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 and North Asia. Mongolian is the official language of Mongolia and Inner Mongolia and a recognized language of Xinjiang and Qinghai.
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.
The Daur people, Dagur, Daghur or Dahur are a Mongolic people originally native to Dauria and now predominantly located in Northeast China. The Daur form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognised in the People's Republic of China. They numbered 131,992 according to the latest census (2010) and most of them live in Morin Dawa Daur Autonomous Banner in Hulun Buir, northeastern Inner Mongolia and Meilisi Daur District in Qiqihar, Heilongjiang, Northeast China. Some Daur people also live near Tacheng in Xinjiang.
Tuvan, sometimes spelt Tyvan, is a Turkic language spoken in the Republic of Tuva in South Central Siberia, Russia. There are small groups of Tuvans that speak distinct dialects of Tuvan in China and Mongolia.
Evenki, formerly known as Tungus, 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 the Evenki or Ewenkī(s) in Russia and China.
Khitan or Kitan, also known as Liao, is an extinct language once spoken in Northeast Asia by the Khitan people. It was the official language of the Liao Empire (907–1125) and the Qara Khitai (1124–1218). Owing to a narrow corpus of known words and a partially undeciphered script, the language has yet to be completely reconstructed.
Fuyu Kyrgyz, also known as Manchurian Kirghiz, is a critically endangered Turkic language, and as, Gïrgïs, Kyrgysdar is an ethnonym of the Turkic unrecognized ethnic group in China. Despite the name, the Fuyu Kyrgyz language is not closely related to the Kyrgyz language, which is of Kipchak origin. The Fuyu Kyrgyz language is more similar to the Western Yugur language and the Abakan Turkic languages. The Fuyu Kyrgyz were relocated from the present day Kizilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture by the Qing government nearly 200 years ago.
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 Inner 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.
Mongols in China, also known as Mongolian Chinese, are ethnic Mongols who live in China. They are one of the 56 ethnic groups recognized by the Chinese government.
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.
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.
Baarin is a dialect of Mongolian spoken mainly in Inner Mongolia.
Khamnigan is a Mongolic language spoken by the Hamnigan people east of Lake Baikal.
The Shirongol, Shirongolic or Southeast Mongolian are a subgroup of the Mongolic languages in the Southern Mongolian subgroup. They are spoken in the Gansu and Qinghai provinces in China.
