various Mongolian writing systems have been devised for the Mongolian language over the centuries, and from a variety of scripts. The oldest and native script, called simply the Mongolian script, has been the predominant script during most of ...

, sometimes called ''Hudum'' 'traditional' in Oirat in contrast to the

Clear script Clear Script ( xal, , Тодо бичиг, , ''todo biçig''; mn, Тод бичиг, ''tod bichig'', , bxr, Тодо бэшэг, ''Todo besheg'' (), or just todo) is an alphabet created in 1648 by the Oirat Buddhist monk Zaya Pandita for t ...

(''Todo'' 'exact'), is the original form of the Mongolian script used to write the

. It does not distinguish several vowels ('/', '/', final '/') and consonants (syllable-initial '/' and '/', sometimes '/') that were not required for Uyghur, which was the source of the Mongol (or Uyghur-Mongol) script. The result is somewhat comparable to the situation of

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

, which must represent ten or more vowels with only five letters and uses the digraph ''th'' for two distinct sounds. Ambiguity is sometimes prevented by context, as the requirements of

vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is an assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, me ...

and syllable sequence usually indicate the correct sound. Moreover, as there are few words with an exactly identical spelling, actual ambiguities are rare for a reader who knows the orthography. Letters have different forms depending on their position in a word: initial, medial, or final. In some cases, additional graphic variants are selected for visual harmony with the subsequent character. The rules for writing below apply specifically for the ''Mongolian'' language, unless stated otherwise.

Sort orders

* Traditional: ', '/', '/', ', ', ', ', ', ', ', ', '... * Modern: ', ', ', '/', '/', ', ', ', ', ', ', '... * Other modern orderings that apply to specific dictionaries also exist.

Vowel harmony

Mongolian vowel harmony separates the vowels of words into three groups – two mutually exclusive and one neutral: * The ''back'', ''male'', ''masculine'',by

convention ''hard'', or ''yang''in Inner Mongolia. vowels ', ', and '. * The ''front'', ''female'', ''feminine'', ''soft'', or ''yin'' vowels ', ', and '. * The neutral vowel ', able to appear in all words. Any Mongolian word can contain the neutral vowel ', but only vowels from either of the other two groups. The vowel qualities of visually separated vowels and suffixes must likewise harmonize with those of the preceding word stem. Such suffixes are written with ''front'' or neutral vowels when preceded by a word stem containing only neutral vowels. Any of these rules might not apply for foreign words however.

Separated final vowels

A separated final form of vowels ' or ' is common, and can appear at the end of a

word stem In linguistics, a word stem is a part of a word responsible for its lexical meaning. The term is used with slightly different meanings depending on the morphology of the language in question. In Athabaskan linguistics, for example, a verb stem ...

, or

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 carr ...

. This form requires a final-shaped preceding letter, and an inter-word gap in between. This gap can be transliterated with a hyphen. The presence or lack of a separated ' or ' can also indicate differences in meaning between different words (compare ' 'black' with ' 'to look'). Its form could be confused with that of the identically shaped ''traditional'' dative-locative suffix '/' exemplified further down. That form however, is more commonly found in older texts, and more commonly takes the forms of '/' or '/' instead.

Separated suffixes

All

case Case or CASE may refer to: Containers * Case (goods), a package of related merchandise * Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component * Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books * Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to ca ...

es, as well as any plural suffixes consisting of one or two syllables, are likewise separated by a preceding and hyphen-transliterated gap. A maximum of two case suffixes can be added to a stem. Such single-letter vowel suffixes appear with the final-shaped forms of '/', ', or '/', as in ' 'to the country' and ' 'on the day', or ' 'the state' etc. Multi-letter suffixes most often start with an initial- (consonants), medial- (vowels), or variant-shaped form. Medial-shaped ' in the two-letter suffix '/' is exemplified in the adjacent newspaper logo.

Consonant clusters

Two medial consonants are the most that can come together in original Mongolian words. There are however, a few loanwords that can begin or end with two or more.

Compound names

In the modern language, proper names (but not words) usually forms graphic compounds (such as those of ' 'Jasper-jewel' or ' – the city of

Hohhot Hohhot,; abbreviated zh, c=呼市, p=Hūshì, labels=no formerly known as Kweisui, is the capital of Inner Mongolia in the north of the People's Republic of China, serving as the region's administrative, economic and cultural center.''The N ...

). These also allow components of different harmonic classes to be joined together, and where the vowels of an added suffix will harmonize with those of the latter part of the compound. Orthographic peculiarities are most often retained, as with the short and long ''teeth'' of an initial-shaped ' in ' 'Bad Girl' ( protective name). Medial ' and ', in contrast, are not affected in this way.

Isolate citation forms

Isolate citation forms for syllables containing ', ', ', and ' may in dictionaries appear without a final tail as in '/' or '/', and with a vertical tail as in '/' or '/' (as well as in transcriptions of Chinese syllables).

Letters

Native Mongolian

Galik characters

In 1587, the translator and scholar Ayuush Güüsh () created the Galik alphabet ( ), inspired by the third

Dalai Lama Dalai Lama (, ; ) is a title given by the Tibetan people to the foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest and most dominant of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th and current D ...

, Sonam Gyatso. It primarily added extra characters for transcribing

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 diale ...

and

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...

terms when translating religious texts, and later also from Chinese. Some of those characters are still in use today for writing foreign names (as listed below). KFC in Hohhot

Syllabary

File:19th century Mongolian alphabet and syllabary - 1.jpg File:19th century Mongolian alphabet and syllabary - 2.jpg File:19th century Mongolian alphabet and syllabary - 3.jpg File:19th century Mongolian alphabet and syllabary - 4.jpg File:19th century Mongolian alphabet and syllabary - 5.jpg File:19th century Mongolian alphabet and syllabary - 6.jpg File:19th century Mongolian alphabet and syllabary - 7.jpg File:19th century Mongolian alphabet and syllabary - 8.jpg File:19th century Mongolian alphabet and syllabary - 9.jpg File:19th century Mongolian alphabet and syllabary - 10.jpg File:19th century Mongolian alphabet and syllabary - 11.jpg File:19th century Mongolian alphabet and syllabary - 12.jpg File:19th century Mongolian alphabet and syllabary - 13.jpg

Punctuation and numerals

Punctuation

When written between words, punctuation marks use space on both sides of them. They can also appear at the very end of a line, regardless of where the preceding word ends. Red (cinnabar) ink is used in many manuscripts, to either symbolize emphasis or respect. Modern punctuation incorporates Western marks: parentheses; quotation, question, and exclamation marks; including precomposed and .

Numerals

Mongolian numerals are either written from left to right, or from top to bottom.

Components and writing styles

Components

Listed in the table below are letter components (

graphemes In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system. The word ''grapheme'' is derived and the suffix ''-eme'' by analogy with ''phoneme'' and other names of emic units. The study of graphemes is called '' graphem ...

) commonly used across the script. Some of these are used with several letters, and others to contrast between them. As their forms and usage may differ between writing styles, however, examples of these can be found under this section below. !Form !Name(s) !Used with , - , style="text-align: center" , , 'Crown' , all initial vowels (', ', ', ', ', ', ', '), and some initial consonants (', ', ', ', etc). , - , rowspan="2" style="text-align: center" , , 'Tooth' , rowspan="2" , , - , 'Tooth' , - , style="text-align: center" , , 'Spine, backbone' , the vertical line running through words. , - , style="text-align: center" , , 'Tail' , ', ', ', ', etc. A final connected flourish/swash pointing right. , - , style="text-align: center" , , 'Short tail' , final ', ', ', and ' , - , rowspan="2" style="text-align: center" , , , separated final '. , - , 'Sprinkling, dusting' , lower part of final '; the lower part of final '. , - , style="text-align: center" , , 'Hook' , lower part of final ' and '. , - , rowspan="3" style="text-align: center" , , 'Shin, stick' , rowspan="3" , '; initial ' and '; the upper part of final '; ' and ', etc. , - , 'Straight shin' , - , 'Long tooth' , - , style="text-align: center" , , 'Shin with upturn' , '. , - , style="text-align: center" , , Shin with downturn , ' and '. , - , style="text-align: center" , , Horned shin , , - , style="text-align: center" , , 'Looped shin' , ' and '. , - , style="text-align: center" , , 'Hollow shin' , ' and '. , - , style="text-align: center" , , 'Bow' , final ', '–', and '; ', ', ', ', ', etc. , - , style="text-align: center" , , 'Belly, stomach,' loop, contour , the enclosed part of '–', ', ', initial ' and ', etc. , - , style="text-align: center" , , 'Hind-gut' , initial ' and '. , - , style="text-align: center" , , rowspan="2" , Flaglet, tuft , the left-side

of ' and '. , - , style="text-align: center" , , , - , style="text-align: center" , , , initial ' and '. , - , rowspan="2" style="text-align: center" , , 'Braid, pigtail' , rowspan="2" , '. , - , 'Horn' , - , rowspan="2" style="text-align: center" , , 'Horn' , rowspan="2" , '. , - , 'Braid, pigtail' , - , style="text-align: center" , , 'Corner of the mouth' , ' and '. , - , rowspan="2" style="text-align: center" , , , rowspan="2" , '. , - , 'Fork' , - , rowspan="2" style="text-align: center" , , , rowspan="2" , '. , - , 'Tusk, fang'

Writing styles

As exemplified in this section, the shapes of glyphs may vary widely between different styles of writing and choice of medium with which to produce them. The development of written Mongolian can be divided into the three periods of ''pre-classical'' (beginning – 17th century), ''classical'' (16/17th century – 20th century), and ''modern'' (20th century onward): * Rounded letterforms tend to be more prevalent with handwritten styles (compare printed and handwritten ' 'ten'). * Final letterforms with a right-pointing tail (such as those of ', ', ', ', ', ', ', ', ', and ') may have the notch preceding it in printed form, written in a span between two extremes: from as a more or less tapered point, to a fully rounded curve in handwriting. * The long final tails of ', ', ', and ' in the texts of pre-classical Mongolian can become elongated vertically to fill up the remainder of a line. Such tails are used consistently for these letters in the earliest 13th to 15th century ''Uyghur Mongolian'' style of texts. * A hooked form of ''yodh'' was borrowed from the

Manchu alphabet The Manchu alphabet ( mnc, m=, v=manju hergen, a=manju hergen) is the alphabet used to write the now nearly-extinct Manchu language. A similar script is used today by the Sibe people, Xibe people, who speak a Xibe language, language consider ...

in the 19th century to distinguish initial ' from '. The handwritten form of final-shaped ''yodh'' ('', '', '), can be greatly shortened in comparison with its initial and medial forms. * The definite status or function of diacritics was not established prior to classical Mongolian. As such, the dotted letters ', ', and ', can be found sporadically dotted or altogether lacking them. Additionally, both ' and ' could be (double-)dotted to identify them regardless of their sound values. Final dotted ' is also found in modern Mongolian words. Any diacritical dots of ' and ' can be offset downward from their respective letters * When a ''bow''-shaped consonant is followed by a vowel in Uyghur style text, said bow can be found to notably overlap it (see '). A final ' has, in its final pre-modern form, a bow-less final form as opposed to the common modern one: * As in Block-printed emphatic particle 2

''/

'' ', ', ' and separated '/', two teeth can also make up the top-left part of a ''kaph'' ('/') or ''aleph'' ('/') in pre-classical texts. In back-vocalic words of Uyghur Mongolian, ' was used in place of ', and can therefore be used to identify this stage of the written language. An example of this appears in the suffix * In pre-modern Mongolian, medial ' () forms a ligature: Mongolian script ml ligature

. * A pre-modern variant form for final ' appears in the shape of a short final ' }, derived from Old Uyghur ''

zayin Zayin (also spelled zain or zayn or simply zay) is the seventh letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Zayin , Hebrew Zayin , Yiddish Zoyen , Aramaic Zain , Syriac Zayn ܙ, and Arabic Zayn or Zāy . It represents the sound . The ...

'' (). It tended to be replaced by the ''mouth''-shaped form and is no longer used. An early example of it is found in the name of Gengis Khan on the Stele of Yisüngge: '. A zayin-shaped final can also appear as part of final ' and '. * Initial ''taw'' ('/') can, akin to final ''mem'' ('), be found written quite explicitly loopy (as in ' 'book' and ' 'mirror'). The ''lamedh'' (' or ') may appear simply as an oval loop or looped shin, or as more angular, with an either closed or open counter (as in '/' or '/'). As in ', a Uyghur style word-medial ' can sometimes be written with the pre-consonantal form otherwise used for '. ''Taw'' was applied to both initial ' and ' from the outset of the script's adoption. This was done in imitation of Old Uyghur which, however, had lacked the phoneme ' in this position. Block-printed čiγšabd 2

* Following the late classical Mongolian orthography of the 17th and 18th centuries, a smooth and angular ''tsade'' ( and ) has come to represent ' and ' respectively. The ''tsade'' before this was used for both these phonemes, regardless of graphical variants, as no ' had existed in Old Uyghur: * As in ' and '/', a ''resh'' (of ', and sometimes of ') can appear as two teeth or crossed shins; adjacent, angled, attached to a shin and/or overlapping.

Example

Gallery

File:Mn coa govisümber aimag.svg, Folded script style on the coat of arms of Govisümber Province File:Mongolian Calligraphy (2).jpg,

Mongolian calligraphy Mongolian calligraphy is a form of calligraphy or artistic writing of the Mongolian language. Although Mongolia uses the Cyrillic script which was adopted during the Communist era, Mongolian calligraphy is written in the traditional Mongolian s ...

of the 13th century work ''Оюун Түлхүүр'' (Key of Intelligence) File:Мандухай сэцэн хатан.jpg, title screen, 1988 File:Stèle pour Mandukhaï Khatun.png, Stele for Queen Mandukhai the Wise File:内蒙古人民代表会议.jpg, Cover page with printed hand-

lettering Lettering is an umbrella term that covers the art of drawing letters, instead of simply writing them. Lettering is considered an art form, where each letter in a phrase or quote acts as an illustration. Each letter is created with attention to de ...

in red, early 20th century File:Stamp Mongolia 1932 1t.jpg, Postage stamp with words augmented with letters from the

, 1932 File:Mongolia-1Tukhrik-1925.jpg, 1 Mongolian tögrög, 1925 File:Министерством Финансов Монгольской Республики (1921) - выпуск 6% обязательств, 10 долларов.jpg,

Mongolian dollar The dollar ( mn, доллар) was the currency of Mongolia between 1921 and 1925. Treasury notes were issued under Baron Ungern in 1921. The denominations were 10, 20, 50 and 100 dollars. It was intended to replace the Chinese yuan The renm ...

with a long body of printed text, 1921 File:Imperial Seal of Bogd Khan.jpg, Imperial seal of the

, ca 1911. File:Inner Mongolia Museum horse-riding paizi.jpg, Mixed Manchu–Mongolian text on a Paiza. File:M injinash.jpg, Poem composed and brush-written by Injinash, 19th century File:Manuscript of a Mongolian Sūtra WDL8912.pdf, Mongolian '' Diamond Sutra'' manuscript, 19th century File:Mongeonogeoldae in museum.jpg, '' Nogeoldae'' textbook in Korean and Mongolian, 18th century File:Yonghe Temple board.jpg, Mongolian on the far left of a Yonghe Temple board in Beijing, 1722 File:OljeituToPhilippeLeBel1305.jpg, Letter from the

Il-Khan The Ilkhanate, also spelled Il-khanate ( fa, ایل خانان, ''Ilxānān''), known to the Mongols as ''Hülegü Ulus'' (, ''Qulug-un Ulus''), was a khanate established from the southwestern sector of the Mongol Empire. The Ilkhanid realm, ...

Öljaitü Öljaitü ( mn, , Öljaitü Qaghan, fa, اولجایتو), also known as Mohammad-e Khodabande ( fa, محمد خدابنده, ''khodābande'' from Persian meaning the "slave of God" or "servant of God"; 1280 – December 16, 1316), was the eig ...

to King

Philip IV of France Philip IV (April–June 1268 – 29 November 1314), called Philip the Fair (french: Philippe le Bel), was King of France from 1285 to 1314. By virtue of his marriage with Joan I of Navarre, he was also King of Navarre as Philip I from ...

, 1305 File:Аргун хан.jpg, Silver

dirham The dirham, dirhem or dirhm ( ar, درهم) is a silver unit of currency historically and currently used by several Arab world, Arab and Arabization, Arab influenced states. The term has also been used as a related unit of mass. Unit of ...

from the reign of the Il-Khan

Arghun Arghun Khan (Mongolian Cyrillic: ''Аргун хан''; Traditional Mongolian: ; c. 1258 – 10 March 1291) was the fourth ruler of the Mongol empire's Ilkhanate, from 1284 to 1291. He was the son of Abaqa Khan, and like his father, was a dev ...

, 1297 File:Guyuk khan's Stamp 1246.jpg, Imperial seal of

Güyük Khan Güyük (also Güyug;; ''c''. March 19, 1206 – April 20, 1248) was the third Khagan-Emperor of the Mongol Empire, the eldest son of Ögedei Khan and a grandson of Genghis Khan. He reigned from 1246 to 1248. Appearance According to Giovann ...

in letter to Pope Innocent IV, 1246

Unicode

The Mongolian script was added to the

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...

standard in September 1999 with the release of version 3.0. However, several design issues have been pointed out. * The 1999 Mongolian script Unicode codes are duplicated and not searchable. * The 1999 Mongolian script Unicode model has multiple layers of FVS (free variation selectors), MVS, ZWJ, NNBSP, and those variation selections conflict with each other, which create incorrect results. Furthermore, different vendors understood the definition of each FVS differently, and developed multiple applications in different standards.

Blocks

The Unicode block for Mongolian is U+1800–U+18AF. It includes letters, digits and various punctuation marks for

Hudum Mongolian 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 written ...

, Todo Mongolian, Xibe (Manchu), Manchu proper, and Ali Gali, as well as extensions for transcribing

and

. The Mongolian Supplement block (U+11660–U+1167F) was added to the Unicode Standard in June 2016 with the release of version 9.0:

Keyboard layout

The standard Mongolian traditional script

keyboard layout A keyboard layout is any specific physical, visual or functional arrangement of the keys, legends, or key-meaning associations (respectively) of a computer keyboard, mobile phone, or other computer-controlled typographic keyboard. is the actua ...

for personal computers is as follows: Монгольская клава

]

Notes

References

External links

; Keyboards Mongolian script layout online
''Lexilogos''

''Typingbaba''

''Branah.com''
; Summaries

* ttp://www.cjvlang.com/Writing/writmongol/mongolalpha.html CJVlang: Making Sense of the Traditional Mongolian Script
StudyMongolian: Written forms with audio pronunciation

Lingua Mongolia: Uighur-script Mongolian Resources

(note: contains several table inaccuracies regarding glyphs and transliterations) ; Studies * (fr) Rémusat, Abe
''Récherches sur les langues tartares''
Paris, 1820 ; Grammars * (ru) Schmidt, Isaak Jakob
''Грамматика монгольскaго языка (Grammatika mongolʹskago i︠a︡zyka)''
Saint-Petersburg, 1832 * (ru) Bobrovnikov, Aleksieĭ Aleksandrovic
''Грамматика монгольско-калмыцкого языка (Grammatika mongolʹsko-kalmyt͡skago i͡azyka)''
Kazan, 1849 * (de) Schmidt, Isaak Jakob
der mongolischen Sprache''
St. Petersburg, 1831 * (fr) Soulié, Charles Georges
''Éléments de grammaire mongole (dialecte ordoss)''
Paris, 1903 * (it) Puini, Carlo
''Elementi della grammatica mongolica''
Firenze, 1878 ; Dictionaries * (fr, ru) Kovalevskiĭ, Osip Mikhaĭlovich
''Dictionnaire Mongol-Russe-Franca̧is''
Volumes 1-3, Kazan 1844-46-49
Bolor Dictionary

Mongol toli dictionary: state dictionary of Mongolia
; Transliteration

* ttp://www.ushuaia.pl/transliterate/?ln=en Online tool for Mongolian script transliteration
Automatic converter for Traditional Mongolian and Cyrillic Mongolian by the Computer College of Inner Mongolia University
; Manuscripts

* ttp://www.kb.dk/en/nb/samling/os/central/digcentral.html Digitised Mongolian manuscripts – The Royal Library National Library of Denmark
Mongolian texts – Digitales Turfan-Archiv
the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Preservation of unique and historic newspapers printed in traditional Mongolian script between 1936-1945 – Endangered Archives Programme, British Library
; Other
Official Mongolian script version of the ''People's Daily Online''

Office of the President of Mongolia
website in Mongolian script * {{Inner Mongolia topics Alphabets Mongolian writing systems Articles containing Mongolian script text