Mongolian Language: All the Aspects

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Mongolian languages are a group of languages that form a subdivision of the Altaic subfamily of the Ural-Altaic family of languages. The Mongolian languages are spoken by about 6 million people who live mainly in three regions: the Republic of Mongolia, the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region of China, and the region of Lake Baykal in Siberia. Some people from the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Manchuria, both in China, also speak the language. Mongolian has a number of dialects which are divided into the Khalkha group and the Peripheral Mongolian group. The dialects are in general mutually intelligible. The standard dialect is Khalkha. The Khalkha, Dariganga, Khotogoit, Sartul and Tsongol dialects belong to the Khalkha group. The Peripheral Mongolian group consists of Chakhar, Ejine, Jirim, Jo-Uda, Kharchin, Ordos, Tumut, Ulanchab, and Ujumchin dialects (LMP, 2007). The standard Mongolian dialect (the Khalkha dialect) belongs to the Mongolian Proper dialects of the Eastern dialectal group. Closely related languages from the Eastern subgroup are Buriat, Kalmyk, Oirat, Monguor, Dagur, and Darkhat (LMP, 2007). The Khalkha dialect is the standard Mongolian dialect, spoken by around 90% of the population in Outer Mongolia (LMP, 2007). It is mutually intelligible with the Peripheral Mongolian dialects. Khalkha is also spoken in Inner Mongolia, Issyk-Kul Oblast of Kyrgyzstan and Taiwan. Peripheral Mongolian is spoken in Inner and Outer Mongolia, Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang provinces of the Chinese People’s Republic, Urumqi to Hailar.

Khalkha, or Mongol proper, is the most important Mongolian language. It is the official native language of the Republic of Mongolia. Mongolian Halh is spoken by over 2.3 million people in the Mongolian People’s Republic where it has the status of a national language. Peripheral Mongolian is spoken by 3.4 million people in Inner Mongolia, of whom 2.5 million are monolingual (NVTC, 2007). Within the Mongolian People’s Republic, Peripheral Mongolian has the status of an official regional language.

Though Mongolia was situated between the Russian and Chinese empires, it managed to develop and retain a strong self-identity. During the two and a half centuries of Manchu-Ch’ing sovereignty over the Mongols, the gap between the educated and privileged and the less educated and underprivileged widened enormously. In elite circles, an additional gap between a Chinese-centered world view and a Russian-centered world view appeared in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Black et al, 1991). Those Mongolian nobles living closest to China proper imbibed Chinese cultural values, while those Mongols (the Buriats) who lived within the tsarist Russian cultural orbit and were educated in Russian schools and universities nurtured a Russian world view. Inner Mongolian nobles were exposed to Chinese world view whereas Outer Mongolians were exposed to Russian world view. Culturally and economically, Mongols held on to their own identity even when Inner and Outer Mongols were absorbed into the Russian and Chinese empires during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Black et al, 1991). The Mongolian language was partially responsible for maintaining that cultural identity. Unrelated to Chinese or Russian, the Mongolian language was used as the primary language of government documents in the Yuan dynasty when the Mongols ruled China. The reason why Eastern Mongolia was able to retain its cultural ‘otherness’ is because of its continued use of the Mongolian language and it is also because of the failure of either Chinese Confucians or Tibetan Buddhists to convert the Mongols from their indigenous shamanism in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (Black et al, 1991). While espousing tolerance for other religions and philosophies, the eastern Mongols who ruled China completely avoided conversion to Buddhism and also held on to their native language.

Like the other Uralic and Altaic languages, the Mongolian tongues exhibit vowel harmony and are agglutinative. There are 6 vowels: /i/, /e/, /a/, //, /o/, //, /u/. They can be either long or short. Mongolian has front-back vowel harmony (NVTC, 2007). There are two kinds of vowels — front vowels, which are produced at the front of the mouth, e.g., /i/, /e/, and back vowels, produced at the back of the mouth, e.g., /a/, /u/, /o/. Mongolian words can contain only all front or all back vowels, and all suffixes and affixes must conform to the vowel of the syllable preceding them in the word. Mongolian has a complex consonant system with 29 consonant phonemes (NVTC, 2007). Mongolian is an agglutinative language (NVTC, 2007). An agglutinative language is one in which each affix typically represents one unit of meaning, e.g., ‘past tense’, ‘singular’, etc. In an agglutinative language, affixes do not become fused with each other, but are simply added on one after the other. A distinguishing characteristic of Mongolian is that it uses postpositions instead of prepositions. Mongolian nouns are not marked for gender. Number is optional. There are eight cases marked by suffixes: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, locative, ablative, instrumental, and comitative (NVTC, 2007). Nouns can take suffixes indicating that the marked noun is possessed by the subject of the sentence. Verbs are not marked for person or number. There are five moods: indicative, dubitative, imperative, conditional subjunctive, optative. In a passive sentence the agent takes either dative or instrumental case. The normal word order in Mongolian sentences is Subject – Object – Verb, although some permutations are possible where context demands (NVTC, 2007).

For many centuries the Mongols had their own system of writing, which was ultimately derived from the Aramaic script, a Semitic alphabet. After 1941 the traditional Mongol script yielded to a modified Cyrillic alphabet in the Republic of Mongolia. In Inner Mongolia, owing to the policy of the People’s Republic of China, the traditional Mongol script is being replaced by a writing based on the Roman alphabet. The history of the Mongolian language, as evinced from monumental inscriptions suggests that it can be studied in three phases: the Ancient period, the Middle Period and the Contemporary period (Shagdarsuren,2007). The ancient period is the period between the seventh and eighth centuries. During the ancient period, Mongolian language had two main dialects. It is interesting to note that the historical documents from this period are written in the Tabghatch dialect of the Xian’pi language of the Chinese and in the Mongolian literary language in the Mongolian script based on the ancient Mongolian language (Shagdarsuren,2007). The Mongolian language of the ancient period had the following features: all vowels (a, r, o, u, e. i, ö,ü ) and consonants( Y, q; g, k) were divided into two categories – front and back; the initial consonants p-f-h were retained in those words that in modern times begin with an uncovered syllable; the consonants Y/g, b/w were kept in intervocal position; grammatical categories existed (Shagdarsuren,2007).

The middle period extended from the end of the ancient period to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. During the middle age, the Mongolian language was divided into southern, eastern and western dialects. The major historical documents of this period are: Secret History of the Mongols, monuments in the square script, the Chinese-Mongolian glossary of the fourteenth century (eastern dialect); Arab-Mongolian and Persian-Mongolian dictionaries, Mongolian texts in Arabic transcription (western dialect). The Mongolian language during the middle age had the following features: the vowels ï and i lost their phonemic significance and the i phoneme was introduced; intervocal consonants Y/g, b/w disappeared and the formation of Mongolian long vowels was introduced; the initial h was preserved in many words; grammatical categories were partially absent (Shagdarsuren,2007).

The final stage of development of the Mongolian language is the contemporary period that stretches from the end of the middle period till today. Mongolian language of this period is characterized by long fully formed vowels, absence of intervocal consonants /g, b, w; and absence of initial consonants p-f-h. Moreover, it is significant to note that the classical Mongolian literary language in the Mongolian script belongs to this period. This script is based on the written language of xylographic publications in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Shagdarsuren,2007).

The Mongolian language today comprises several dialects, including Helha, Buriad, Oirat, Tsahar, Harchin, Horchin, Ordos and others. The Modern Mongolian language that is held as the national language is based on the Halh dialect. This language has the following features: “agglutination in a majority of instances; the subject and attribute preceding predicate and dependent member; the absence of grammatical gender; the absence of agreement of adjective with substantive and of subject with predicate in number; as compared with Indo-European languages, Mongolian nominalized verbs are much more active syntactically than substantives and the active form of verbs” (Shagdarsuren,2007). The Turkic-speaking people of Mongolia are basically bilingual and can talk Turkish and Mongolian (NVTC, 2007).

Numerous written systems have been used by the Mongol people since ancient times and these systems reflect the characteristics and dialects of the Mongolian language during that specific time. There is historical evidence that ancient Mongols who were the ancestors of the nomadic Mongols had their own unique script. There are at least nine or ten such scripts today. Historically each script has its own ornamental or decorative form for the press, ex-libres, book plates and architecture (LMP, 2007).

Research shows that the Mongolian script originated from the Sogdian letters of 1000 AD. It was initially passed on to the Uigurs in the thirteenth century and later, from the Uigurs, the Mongols adopted it. The Sogdians were ancient Iranians who had borrowed their script from Syriac (LMP, 2007). However, where Syriac and Sogdian were written horizontally right to left, Uighur and Mongolian are written vertically left to right (LMP, 2007). A recent theory holds that the Mongols did not get their script from the Uigurs but rather directly from the Sogdians when the Uigur culture was at its peak. Due to political and religious factors, there was a need to include words from other languages such as Sanskrit, Tibetan and Chinese. This lead to the evolution of the Mongolian script called ali-kali. It was founded in 1587 by Ayush-gush in 1587. Genghisun chuluu (the Genghis stone, 1224/1225) is one of the oldest monuments of the Mongolian script. It is actually the first of the ‘stone books’ of the nomadic Mongols. The Mongolian lettering as used by the Manchurians was the basis of the Manchurian script, created in 1599 (Shagdarsuren, 2007).

During the period 1269 to 1368 Khubilai Khan ordered the creation of the square of hP’ags-pa script on the basis of Tibetan and Indian letters. This script was the official alphabet of the Yuan Dynasty. The documents in this script reflect the phonetic system of the Mongolian language of that period. The square script was not only useful for transliterating foreign words but also for recording Chinese texts. This made B.Ya. Vladimirtsov note that ‘the hP’ags-pa script was the Mongolian international alphabet of the thirteenth century’ (Shagdarsuren, 2007).

In 1648, a clear script that was based on the existing Mongolian script was introduced by Zaya Pandit Namhaijamts of Oirat. This script eliminated the homographs in the Mongolian and made the written language resemble the spoken one. Studies show that this script was used not only by the Oirats but by all Mongols. The clear script was mainly used to transcribe Tibetan and Sanskrit words (Shagdarsuren, 2007).

In 1686, when Manchu attached Mongolia, Bogdo Zanabazar I invented the Soyombo and the Horizontal-square script on the basis of ancient Indian writing of Brahman origin. The historical documents of this period show that the letters were created mainly to record words from the three holy languages of the period – Mongolian, Tibetan and Sanskrit (Shagdarsuren, 2007).

In 1905, the Vaghintara script was invented by Agwan-Dorji. In this context, it must be noted that Vaghintara is the Indian form of the name Agwan. The Vaghintara script was based on the Mongolian script and its main characteristic is the absence of positional allographs and homographs. The Vaghintara script was used to transcribe Russian words (Shagdarsuren, 2007).

The Mongolian script was used in Mongolia till 1941 after which a new alphabet based on Cyrillic script was adopted. The official reasons for the change to Cyrillic script were to bridge the gap between the written and spoken languages, and to help in the inclusion of foreign words to the Mongolian language. But these reasons do not seem valid as the Mongolian script already had a system for transcribing foreign words and there is no need to bridge the gap between the written and spoken language. The gap exists for many languages including English (Shagdarsuren, 2007)..

For the past eight centuries, Mongolian language has been written using different scripts. But the most enduring one is the earliest script that the Mongols borrowed from the Uighurs or Sogdians (NVTC, 2007). According to Mongol history, this script was instituted at the order of Chinggis Qaghan in 1204. Due to the influence of Tibetan Buddhism, different script forms were adopted to transcribe Tibetan and Sanskrit. When the Cyrillic script was introduced, the Uighur script lots its place in Outer Mongolia, where generations have learnt only Cyrillic. However, the Uighur script is still commonly used by the Mongolians living in Inner Mongolia autonomous region of China (NVTC, 2007).

The Uighur script is cursive in nature (LM, 2007). This allows every letter in the alphabet to have three different shapes ‘depending on whether the letter appears in an initial, medial, or final position’. In the Mongolian language, there is a rigid system governing the rules how letters are connected depending on the position of the letter in the word. All Mongolian words are based around single straight line which the Mongols call the spine (Mong. niγurun) (LM, 2007). All individual letters are then formed by using flicks and dashes away from this central line. To write Mongolian language neatly, the spine must be kept as straight as possible. The main body of any Mongolian word should be written without taking the pen from the paper. Generally speaking, the spine and any flicks to the left should be written first, flicks to the right and any dots/dashes are added afterwards (LM, 2007). Mongolian is considered to be a Category II language in terms of difficulty for native speakers of English. It is thought to be more difficult to learn than other languages in this category (NVTC, 2007).

Mongolian has borrowed words from many languages, including Sanskrit (via Uyghur), Tibetan, Chinese, Russian and English. In addition, government language commissions have been creating new words based on native elements to fill gaps in vocabulary e.g., the Russian loanword pivo ‘beer’ now has a native Mongolian equivalent ‘shar ayrag’. Loan translations are also common, e.g., the Chinese term renkou ‘population’ (literally, ‘person’ + ‘mouth’) is rendered into Mongolian as hun am (hun ‘person’ + am ‘mouth’) (NVTC, 2007). Here are a few common Mongolian words and phrases: Sain baina uu – Hello; Bayartai – Good bye; Bayarlalaa -Thank you; Uuchlaarai -I’m sorry; Tiim-Yes; Ugui-No. English has borrowed a few words from Mongolian. Among them are the following: Mogul from Persian Mughul, from Mongolian mongγol ‘Mongol.’ Kumys an alcoholic beverage made from a mare’s or camel’s milk (NVTC, 2007).

Bibliography

Black, C. E.; Dupree, L.; Endicott-West, E.; Matuszewski, D.C.; Naby, E.; and Waldron, A. N. (1991). The Modernization of Inner Asia. M. E. Sharpe, Inc. Armonk, NY. 1991. Page Number: 143-45.
LM (Lingua Mongolia) (2007). The Mongolian (Uighur) Script. Web.
LMP (Language Material Project)(2007). Mongolian. Web.
NVTC (National Virtual Translation Center) (2007). Mongolian. Web.
Shagdarsuren, Tseveliin (2007). The Mongolian Language and Scripts.

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Mongolian Language: All the Aspects

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