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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 6.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the ethnic Mongol residents of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of the People's Republic 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.
The Mongolic languages are a language family spoken by the Mongolic peoples in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, North Asia and East Asia, mostly in Mongolia and surrounding areas and in Kalmykia and Buryatia. The best-known member of this language family, Mongolian, is the primary language of most of the residents of Mongolia and the Mongol residents of Inner Mongolia, with an estimated 5.7+ million speakers.
Tuvan or Tyvan is a Turkic language spoken in the Republic of Tuva in South-Central Siberia in Russia. The language has borrowed a great number of roots from the Mongolian language, Tibetan and the Russian language. There are small diaspora groups of Tuvan people that speak distinct dialects of Tuvan in the People's Republic of China and in Mongolia.
Evenkiay-VEN-kee (Ewenkī), formerly known as Tungus or Solon, is the largest member of the northern group of Tungusic languages, a group which also includes Even, Negidal, and the more closely related Oroqen language. The name is sometimes wrongly given as "Evenks". It is spoken by Evenks or Ewenkī(s) in Russia and China.
Buryat or Buriat, known in foreign sources as the Bargu-Buryat dialect of Mongolian, and in pre-1956 Soviet sources as Buryat-Mongolian, is a variety of the Mongolic languages spoken by the Buryats and Bargas that is classified either as a language or major dialect group of Mongolian.
Oirat is a Mongolic language spoken by the descendants of Oirat Mongols, now forming parts of Mongols in China, Kalmyks in Russia and Mongolians. Largely mutually intelligible to other core Central Mongolic languages, scholars differ as to whether they regard Oirat as a distinct language or a major dialect of the Mongolian language. Oirat-speaking areas are scattered across the far west of Mongolia, the northwest of China and Russia's Caspian coast, where its major variety is Kalmyk. In China, it is spoken mainly in Xinjiang, but also among the Deed Mongol of Qinghai and Subei County in Gansu.
The Khalkha dialect is a dialect of central Mongolic widely spoken in Mongolia. According to some classifications, the Khalkha dialect includes Southern Mongolian varieties such as Shiliin gol, Ulaanchab and Sönid. As it was the basis for the Cyrillic orthography of Mongolian, it is de facto the national language of Mongolia. The name of the dialect is related to the name of the Khalkha Mongols and the Khalkha river.
Darkhad is a dialect in-between Central Mongolian and Oirat still variously seen as closer to Oirat or as a dialect of Khalkha Mongolian with some Oirat features. However, it seems to have substantially assimilated to the Khalkha dialect since it first was described by Sanžeev, and some classificational differences seem to be due to what historical state got classified. Ethnologue reports a population of 24,000 without providing a date. Speakers live mainly in the west of Lake Khövsgöl in the sums Bayanzürkh, Ulaan-Uul and Rinchinlkhümbe in the Khövsgöl Province of Mongolia.
Unlike many languages, Icelandic has only very minor dialectal differences in sounds. The language has both monophthongs and diphthongs, and many consonants can be voiced or unvoiced.
The Dagur, Daghur, Dahur, or Daur language, is a Mongolic language, as well as a distinct branch of the Mongolic language family, and is primarily spoken by members of the Dagur ethnic group.
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. In comparison to Modern Mongolian, it is known to have had no long vowels, different vowel harmony and verbal systems and a slightly different case system.
Torgut, also spelled Torghud, is a dialect of the Oirat language spoken in Xinjiang, in western Mongolia and in eastern Kalmykia. Thus, it has more speakers than any other variety of Oirat. It is better researched than any other Oirat variety spoken in China.
Ordos Mongolian is a variety of Central Mongolic spoken in the Ordos City region in Inner Mongolia and historically by Ordos Mongols. It is alternatively classified as a language within the Mongolic language family or as a dialect of the standard Mongolian language. Due to the research of Antoine Mostaert, the development of this dialect can be traced back 100 years.
Chakhar is a variety of Mongolian spoken in the central region of Inner Mongolia. It is phonologically close to Khalkha and is the basis for the standard pronunciation of Mongolian in Inner Mongolia.
The Khorchin dialect is a variety of Mongolian spoken in the east of Inner Mongolia, namely in Hinggan League, in the north, north-east and east of Hinggan and in all but the south of the Tongliao region. There were 2.08 million Khorchin Mongols in China in 2000, so the Khorchin dialect may well have more than one million speakers, making it the largest dialect of Inner Mongolia.
Alasha, or Alaša-Eǰen-e, is a Mongolic variety with features of both Oirat and Mongolian that historically used to belong to Oirat but has come under the influence of Mongolian proper. It has more than 40,000 speakers in Alxa League, Inner Mongolia, China and consists of two sub-dialects, Alasha proper and Eǰene.
In the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China, the Mongolian language is the official provincial language. Mongols are the second largest ethnic group, comprising about 17 percent of the population. There are at least 4.1 million ethnic Mongols in Inner Mongolia, including subgroups like the Chahars, Ordos, Baarin, Khorchin, Kharchin, and Buryats. While there is a standardized dialect of the Mongolian language in Inner Mongolia, different Mongolian dialects continue to be spoken by different subgroups of the Mongols. Some proposed the Peripheral Mongolian dialect group to cover the Mongolian dialects in Inner Mongolia.
I is a letter of related and vertically oriented alphabets used to write Mongolic and Tungusic languages.
Ya is a letter of related and vertically oriented alphabets used to write Mongolic and Tungusic languages.
References
- ↑ Sečenbaγatur et al. 2005: 293
- ↑ Janhunen 2003
- ↑ Luvsanvandan 1959
- ↑ e.g. Sečenbaγatur et al. 2005
- ↑ Bayarmendü 1997: 7
- ↑ Bayarmendü 1997: 53-54
- ↑ Bayarmendü 1997: 87-89
- ↑ Bayarmendü 1997: 81-85
- ↑ Bayarmendü 1997: 144; note that this article follows Svantesson et al. 2005: 22-25 in assuming that vowel length in any but the first syllable is non-phonemic as such vowels only contrast with non-phonemic vowels inserted to avoid prohibited consonant sequencies.
- ↑ Bayarmendü 1997: 94-95