Mongolian is the best-known member of the Mongolic language family, and the primary language of most of the residents of Mongolia. It is also spoken in some of the surrounding areas in provinces of China and the Russian Federation. The majority of speakers in Mongolia speak the Khalkha (or Halh) dialect, while those in China speak the Chahar, Oyirad, and Barghu-Buryat dialect groups.
Mongolian is a Mongolic language. The Altaic theory proposes that the Mongolic family is a member of the larger Altaic family, which would also include the Turkic and Tungusic languages, and possibly Japanese and Korean. Related languages include Kalmyk spoken near the Caspian Sea and Buryat of East Siberia, as well as a number of minor languages in China and the Mogholi language of Afghanistan.
Over two million people speak Mongolian throughout Mongolia. There are also up to three million speakers in Northern China, who, however, form only a shrinking minority of the overall population of Inner Mongolia, especially of its cities.
Official status
Khalkha Mongolian is the national language of Mongolia. In Inner Mongolia, the standard Mongolian language is based on Chahar Mongolian.
Dialects
The most prestigious dialect is Khalkha, which is spoken in the capital of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar, and most of Mongolia. In China, the dialect of the Plain Blue Banner in central Inner Mongolia, which belongs to the Chahar dialect group, is the official pronunciation standard.
Much of the description of Khalkha Mongolian is also valid for Southern Central Mongolian, for example Chahar. The main differences are phonological and lexical, while slight morphological and a few noteworthy syntactical differences exist as well.
Lexicon
In Mongolian, there are loan words especially from Old Turkic, Sanskrit (often through Uigur), Tibetan, Tungusic and Chinese, and, more recently, from Russian, Chinese and English. Commissions in the Mongolian state have been busy translating new terminology into Mongolian, so that Mongolian words such as "president" ("generalizer") and "beer" шар айраг ("yellow kumys") exist (though this one is second to Russian ). There are quite a few loan translations, e.g. ‘population' ("person mouth") from Chinese 人口 rénkŏu, ‘population'.
Phonology
The full inventory of long and short vowels can only occur in word-initial syllables. In word-internal and word-final syllables, vowels are reduced. Long vowels can only appear in initial syllables. In many non-initial syllables, there is, phonemically, no vowel at all (for example, хоёр, "two," ажил, "work," and саармаг, "neutral" are, phonemically, , , and , respectively (examples from Svantesson et al)). An epenthetic vowel is allophonically inserted, and the form of the epenthetic vowel is predictable from the preceding vowel: the epenthetic vowel is just a centralized version of the vowel in the preceding syllable. In the examples given, the words are phonetically , , and . However, in the epenthetic vowel in a syllable after /u/ is a centralized /e/, and if there is an /i/ in the preceding syllable, then an epenthetic vowel's phonetic form is determined by the vowel in the syllable preceding the /i/, that is, two syllables before the epenthetic vowel. Another factor affecting the form of the epenthetic vowel is the preceding consonant: if it is postalveolar or palatalized, then the epenthetic vowel is a centralized /i/, as in .
No discussion of the phonology of Mongolian would be complete without discussing the language's vowel harmony. Mongolian groups vowels into two groups. Traditionally, these groups have been seen as "front vowels" and "back vowels," but Svantesson et al analyze the groups instead as (what they term) "non-pharyngeal" (e, u, o) and "pharyngeal" (a,','). /i/ is a neutral vowel, and does not belong in either group. The type of vowel which occurs in the first syllable of a word determines what vowels can occur in the rest of the word. If the first vowel is pharyngeal, then all the vowels of the word must be either /i/ or a pharyngeal vowel. Similarly, if the first vowel is a non-pharyngeal vowel, then all the vowels of the word must be either /i/ or a non-pharyngeal vowel.
Mongolian also has four diphthongs, /ui/, , , and /ai/. Short /o/ is phonetically . The traditional analysis of the vowel system of Mongolian had . However, /y/ is now analyzed as /u/, while /u/ is analyzed as . Likewise, is analyzed as /o/ and /o/ is analyzed as .
Mongolian lacks a true phoneme /l/; instead, it has a voiced lateral fricative, . Syllable-finally, /n/ is realized as . The phonemes , , /f/, /k/, and only occur in loanwords, and so they are not shown in the table.
Morphology
Modern Mongolian is an agglutinative, exclusively suffixing language the suffixes of which are most often composed of a single morpheme. It has a rich number of morphemes to build up more complex words from simple roots. For example, the word байгууллагынх consists of the root ‘to be', an epenthetic <-g->, the causative <-uul-> (then ‘to found'), the derivative suffix <"laga> that forms nouns created by the action (‘organisation') and the complex suffix <"ynh> denoting something that belongs to the modified word (<-yn> would be genitive). Besides, there is a fair amount of nominal compounds. A handful of quite productive derivational verbal suffixes exist, i.e. „to speak", „to speak with each other". Formally, verbal suffixes that create independent words can roughly be divided into three classes: final verbs, which can only be used sentence-finally, i.e. <-na> (mainly future or generic statements), <"laa> (probably perfective aspect to describe witnessed events) or "ø (second person imperative); participles (often called "verbal nouns"), which can be used clause-finally or attributively, i.e. <-san> (probably perfective, otherwise past) or <-maar> (‘want to'); and converbs, which can link clauses or function adverbially, i.e. <-ž> (qualifies for any adverbial function or neutrally connects two sentences) or <-tal> (the action of the main clause takes place until the action expressed by the suffixed verb sets in). There are about eight cases: nominative (unmarked), genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, instrumental, comitative and directional. In addition, a number of postpositions exist that usually govern genitive, ablative or comitative case or an oblique form, that is, the stem plus sometimes -Vn either for historical reasons or analogy (thus maybe becoming an attributive case suffix). Nouns can take reflexive-possessive clitics that indicate that the marked noun is possessed by the subject of the sentence: I friend-reflposs kill-perfective ‘I killed my friend'. Besides, rather nouny adjectives exist that will be converted into nouns when taking any case suffix, but can't function as nominative without the multifunctional clitic . Plural needn't be marked, but plural suffixes are gaining ground. Personal pronouns exist for the first and second person, while demonstrative pronouns (still?) are used to complete the paradigm. Some other word (sub-)classes are interrogative pronouns, conjunctions (which take participles) and quite a few particles. (Wordclasses are treated with some simplification here. For a more precise treatment, see Sechenbaatar 2003.) Negation is mostly done by <-güj> after participles (either clitic, suffix, or particle; in Southern Central Mongolian clearly not suffix) and the negation particle after nouns and adjectives, while negation particles preceding the verb for example in converbal constructions exist, but tend to be replaced by more analytical constructions.
Syntax
Phrase structure
The nominal phrase has the order: demonstrative pronoun/numeral, adjective, noun. Attributive sentences usually (…) precede the whole NP. Titles or occupations of people, low numerals indicating groups and focus clitics are put behind the head noun. Possessive pronouns (in different forms) may either precede or follow the NP. E.g. we-genitive meet-perfective that beautiful young_man-ablative focus ‘even from that beautiful young man that we have met', Dorj teacher our ‘our teacher Dorj'.
The verbal phrase consists of the predicate's complements and the adverbials modifying it in front of it and, mainly if the predicate is sentence-final, particles behind it. E.g. S/he without_saying it-accusative write-perfective particle ‘She wrote it without saying [i.e. that she would do so] (so I can assure you).' In this clause the adverbial should precede the complement as it is itself derived from a verb and could take ‘it' as its complement. If the adverbial was an adjective à la "fast", it could immediately precede the predicate. There are instances in which the adverb must immediately precede the predicate as well.
The predicate itself may consist of a noun or an adjective with or without a copula, but if the subject isn't marked by or as topic, a bare noun will look a little awkward. Verbs will never take a copula. Consider this example: "kills regularly" "kills regularly (as I have come to know by some time of observance)": though would be a mere copula if put behind a noun, in this case it indicates referentiality. However, any participle can be followed by an auxiliary carrying additional information. For example, if the verbal noun expressing regularity is chosen, the information "perfective" will have to be encoded in an auxiliary: "killed regularly" If the speaker wished to express how s/he acquired such knowledge, an additional could be added. Simple progressive aspect is built up by a verb, the neutral converb <-ž> and the auxiliary . In place of , some other verbs could express other aspects like completion: drink-CV leave-perfective "drank up". However, a few aspects may be expressed adverbially: begin-CV drink-perfective "began to drink" (or with the same meaning).
The clause
Unmarked phrase order is subject, object, predicate. While the predicate generally has to remain in clause-final position, the other phrases are free to change order or to wholly disappear. The topic tends to be placed clause-initially, new information rather before the predicate. Noun phrase heads modified by long attributive clauses will for the sake of understandability be placed clause-initially. Topic can form a phrase of its own (with or even ), but this option isn't extensively used.
Mongolian has passive and causative voice. In a passive sentence the entirely oblique agent takes either dative or instrumental case, the first of which is more common. The verb takes a suffix <-gd->. In the causative, the person caused to do something would take instrumental, or accusative, if the simple verb would have been intransitive, and the verb would take <-uul->. Causative morphology is also used in passive contexts, if the event is especially unpleasant to the subject: I s/he-dative fool-caustive-perfective ‘I was fooled by her/him'. Passive morphology shows similar peculiarities, being used if something unexpected happens. Animacy is an important component, thus English "The bread was eaten by me" would not be acceptable in Mongolian. <-ld-> (reciprocal) and <-lts-> ("verba cooperativa") could be deemed voice constructions as well.
Compound sentences
One way to conjoin clauses is to have the first clause end in a converb. An example: I it-accusative find-conditional_converbal_suffix you-dative give-future ‘If I find it I'll give it to you'. Some verbal nouns in the instrumental or most often dative function very similar to converbs: above sentence with find-imperfective-dative ‘When I find it I'll give it to you'. Quite often, postpositions govern complete clauses. In contrast, conjunctions take verbal nouns without case: become_tired-perfective because sleep-witnessed_perfective "I slept because I was tired". Finally, there are usually clause-initial particles with relating meaning: I find-perfective but you-dative give-imperfective-negation ‘I've found it, but I won't give it to you'.
Mongolian has a complementizer auxiliary verb гэ- very similar to Japanese to iu. literary means ‘to say' and in converbal form precedes a verbum sentiendi et dicendi. As a verbal noun gedeg (with or case) it can form a subset of complement clauses. As it functions as quotative.
Except for clauses governed by certain postpositions, attribute clauses, clauses with complementizer and some very short converbal clauses (which some speakers reject anyway), Mongolian clauses are in strictly paratactic order, such that a hypotactic sentence like "We will, IF you help us, repair the damage." could in this order with the same semantic roles not be constructed in Mongolian.
In the subordinated clause the subject, if different from the subject of main clause, sometimes has to take accusative or genitive case. Subjects in either instrumental or ablative case marginally occur as well. Subjects of attribute clauses in which the head has a function (as is the case for all English relative clauses) demand that if the subject is not the head it has to take instrumental or rather genitive case, e.g. that_one-genitive eat-perfective meal ‘the meal that s/he had eaten'.
Mongolian has been written in a variety of alphabets over the years.
The traditional Mongolian alphabet was adapted from Uyghur script in 1208, although it has undergone transformations, and occasionally been supplemented by other scripts. The Mongolian alphabet was used in Mongolia until 1931, when it was replaced by the Latin alphabet, and again by Cyrillic in 1937. The traditional alphabet was abolished completely by the pro-Soviet government in 1941, and a short-lived attempt to reintroduce the traditional alphabet after 1990 was abolished after some years.
In the People's Republic of China, the Mongolian language is the official language - co-official with Mandarin Chinese - in some regions. The traditional alphabet has always been used there, although Cyrillic was considered briefly before the Sino-Soviet split. There are two types of written Mongolian used in China: the classical script, which is official among Mongols nationwide, and the Todo script, used predominantly among Oirats in Xinjiang.
The modified Cyrillic alphabet used for Mongolian is as follows:
* Janhunen, Juha (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. * Sechenbaatar, Borjigin (2003): The Chakhar dialect of Mongol - A morphological description. Helsinki: Finno-Ugrian society. * Svantesson, Jan-Olof, Anna Tsendia, Anastasia Karlsson, Vivan Franzén (2005): The Phonology of Mongolian. New York: Oxford University Press. * Tsedendamba, Ts., C. Möömöö (ed.) (1997): Orčin cagijn mongol hel. Ulaanbaatar. * Tserenpil, D., Rita Kullmann (2005 [1996]): Mongolian grammar. Ulaanbaatar: Admon.
