The traditional Mongolian script, also known as the Hudum Mongol bichig, was the first
writing system
A writing system comprises a set of symbols, called a ''script'', as well as the rules by which the script represents a particular language. The earliest writing appeared during the late 4th millennium BC. Throughout history, each independen ...
created specifically for the
Mongolian language
Mongolian is the Prestige (sociolinguistics), principal language of the Mongolic languages, Mongolic language family that originated in the Mongolian Plateau. It is spoken by ethnic Mongols and other closely related Mongolic peoples who are nati ...
, and was the most widespread until the introduction of
Cyrillic
The Cyrillic 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 countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...
in 1946. It is traditionally written in vertical lines from top to bottom, flowing in lines from left to right . Derived from the
Old Uyghur alphabet, it is a true
alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letter (alphabet), letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from a ...
, with separate letters for consonants and vowels. It has been adapted for such languages as
Oirat and
Manchu
The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic peoples, Tungusic East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized Ethnic minorities in China, ethnic minority in China and the people from wh ...
. Alphabets based on this classical vertical script continue to be used in
Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...
and
Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of China. Its border includes two-thirds of the length of China's China–Mongolia border, border with the country of Mongolia. ...
to write Mongolian,
Xibe and, experimentally,
Evenki.
Computer operating systems have been slow to adopt support for the Mongolian script; almost all have incomplete support or other text rendering difficulties.
History

The Mongolian vertical script developed as an adaptation of the
Old Uyghur alphabet for the Mongolian language.
Tata-tonga, a 13th-century
Uyghur scribe captured by
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan (born Temüjin; August 1227), also known as Chinggis Khan, was the founder and first khan (title), khan of the Mongol Empire. After spending most of his life uniting the Mongols, Mongol tribes, he launched Mongol invasions and ...
, was responsible for bringing the Old Uyghur alphabet to the
Mongolian Plateau and adapting it to the form of the Mongolian script.
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 are: in the eastern dialect, the famous text ''
The Secret History of the Mongols
The ''Secret History of the Mongols'' is the oldest surviving literary work in the Mongolic languages. Written for the Borjigin, Mongol royal family some time after the death of Genghis Khan in 1227, it recounts his life and conquests, and parti ...
'', 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
A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...
(in the
Chakhar dialect, the Standard Mongolian in
Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of China. Its border includes two-thirds of the length of China's China–Mongolia border, border with the country of Mongolia. ...
, these vowels are still distinct); inter-vocal consonants ''ɣ''/''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'' became associated with and respectively, and in the 19th century, the
Manchu
The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic peoples, Tungusic East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized Ethnic minorities in China, ethnic minority in China and the people from wh ...
hooked ''
yodh
Yodh (also spelled jodh, yod, or jod) is the tenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ''yōd'' 𐤉, Hebrew ''yod'' , Aramaic ''yod'' 𐡉, Syriac ''yōḏ'' ܝ, and Arabic ''yāʾ'' . It is also related to the Ancient Nort ...
'' 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.
Words are
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,
Manchu
The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic peoples, Tungusic East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized Ethnic minorities in China, ethnic minority in China and the people from wh ...
, 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,'' 1994.]
The
reed pen was the writing instrument of choice until the 18th century, when the
brush took its place under Chinese influence.
Pens were also historically made of wood,
bamboo
Bamboos are a diverse group of mostly evergreen perennial plant, perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily (biology), subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family, in th ...
, 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 metalloid ...
, or iron. Ink used was black or
cinnabar
Cinnabar (; ), or cinnabarite (), also known as ''mercurblende'' is the bright scarlet to brick-red form of Mercury sulfide, mercury(II) sulfide (HgS). It is the most common source ore for refining mercury (element), elemental mercury and is t ...
red, and written with on
birch bark, paper, cloths made of
silk
Silk is a natural fiber, natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be weaving, woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is most commonly produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoon (silk), c ...
or cotton, and wooden or
silver
Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...
plates.
File:Kalam2.jpg, Reed pens
File:Pinceaux chinois.jpg, Ink brushes
File:Богд хааны бичгийн хэрэглэл.jpg, Writing implements of the Bogd Khan
Mongols learned their script as a
syllabary
In the Linguistics, linguistic study of Written language, written languages, a syllabary is a set of grapheme, written symbols that represent the syllables or (more frequently) mora (linguistics), morae which make up words.
A symbol in a syllaba ...
, 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
Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of China. Its border includes two-thirds of the length of China's China–Mongolia border, border with the country of Mongolia. ...
in the
People's Republic of China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
. In the
Mongolian People's Republic
The Mongolian People's Republic (MPR) was a socialist state that existed from 1924 to 1992, located in the historical region of Outer Mongolia. Its independence was officially recognized by the Nationalist government of Republic of China (1912� ...
, it was largely replaced by the
Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet, 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 (40%) of the
Sinicized Mongols in China
Mongols in China, also known as Mongolian Chinese or Chinese Mongols, are ethnic Mongols who live in China. They are one of the List of ethnic groups in China#Ethnic groups recognized by the People's Republic of China, 56 ethnic groups recogniz ...
are unable to read or write this 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
Old Uyghur alphabet, 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, and also as 'vertical 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 Mo ...
, sometimes called ''Hudum'' 'traditional' in
Oirat in contrast to the
Clear script (''Todo'' 'exact'), is the original form of the Mongolian script used to write the
Mongolian language
Mongolian is the Prestige (sociolinguistics), principal language of the Mongolic languages, Mongolic language family that originated in the Mongolian Plateau. It is spoken by ethnic Mongols and other closely related Mongolic peoples who are nati ...
. 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, 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 a phonological rule in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – must share certain distinctive features (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, meaning tha ...
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.
Vowel harmony
Mongolian vowel harmony separates the vowels of words into three groups – two mutually exclusive and one neutral:
* The ''back'', ''male'', ''masculine'',
[by ]Manchu
The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic peoples, Tungusic East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized Ethnic minorities in China, ethnic minority in China and the people from wh ...
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 word part responsible for a word's lexical meaning. The term is used with slightly different meanings depending on the morphology of the language in question. For instance, in Athabaskan linguistics, 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 and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...
. This form requires a final-shaped preceding letter, and an word-internal 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').
It has the same shape as the ''traditional'' dative-locative suffix ' exemplified in the next section. This form of the suffix is, however, more commonly found in older texts, and is restricted in its Post-
Classical use.
Separated suffixes
All
case 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 and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can 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
A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (''Africa''; ''Jupiter''; ''Sarah (given name), Sarah''; ''Walmart'') as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a Class (philoso ...
can usually join two words into 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 (political), capital of Inner Mongolia in the North China, north of the China, People's Republic of China, serving as the region's administrativ ...
; as opposed to other compound words). This also allows components of different harmonic classes to be joined together, and 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
Sort orders
Only in a late form can a definite order of signs be established for the alphabet, but can likely be traced back to an earlier Uyghur model.
Native Mongolian
Galik characters
In 1587, the translator and scholar
Ayuush Güüsh created the Galik alphabet ( ), inspired by the third
Dalai Lama
The Dalai Lama (, ; ) is the head of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. The term is part of the full title "Holiness Knowing Everything Vajradhara Dalai Lama" (圣 识一切 瓦齐尔达喇 达赖 喇嘛) given by Altan Khan, the first Shu ...
,
Sonam Gyatso. It primarily added extra characters for transcribing
Tibetan and
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
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).
In 1917, the politician and linguist
Bayantömöriin Khaisan published the
rime dictionary ''Mongolian-Han Bilingual Original Sounds of the Five Regions'', a bilingual edition of the earlier ''Original Sounds of the Five Regions'', to aid Mongolian speakers in learning Mandarin Chinese. To that end, he included transliterations of Mandarin using the Mongolian script, and repurposed three Galik letters to represent the Mandarin
retroflex consonants. These letters remain in use in
Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of China. Its border includes two-thirds of the length of China's China–Mongolia border, border with the country of Mongolia. ...
for the purpose of transcribing Chinese.

}
,
, —
, —
,
,
,
,
, ,
, -
,
,
,
, —
,
,
,
,
,
, -
, : . Takes the form of medial ''h'', but used in initial position.
,
, —
, —
,
,
,
,
,
, -
, : .
,
, —
, —
,
,
,
,
,
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.
For typographical reasons, they are rotated 90° in modern books to fit on the line.
Components and writing styles
Components
Listed in the table below are letter components (
graphemes) 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)
!Use
, -
, style="text-align: center" ,
, 'Tooth'
, A main part of letters ''/'' (from Old Uyghur ''
aleph
Aleph (or alef or alif, transliterated ʾ) is the first Letter (alphabet), letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician alphabet, Phoenician ''ʾālep'' 𐤀, Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew ''ʾālef'' , Aramaic alphabet, Aramaic ''ʾālap'' � ...
''), ' (''
nun, also'' part of the
digraph '), ''/'' (''
gimel
Gimel is the third (in alphabetical order; fifth in spelling order) letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ''gīml'' 𐤂, Hebrew ''gīmel'' , Aramaic ''gāmal'' 𐡂, Syriac ''gāmal'' ܓ and Arabic ''ǧīm'' . It is also rela ...
-
heth
Heth, sometimes written Chet or Ḥet, is the eighth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ''ḥēt'' 𐤇, Hebrew ''ḥēt'' , Aramaic ''ḥēṯ'' 𐡇, Syriac ''ḥēṯ'' ܚ, and Arabic ''ḥāʾ'' . It is also related to ...
''), ' (''
mem''), ' (''hooked
resh
Resh is the twentieth Letter (alphabet), letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician alphabet, Phoenician ''rēš'' 𐤓, Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew ''rēš'' , Aramaic alphabet, Aramaic ''rēš'' 𐡓, Syriac alphabet, Syriac ''rēš'' � ...
''), initial ''/'' (''
taw''), etc.
Historically also part of ''/'' (''
kaph
Kaph (also spelled kaf) is the eleventh letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ''kāp'' 𐤊, Hebrew ''kāp̄'' , Aramaic ''kāp'' 𐡊, Syriac ''kāp̄'' ܟ, and Arabic ''kāf'' (in abjadi order). It is also related to the Anc ...
''), as well as ' (''resh'').
, -
, style="text-align: center" ,
, 'Crown'
, An exaggerated initial (
''swash'') tooth. Used for the leading ''aleph'' of initial vowels (', ', ', ', ', ', ', '), and with some initial consonants (', ', ', ' = ''nun'', ''mem'', ''hooked resh'', ''ha'' etc.). Historically unused.
, -
, style="text-align: center" ,
, 'Spine, backbone'
, The vertical line running through words.
, -
, style="text-align: center" ,
, 'Tail'
, The swash final of ', ', ', etc.
, -
, style="text-align: center" ,
, 'Short tail'
, The swash final of ', ', and ' (''
samekh
Samekh or samech is the fifteenth Letter (alphabet), letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician alphabet, Phoenician ''sāmek'' 𐤎, Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew ''sāmeḵ'' , Aramaic alphabet, Aramaic ''samek'' 𐡎, and Syriac alphabet, Syr ...
-
shin'' or ''
zayin'').
, -
, rowspan="2" style="text-align: center" ,
, Crook
, The separated final '.
, -
, Crook, 'Sprinkling, dusting'
, The connected lower part of final '; the lower part of final ' (''kaph'').
, -
, style="text-align: center" ,
, 'Hook'
, The final part of final ' (after bow-shaped ', ') and some galik letters.
, -
, rowspan="3" style="text-align: center" ,
, 'Shin, stick'
, rowspan="3" , A main part of ', ', and ', and final part of initial ' (''
yodh
Yodh (also spelled jodh, yod, or jod) is the tenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ''yōd'' 𐤉, Hebrew ''yod'' , Aramaic ''yod'' 𐡉, Syriac ''yōḏ'' ܝ, and Arabic ''yāʾ'' . It is also related to the Ancient Nort ...
''). Also the upper part of final ' (''kaph'').
, -
, 'Straight shin'
, -
, 'Long tooth'
, -
, style="text-align: center" ,
, 'Shin with upturn'
, Initial and medial ' (''yodh'').
, -
, style="text-align: center" ,
, Shin with downturn
, The letters ' and ' (''
bet'').
, -
, style="text-align: center" ,
, Horned shin
, The letter ' (''resh''). Historically also the upper part of final ' and separated '.
, -
, style="text-align: center" ,
, 'Looped shin'
, A medial ' (''
lamedh
Lamedh or lamed is the twelfth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Hebrew ''lāmeḏ'' , Aramaic ''lāmaḏ'' 𐡋, Syriac ''lāmaḏ'' ܠ, Arabic ''lām'' , and Phoenician ''lāmd'' 𐤋. Its sound value is . It is also related to the A ...
''). Historically with its enclosed (''
counter'') endpoint varying in shape: as open/closed, hook-shaped, pointy/round etc.
, -
, style="text-align: center" ,
, 'Hollow shin'
, The letters ' and ' (from the Tibetan script).
, -
, style="text-align: center" ,
, 'Bow'
, Final ', ', and '; ', ''/'' (''
pe''), ', etc.
, -
, style="text-align: center" ,
, 'Belly, stomach,' loop, contour
, The counter of ' (''
waw''), ', ', initial ', etc.
, -
, style="text-align: center" ,
, 'Hind-gut'
, An initial ' (''taw'').
, -
, style="text-align: center" ,
,
, An initial ' (''gimel-heth'').
, -
, style="text-align: center" ,
, rowspan="2" , 'Braid, pigtail' and 'Horn'
, rowspan="2" , The letters ' (''mem'') and ' (''hooked resh'').
, -
, style="text-align: center" ,
, -
, style="text-align: center" ,
, 'Corner of the mouth'
, The letters ' (''samekh-shin'').
, -
, rowspan="2" style="text-align: center" ,
,
, rowspan="2" , The letter ' (angular ''
tsade
Tsade (also spelled , , , , tzadi, sadhe, tzaddik) is the eighteenth Letter (alphabet), letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician alphabet, Phoenician ''ṣādē'' 𐤑, Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew ''ṣādī'' , Aramaic alphabet, Aramaic ''� ...
'').
, -
, 'Fork'
, -
, rowspan="2" style="text-align: center" ,
,
, rowspan="2" , The letter ' (smooth ''tsade'').
, -
, 'Tusk, fang'
, -
, style="text-align: center" ,
, rowspan="3" , Flaglet, tuft
, rowspan="2" , The left-side
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 ...
of ', ', etc. These names are only used for such components created for words of foreign origin.
, -
, style="text-align: center" ,
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
* Rounded letterforms tend to be more prevalent with handwritten styles (compare printed and handwritten ' 'ten').
Tail
* 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.
Yodh
* A hooked form of ''yodh'' was borrowed from the
Manchu alphabet 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.
Diacritics
* 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
Bow
* 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:
Gimel-heth and kaph
* As in ', ', ' 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
Ligatures
* In pre-modern Mongolian, medial ' () forms a ligature:

.
Short tail
* A pre-modern variant form for final ' appears in the shape of a short final ' }, derived from Old Uyghur ''
zayin'' (). 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 '.
Taw and lamedh
* 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.
Tsade
* 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:
Resh
* 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
Mongolia Biometric Ordinary Passport 2023.jpg, Decorative 'wrapped/folded' letters on a 2023 passport., alt=Decorative 'wrapped/folded' letters on a 2023 passport.: 159 : 160
File:Mongolian Calligraphy (2).jpg, Mongolian calligraphy of the 13th century work ''Оюун Түлхүүр'' (Key of Intelligence)
File:Imperial Seal of Bogd Khan.jpg, Imperial seal of the Bogd Khan, ca 1911.
File:Inner Mongolia Museum horse-riding paizi.jpg, Mixed Manchu–Mongolian text on a Paiza.
File:Čoyijod Dagini manuscript 01.jpg, Brush-written ' manuscript, 19th century
File:Book of Jeremiah in Mongolian Script, 1840.jpg, Book of Jeremiah
The Book of Jeremiah () is the second of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, and the second of the Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. The superscription at chapter Jeremiah 1#Superscription, Jeremiah 1:1–3 identifies the book as "th ...
, printed 1840 at Khodon in Siberia.
Unicode
The Mongolian script was added to the
Unicode
Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...
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.
* The characters themselves are typed left to right, instead of the correct up to down.
Blocks
The Unicode block for Mongolian is U+1800–U+18AF. It includes letters, digits and various punctuation marks for
Hudum Mongolian,
Todo Mongolian,
Xibe (Manchu),
Manchu proper, and
Ali Gali, as well as extensions for transcribing
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
and
Tibetan.
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 Windows 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. Standard keybo ...
for personal computers is as follows:
Unshifted layout
Shifted layout
See also
*
Mongolian writing systems
**Mongolian script
***
Mongolian script multigraphs
***
Galik alphabet
***
Todo alphabet
**
ʼPhags-pa script
***
Horizontal square script
**
Soyombo script
**
Mongolian Latin alphabet
***
SASM/GNC romanization § Mongolian
**
Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet
**
Mongolian transliteration of Chinese characters
***
**
Mongolian Braille
*
Mongolian Sign Language
*
Mongolian name
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 ScriptStudyMongolian: Written forms with audio pronunciationLingua Mongolia: Uighur-script Mongolian Resources
(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(sometimes uses galik characters for rendering purposes)
Mongol toli dictionary: state dictionary of Mongolia
Transliteration
*
ttp://www.ushuaia.pl/transliterate/?ln=en Online tool for Mongolian script transliterationAutomatic 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 Mongoliawebsite in Mongolian script
*
{{Inner Mongolia topics
Alphabets
Mongolian writing systems
Articles containing Mongolian script text