Mongolian is the principal language of the Mongolic language family that originated in the Mongolian Plateau. It is spoken by ethnic Mongols and other closely related Mongolic peoples who are native to modern Mongolia and surrounding parts of East, Central and North Asia. Mongolian is the official language of Mongolia and the Chinese autonomous region of Inner Mongolia and is also a recognized language of Xinjiang and Qinghai in China and Buryatia in Russia.
The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5–6 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the ethnic Mongol residents of the Inner Mongolia of China. In Mongolia, Khalkha Mongolian is predominant, and is currently written in both Cyrillic and the traditional Mongolian script. In Inner Mongolia, it is dialectally more diverse and written in the traditional Mongolian script. However, Mongols in both countries often use the Latin script for convenience on the Internet.
In the discussion of grammar to follow, the variety of Mongolian treated is the standard written Khalkha formalized in the writing conventions and in grammar as taught in schools, but much of it is also valid for vernacular (spoken) Khalkha and other Mongolian dialects, especially Chakhar Mongolian.
Some classify several other Mongolic languages like Buryat and Oirat as varieties of Mongolian, but this classification is not in line with the current international standard.
Mongolian is a language with vowel harmony and a complex syllabic structure compared to other Mongolic languages, allowing clusters of up to three consonants syllable-finally. It is a typical agglutinative language that relies on suffix chains in the verbal and nominal domains. While there is a basic word order, subject–object–verb, ordering among noun phrases is relatively free, as grammatical roles are indicated by a system of about eight grammatical cases. There are five voices. Verbs are marked for voice, aspect, tense and epistemic modality/evidentiality. In sentence linking, a special role is played by converbs.
Modern Mongolian evolved from Middle Mongol, the language spoken in the Mongol Empire of the 13th and 14th centuries. In the transition, a major shift in the vowel-harmony paradigm occurred, long vowels developed, the case system changed slightly, and the verbal system was restructured. Mongolian is related to the extinct Khitan language. It was believed that Mongolian was related to Turkic, Tungusic, Korean and Japonic languages but this view is now seen as obsolete by a majority of comparative linguists. These languages have been grouped under the Altaic language family and contrasted with the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area. However, instead of a common genetic origin, Clauson, Doerfer, and Shcherbak proposed that Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic languages form a language Sprachbund, rather than common origin. Mongolian literature is well attested in written form from the 13th century but has earlier Mongolic precursors in the literature of the Khitan and other Xianbei peoples. The Bugut inscription dated to 584 CE and the Inscription of Hüis Tolgoi dated to 604–620 CE appear to be the oldest substantial Mongolic or Para-Mongolic texts discovered.
Name Writers such as Owen Lattimore referred to Mongolian as "the Mongol language". In the Mongolian language itself, the name for the language is "Монгол хэл" . "Монгол" (Mongol) is the endonym of the language used by the speakers themselves, and "хэл" (Khel) means "tongue" or "language".
"Монгол" may originate from the Middle Chinese term "Mengwu", or the Old Mongolic term for "brave" or "fearless", "Mong" (ᠮᠣᠩ or Монг). "хэл" originates from the Old Mongolic term for "language", "*kelen".
History
The earliest surviving Mongolian text may be the , a report on sports composed in Mongolian script on stone, which is most often dated at 1224 or 1225.Garudi (2002): 7, but see Rachewiltz (1976) The Mongolian-Armenian wordlist of 55 words compiled by Kirakos of Gandzak (13th century) is the first manuscript evidence of the language.Djahukyan (1991): 2368 From the 13th to the 15th centuries, Mongolian language texts were written in four scripts (not counting some vocabulary written in Western scripts): Uyghur Mongolian (UM) script (an adaptation of the Uyghur alphabet ), 'Phags-pa script (Ph) (used in decrees), Chinese (SM) (The Secret History of the Mongols), and Arabic (AM) (used in dictionaries).Rybatzki (2003b): 58. While they are the earliest texts available, these texts have come to be called "Middle Mongol" in scholarly practice.See Rachewiltz 1999 for a critical review of the terminology used in periodizations of Mongolic; Svantesson et al. (2005): 98–99 attempt a revision of this terminology for the early period. The documents in UM script show some distinct linguistic characteristics and are therefore often distinguished by terming their language "Preclassical Mongolian".Rybatzki (2003b): 57.
The Yuan dynasty referred to the Mongolian language in Chinese as "Guoyu" (), which means "National language", a term also used by other non-Han dynasties to refer to their languages such as the Manchu language during the Qing dynasty, the Jurchen language during the Jin dynasty (1115–1234), the Khitan language during the Liao dynasty, and the Xianbei language during the Northern Wei period.
The next distinct period is Classical Mongolian, which is dated from the 17th to the 19th century. This is a written language with a high degree of standardization in orthography and syntax that sets it quite apart from the subsequent Modern Mongolian. The most notable documents in this language are the Mongolian Kangyur and TengyurJanhunen (2003a): 32. as well as several chronicles.Okada (1984) In 1686, the Soyombo alphabet (Buddhist texts) was created, giving distinctive evidence on early classical Mongolian phonological peculiarities.Nadmid (1967): 98–102.
Geographic distribution
Mongolian is the official national language of Mongolia, where it is spoken (but not always written) by nearly 3.6 million people (2014 estimate), and the official provincial language (both spoken and written forms) of Inner Mongolia, where there are at least 4.1 million ethnic Mongols. Across the whole of China, the language is spoken by roughly half of the country's 5.8 million ethnic Mongols (2005 estimate). In Inner Mongolia specifically, about 2.1 million people speak Mongolian. The use of Mongolian in Inner Mongolia has witnessed periods of decline and revival over the last few hundred years. The language experienced a decline during the late Qing period, a revival between 1947 and 1965, a second decline between 1966 and 1976, a second revival between 1977 and 1992, and a third decline between 1995 and 2012. However, in spite of the decline of the Mongolian language in some of Inner Mongolia's urban areas and educational spheres, the ethnic identity of the urbanized Chinese-speaking Mongols is most likely going to survive due to the presence of urban ethnic communities. The multilingual situation in Inner Mongolia does not appear to obstruct efforts by ethnic Mongols to preserve their language. Although an unknown number of Mongols in China, such as the Tumets, may have completely or partially lost the ability to speak their language, they are still registered as ethnic Mongols and continue to identify themselves as ethnic Mongols. The children of inter-ethnic Mongol-Chinese marriages also claim to be and are registered as ethnic Mongols so they can benefit from the preferential policies for minorities in education, healthcare, family planning, school admissions, the hiring and promotion, the financing and taxation of businesses, and regional infrastructural support given to ethnic minorities in China. In 2020, the Chinese government required three subjects—language and literature, politics, and history—to be taught in Mandarin in Mongolian-language primary and secondary schools in the Inner Mongolia since September, which caused widespread protests among ethnic Mongol communities. These protests were quickly suppressed by the Chinese government. Mandarin has been deemed the only language of instruction for all subjects as of September 2023.
Classification and varieties
Mongolian belongs to the Mongolic languages. The delimitation of the Mongolian language within Mongolic is a much disputed theoretical problem, one whose resolution is impeded by the fact that existing data for the major varieties is not easily arrangeable according to a common set of linguistic criteria. Such data might account for the historical development of the Mongolian dialect continuum, as well as for its sociolinguistic qualities. Though phonological and lexical studies are comparatively well developed,See especially Rinčjen (1979), Amaržargal (1988), Coloo (1988) and for a general bibliography on Mongolic phonology Svantesson et al. (2005): 218–229. the basis has yet to be laid for a comparative morphosyntactic study, for example between such highly diverse varieties as Khalkha and Khorchin.See Ashimura (2002) for a rare piece of research into dialect morphosyntax that shows significant differences between Khalkha and Khorchin.Janhunen (2003): 189.
In Juha Janhunen's book titled Mongolian, he groups the Mongolic language family into four distinct linguistic branches: the Dagur branch, made up of just the Dagur language, which is spoken in the northeast area of Manchuria in China, specifically in Morin Dawa Daur Autonomous Banner of Hulunbuir, and in Meilisi Daur District of Qiqihar, Heilongjiang; the Moghol branch, made up of just the Moghol language, spoken in Afghanistan, and is possibly extinct; the Shirongolic (or Southern Mongolic) branch, made up of roughly seven languages, which are spoken in the Amdo region of Tibet; the Common Mongolic (or Central Mongolic) branch, made up of roughly six language varieties, to which Mongolian proper belongs.
The Common Mongolic branch is grouped in the following way: Khalkha () is spoken in Mongolia, but some dialects (e.g. Cahar) are also spoken in the Inner Mongolia region of China. Khorchin () is spoken to the east in eastern Inner Mongolia and Manchuria. Ordos is spoken to the south, in Ordos City in Inner Mongolia. Oirat, is spoken to the west, in Dzungaria. Khamnigan () is spoken in northeast Mongolia and in northwest of Manchuria. Buryat () is spoken to the north, in the Republic of Buryatia of Russia, as well as in the Barga region of Hulun Buir League in Inner Mongolia.