Clear Script ( xal, , Тодо бичиг, , ''todo biçig''; mn, Тод бичиг, ''tod bichig'', , bxr, Тодо бэшэг, ''Todo besheg'' (), or just todo) is an alphabet created in 1648 by the Oirat Buddhist monk Zaya Pandita for the

Oirat language Oirat ( Clear script: , , ; Kalmyk: , ; Khalkha Mongolian: , ) 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 ...

.Kara, György. ''Books of the Mongolian Nomads''. Bloomington: Indiana University, 2005.Eds. Daniels, Peter T. and William Bright. ''The World's Writing Systems''. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996 It was developed on the basis of the

Mongolian script The classical or traditional Mongolian script, also known as the , was the first writing system created specifically for the Mongolian language, and was the most widespread until the introduction of Cyrillic script, Cyrillic in 1946. It is trad ...

with the goal of distinguishing all sounds in the spoken language, and to make it easier to transcribe

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominalization, nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cul ...

and the

Tibetic languages The Tibetic languages form a well-defined group of languages descended from Old Tibetan (7th to 9th centuries).Tournadre, Nicolas. 2014. "The Tibetic languages and their classification." In ''Trans-Himalayan linguistics, historical and descriptiv ...

History

Clear Script is a Mongolian script, whose obvious closest forebear is vertical Mongolian. This Mongolian script was derived from the Old Uyghur alphabet, which itself was descended from the

Aramaic alphabet The ancient Aramaic alphabet was adapted by Arameans from the Phoenician alphabet and became a distinct script by the 8th century BC. It was used to write the Aramaic languages spoken by ancient Aramean pre-Christian tribes throughout the Fer ...

.Gnanadesikan, Amalia. ''The Writing Revolution''. West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Aramaic is an

abjad An abjad (, ar, أبجد; also abgad) is a writing system in which only consonants are represented, leaving vowel sounds to be inferred by the reader. This contrasts with other alphabets, which provide graphemes for both consonants and vowels ...

, an alphabet that has no symbols for vowels, and Clear Script is the first in this line of descendants to develop a full system of symbols for all the vowel sounds.

Formation

Clear Script was developed as a better way to write Mongolian, specifically of the Western Mongolian groups of the Oirats and Kalmyks. It resolved ambiguities in the written language by assigning symbols to vowels, and adding new symbols and

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...

s to show vowels and vowel lengths, and to distinguish between voiced and unvoiced consonants. Symbols that were preserved from the traditional Mongolian script were assigned a fixed meaning. There were even some marks enabling distinctions that were unimportant for words written in the Oirat language but were useful for the transcription of foreign words and names, such as between ''ši'' and ''si''.

Usage

Clear Script was used by Oirat and neighboring Mongols, mostly in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. It was widely used by its creator and others to translate Buddhist works so that they might better spread the Buddhist religion throughout western Mongolia. Though the script was useful for translating works from other languages, especially Tibetan, it was also used more informally, as evidenced by some letters from the late 1690s. Around the 19th and early 20th centuries, some Altaians in Russia were able utilize the script to read and write texts due to contacts with Mongolian Buddhists. The script was used by Kalmyks in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eigh ...

until 1924, when it was replaced by the

Cyrillic script The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking cou ...

. In

Xinjiang Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...

, Oirats still use it, although today Mongolian education takes place in

Chakhar Mongolian 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. Location and classification There are thr ...

all across China.

Writing in Clear Script

This script is a vertical script, as was its 'vertical Mongolian' parent script. Letters and diacritics are written along a central axis. Portions of letters to the right of the axis generally slant up, and portions to the left of the axis generally slant down. The only signs that do not follow these rules are the horizontal signs for ''S'' ''Š '' and part of ''Ö''. Words are delineated by a space, as well as different letter forms. Though most letters only come in one shape, there are some letters that look different depending on where in the word they occur, whether they are initial, medial, or final. There is an alphabetic order in Clear Script, as in other related scripts, but the order for Clear Script is not the same as its Mongolian parents nor its Aramaic ancestors.

Tables

Notes

References

External links

Oirat Clear Script at Omniglot

Traditional Mongolian Notepad (for Windows XP/Vista)
{{Authority control Mongolian writing systems Alphabets Kalmyk language