Classical Mongolian language

Classical Mongolian
Native to	Mongolia, China, Russia
Era	1700–1900; developed into modern Mongolian
Language family	Mongolic Classical Mongolian
Early form	Middle Mongolian
Language codes
ISO 639-3	cmg
Linguist List	cmg
Glottolog	None

Classical Mongolian was the literary language of Mongolian that was first introduced shortly after 1600, when Ligdan Khan set his clergy the task of translating the whole of the Tibetan Buddhist canon, consisting of the Kangyur and Tengyur, into Mongolian. ^[1] This script then became the established literary language used for all Mongolian literature since its introduction, until the 1930s when the Mongolian Latin alphabet was introduced, which then in 1941 was replaced by the Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet. ^[2]

Classical Mongolian was formerly used in Mongolia, China, and Russia. It is a standardized written language used in the 18th century and 20th centuries. ^[3]

Classical Mongolian sometimes refers to any language documents in Mongolian script that are neither Pre-classical (i.e. Middle Mongol in the Mongolian script) nor modern Mongolian. ^[4]

See also

• Middle Mongolian

References

1. Grønbech & Krueger 1993, pp. 5, 7.
2. Grønbech & Krueger 1993, p. 8.
3. Janhunen 2003, p. 32.
4. e.g. Linguist List entry for Classical Mongolian Archived 2012-02-18 at the Wayback Machine

Sources

• Grønbech, Kaare; Krueger, John Richard (1993). An Introduction to Classical (literary) Mongolian: Introduction, Grammar, Reader, Glossary. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN   978-3-447-03298-8.
• Janhunen, Juha (2003). "Written Mongol". In Janhunen, J. (ed.). The Mongolic languages. Routledge Language Family Series. Vol. 5. London: Routledge. pp. 30–56. ISBN   978-0-700-71133-8.