MONGOLIAN SCRIPT

The classical 'Mongolian script' was the first of many writing systems created for the Mongolian language. With only minor modification, it is used in Inner Mongolia in China to this day to write Mongolian and the Evenk language.
The script was created by the Uyghur scribe, Tatar-Tonga. He had been captured by the Mongols during a war against the Naimans around 1204, and Genghis Khan then ordered him to create a writing system for the Mongolian language. He did so by adapting the Uyghur alphabet, a descendant of the Syriac alphabet, via Sogdian. Its most salient feature is its vertical direction. It is one of the few vertical scripts written from left to right. Most other vertical writing systems are written right to left, but the medieval Uyghur alphabet and its descendants--the Mongolian, the Oirat Clear, the Manchu, and the Buryat alphabets--proceed from left to right. This is because the Uyghurs rotated their script 90 degrees counterclockwise to emulate the Chinese writing system.
In 1587, Ayuush Güüsh (Аюуш гүүш) devised a number of extra characters to transcribe the sounds of foreign languages like Tibetan, Chinese, and Sanskrit. This extension is known under the name ''Ali-Gali'' (Али-гали).

Contents

The characters

Examples

Derivate scripts

Clear script

Vaghintara script

Mongolian in Unicode

Notes and References

External links

The characters

Characters take different shapes depending on their initial, medial, or final position within a word. In some cases, there are additional graphic variations, which are selected for better visual harmony with the subsequent character.
The alphabet fails to make several vowel (o/u, ö/ü, final a/e) and consonant (t/d, k/g, sometimes ž/y) distinctions of Mongolian that were not required for Uighur{source}. The result is somewhat comparable to the situation of English, which must represent 10 or more vowels with only 5 letters, and uses the digraph ''th'' for two distinct sounds. It's relatively rare that this leads to actual ambiguity, because the requirements of vowel harmony and syllable sequence usually determine the right choice.

Characters				Transliteration		Notes
initial	medial	final		Latin[1]	Cyrillic
Mongol_a_head2.jpg	Mongol_a_middle_2.jpg	Mongol_a_tail_1.jpg Mongol_a_tail_2.jpg		a	А	Distinction usually by vowel harmony (see also q/γ and k/g below)
Mongol_e_head.jpg				e	Э
Mongol_i_head.jpg	Mongol_i_middle1.jpg [2] Mongol_i_middle2.jpg [3]	Mongol_i_tail2.jpg		i, yi	И,Й, Ы, Ь	At end of word today often absorbed into preceding syllable
Mongol_o_head.jpg	Mongol_o_middle.jpg	Mongol_o_tail.jpg		o, u	О, У	Distinction depending on context.
Mongol_oe_head.jpg	Mongol_o_middle.jpg Mongol_oe_middle.jpg	Mongol_o_tail.jpg Mongol_oe_tail.jpg		ö, ü	Ө, Ү	Distinction depending on context.
Mongol_n_head.jpg	Mongol_n_middle.jpg [4] Mongol_a_middle_2.jpg [5]	Mongol_a_tail_1.jpg		n	Н	Distinction from medial and final a/e by position in syllable sequence.
	Mongol_mng_middle.jpg	Mongol_ngt_tail.jpg		ng	Н, НГ	Only at end of word (medial for composites). Transcribes Tibetan U+0F44; Sanskrit ङ.
Mongol_b_head.jpg	Mongol_mbm_middle.jpg‎	Mongol_b_tail.jpg		b	Б, В
Mongol_p_head.jpg	Mongol_p_middle.jpg‎			p	П	Only at the beginning of Mongolian words. Transcribes Tibetan U+0F54;
Mongol_q_head.jpg	Mongol_q_middle.jpg	Mongol_ga_tail.jpg		q	Х	Only with back vowels
Mongol_ga_head.jpg	Mongol_ga_middle.jpg Mongol_q_middle.jpg	Mongol_ga_tail.jpg Mongol_ga_tail3.jpg		γ	Г	Only with back vowels. Between vowels today pronounced as long vowel.[6]
Mongol_k_head.jpg	Mongol_k_middle.jpg	Mongol_g_tail.jpg		k	Х	Only with front vowels. g between vowels today pronounced as long vowel.[7]
				g	Г
Mongol_m_head.jpg	Mongol_m_middle.jpg	Mongol_m_tail.jpg		m	М
Mongol_l_head.jpg	Mongol_l_middle.jpg	Mongol_l_tail.jpg		l	Л
Mongol_s_head.jpg	Mongol_s_middle.jpg	Mongol_s_tail.jpg		s	С
Mongol_sh_head.jpg	Mongol_sh_middle.jpg	Mongol_sh_tail.jpg		š	Ш	Pronounciation of this character hasn't changed.
Mongol_t_head2.jpg	Mongol_t_middle.jpg Mongol_t_middle2.jpg Mongol_t_middle3.jpg	Mongol_t_tail.jpg		t, d	Т, Д	Distinction depending on context.
Mongol_ac.jpg	Mongol_ac.jpg			č	Ч, Ц	Originally no distinction between / Ch_IPA.jpg '/ and /ts'/, today by context.
Mongol_j1_head.jpg	Mongol_j1_middle.jpg				Ж, З	Distinction by context.Originally often interchanged with y below.
Mongol_y1_head.jpg	Mongol_y1_middle.jpg	Mongol_i_tail2.jpg		y	Е, Ё, И, Ю, Я	Part of diphtongs, although technically a consonant.
Mongol_r1_head.jpg	Mongol_r1_middle.jpg	Mongol_r_tail2.jpg		r	Р	Not normally at the beginning of words.[8]
Mongol_w_head.jpg	Mongol_w_middle.jpg			v	В	Transcribes Sanskrit व.
Mongol_f_head.jpg	Mongol_f_middle.jpg‎			f	Ф	Medieval Mongolian didn't use this sound.
Mongol_kk_head.jpg	Mongol_kk_middle.jpg				К	Transcribes Russian К.
Mongol_ts.jpg	Mongol_ts.jpg			(c)	(ц)	Transcribes Tibetan /ts'/ U+0F5A; Sanskrit छ.
Mongol_dz.jpg	Mongol_dz.jpg			(z)	(з)	Transcribes Tibetan /dz/ u+0F5B; Sanskrit ज.
Mongol_h_head.jpg	Mongol_h_middle.jpg			(h)		Transcribes Tibetan U+0F63; U+0FB7;

Examples

Historical shapes	Modern print type	Transliterating first word:
Mclassical_mimic.jpg	Wikiclassicalmongol.jpg	Mongol_w_head.jpg v Mongol_i_middle1.jpg 　 i Mongol_k_middle.jpg k Mongol_i_middle1.jpg i Mongol_p_middle.jpg p Mongol_a_middle_2.jpg e Mongol_t_middle.jpg d Mongol_i_middle1.jpg i Mongol_y1_middle.jpg y Mongol_a_tail_1.jpg a

★ transliteration: Vikipediya čilügetü nebterkei toli bičig bolai..

★ Cyrillic: Википедиа Чөлөөт Нэвтэрхий Толь Бичиг Болой.

★ Transcription: Vikipedia chölööt nevterkhii toli bichig boloi.

★ Literally: Wikipedia free omni-profound mirror scripture is.

★ Translation: Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia.

Derivate scripts

Clear script

In 1648, the Oirat Buddhist monk Zaya-pandita Namkhaijamco created this variation with the goal of bringing the written language closer to the actual pronunciation, and to make it easier to transcribe Tibetan and Sanskrit. The script was used by Kalmyks of Russia until 1924, when it was replaced by the Cyrillic alphabet. In Xinjiang, China the Oirat people still use it.

Vaghintara script

Another variant was developed in 1905 by a Buryat monk named Agvan Dorjiev (1850-1938). It was meant to also reduce ambiguity, and to support the Russian language in addition to Mongolian. The most significant change however was the elimination of the positional shape variations. All characters were based on the medial variant of the original Mongol script. After a few years Agvan-Dorjiev ran out of funds to further promote his invention, so that less than a dozen books were printed using it.

Mongolian in Unicode

The Unicode Mongolian block is U+1800 – U+18AF^[9]. It includes letters, digits and various punctuation marks for Mongolian, Todo script, Xibe, and Manchu, as well as extensions for transcribing Sanskrit and Tibetan.

Notes and References

1. Poppe, Nicolas ''Grammar of Written Mongolian'' 3rd ed. University of Washington, 1974.
2. Following a consonant, latin transliteration is i.
3. Following a vowel, latin transliteration is yi, with rare exceptions like ''naim'' (eight) or ''Naiman''.
4. Character for front of syllable (n-).
5. Character for back of syllable (-n).
6. Examples: ''qa-γ-an'' (khan) is shortened to ''qaan''. Some exceptions like ''tsa-g-aan'' (white) exist.

7. Example: ''de-g-er'' is shortened to ''deer''. Some exceptions like ''ügüi'' (no) exist.

8. Transcribed foreign words usually get a vowel prepended. Example: Transcribing Русь (Russia) results in ''Oros''.
9. Unicode block U+1800 – U+18AF; Mongolian.

External links

★ Omniglot: Mongolian Alphabet

★ The Silver Horde: Mongol Scripts

★ Lingua Mongolia: Mongolian Alphabet, including tutorial

★ GB18030 Support Package for Windows 2000/XP, including Chinese, Tibetan, Yi, Mongolian and Thai font by Microsoft

★ Inkway Mongolian Calligraphy