The Mongolic languages are a

language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term ''family'' is a metaphor borrowed from biology, with the tree model used in historical linguistics ...

spoken by the

Mongolic peoples The Mongolic peoples are a collection of East Asian people, East Asian-originated ethnic groups in East Asia, North Asia and Eastern Europe, who speak Mongolic languages. Their ancestors are referred to as Proto-Mongols. The largest contempora ...

North Asia North Asia or Northern Asia () is the northern region of Asia, which is defined in geography, geographical terms and consists of three federal districts of Russia: Ural Federal District, Ural, Siberian Federal District, Siberian, and the Far E ...

East Asia East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

, and

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...

mostly in

Mongolia Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...

and surrounding areas and in

Kalmykia Kalmykia, officially the Republic of Kalmykia,; , ''Khalmg Tanghch'' is a republic of Russia, located in the Volga region of European Russia. The republic is part of the Southern Federal District, and borders Dagestan to the south and Stavr ...

and

Buryatia Buryatia, officially the Republic of Buryatia, is a republic of Russia located in the Russian Far East. Formerly part of the Siberian Federal District, it has been administered as part of the Far Eastern Federal District since 2018. To its nort ...

. The best-known member of this language family, Mongolian, is the primary language of most of the residents of

and the

Mongol Mongols are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, China (Inner Mongolia and other 11 autonomous territories), as well as the republics of Buryatia and Kalmykia in Russia. The Mongols are the principal member of the large family of M ...

residents of

Inner Mongolia Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of China. Its border includes two-thirds of the length of China's China–Mongolia border, border with the country of Mongolia. ...

, with an estimated 5.7+ million speakers.

History

The possible precursor to Mongolic is the

Xianbei language The Xianbei (; ) were an ancient nomadic people that once resided in the eastern Eurasian steppes in what is today Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Northeast China, Northeastern China. The Xianbei were likely not of a single ethnicity, but rath ...

, heavily influenced by the

Proto-Turkic Proto-Turkic is the linguistic reconstruction of the common ancestor of the Turkic languages that was spoken by the Proto-Turks before their divergence into the various Turkic peoples. Proto-Turkic separated into Oghur (western) and Common Tu ...

(later, the Lir-Turkic) language. The stages of historical Mongolic are: * Pre-Proto-Mongolic, from approximately the 4th century AD until the 12th century AD, influenced by Shaz-Turkic. * Proto-Mongolic, from approximately the 13th century, spoken around the time of Chinggis Khan. *

Middle Mongol Middle Mongol or Middle Mongolian was a Mongolic languages, 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 coll ...

, from the 13th century until the early 15th century or late 16th century, depending on classification spoken. (Given the almost entire lack of written sources for the period in between, an exact cutoff point cannot be established.) Again influenced by Turkic. * Classical Mongolian, from approximately 1700 to 1900. * Standard Mongolian The standard Mongolian language has been in official use since 1919, and this form of the language is used in the economic, political, and social fields.

Pre-Proto-Mongolic

''Pre-Proto-Mongolic'' is the name for the stage of Mongolic that precedes Proto-Mongolic. Proto-Mongolic can be clearly identified chronologically with the language spoken by the Mongols during

Genghis Khan Genghis Khan (born Temüjin; August 1227), also known as Chinggis Khan, was the founder and first khan (title), khan of the Mongol Empire. After spending most of his life uniting the Mongols, Mongol tribes, he launched Mongol invasions and ...

's early expansion in the 1200-1210s. Pre-Proto-Mongolic, by contrast, is a continuum that stretches back indefinitely in time. It is divided into Early Pre-Proto-Mongolic and Late Pre-Proto-Mongolic. Late Pre-Proto-Mongolic refers to the Mongolic spoken a few centuries before Proto-Mongolic by the Mongols and neighboring tribes like the Merkits and Keraits. Certain archaic words and features in Written Mongolian go back past Proto-Mongolic to Late Pre-Proto-Mongolic (Janhunen 2006).

Relationship with Turkic

Pre-Proto-Mongolic has borrowed various words from

Turkic languages The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic langua ...

. In the case of Early Pre-Proto-Mongolic, certain loanwords in the Mongolic languages point to early contact with Oghur (Pre-Proto-Bulgaric) Turkic, also known as r-Turkic. These loanwords precede Common Turkic (z-Turkic) loanwords and include: *Mongolic ''ikere'' (twins) from Pre-Proto-Bulgaric ''ikir'' (versus Common Turkic ''ekiz'') *Mongolic ''hüker'' (ox) from Pre-Proto-Bulgaric ''hekür'' (Common Turkic ''öküz'') *Mongolic ''jer'' (weapon) from Pre-Proto-Bulgaric ''jer'' (Common Turkic ''yäz'') *Mongolic ''biragu'' (calf) versus Common Turkic ''buzagu'' *Mongolic ''siri-'' (to smelt ore) versus Common Turkic ''siz-'' (to melt) The above words are thought to have been borrowed from Oghur Turkic during the time of the

Xiongnu The Xiongnu (, ) were a tribal confederation of Nomad, nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese historiography, Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu, t ...

. Later

Turkic peoples Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West Asia, West, Central Asia, Central, East Asia, East, and North Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages.. "Turkic peoples, any of various peoples whose members ...

in Mongolia all spoke forms of Common Turkic (z-Turkic) as opposed to Oghur (Bulgharic) Turkic, which withdrew to the west in the 4th century. The

Chuvash language Chuvash ( , ; , , ) is a Turkic languages, Turkic language spoken in European Russia, primarily in the Chuvashia, Chuvash Republic and adjacent areas. It is the only surviving member of the Oghur languages, Oghur branch of Turkic languages ...

, spoken by 1 million people in European Russia, is the only living representative of Oghur Turkic which split from Proto Turkic around the 1st century AD. Words in Mongolic like ' (brown, Common Turkic ''yagiz'') and ''nidurga'' (fist, Common Turkic ''yudruk'') with initial *d and *n versus Common Turkic *y are sufficiently archaic to indicate loans from an earlier stage of Oghur (Pre-Proto-Bulgaric). This is because Chuvash and Common Turkic do not differ in these features despite differing fundamentally in rhotacism-lambdacism (Janhunen 2006). Oghur tribes lived in the Mongolian borderlands before the 5th century, and provided Oghur loanwords to Early Pre-Proto-Mongolic before Common Turkic loanwords.

Proto-Mongolic

Proto-Mongolic, the ancestor language of the modern Mongolic languages, is very close to Middle Mongol, the language spoken at the time of

and the

Mongol Empire The Mongol Empire was the List of largest empires, largest contiguous empire in human history, history. Originating in present-day Mongolia in East Asia, the Mongol Empire at its height stretched from the Sea of Japan to parts of Eastern Euro ...

. Most features of modern Mongolic languages can thus be reconstructed from Middle Mongol. An exception would be the voice suffix like -caga- 'do together', which can be reconstructed from the modern languages but is not attested in Middle Mongol. The languages of the historical Donghu,

Wuhuan The Wuhuan (, < Eastern Han Chinese: *''ʔɑ-ɣuɑn'', <

Xianbei The Xianbei (; ) were an ancient nomadic people that once resided in the eastern Eurasian steppes in what is today Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Northeastern China. The Xianbei were likely not of a single ethnicity, but rather a multiling ...

peoples might have been related to Proto-Mongolic. For Tabghach, the language of the founders of the

Northern Wei Wei (), known in historiography as the Northern Wei ( zh, c=北魏, p=Běi Wèi), Tuoba Wei ( zh, c=拓跋魏, p=Tuòbá Wèi), Yuan Wei ( zh, c=元魏, p=Yuán Wèi) and Later Wei ( zh, t=後魏, p=Hòu Wèi), was an Dynasties of China, impe ...

dynasty, for which the surviving evidence is very sparse, and Khitan, for which evidence exists that is written in the two Khitan scripts (

large Large means of great size. Large may also refer to: Mathematics * Arbitrarily large, a phrase in mathematics * Large cardinal, a property of certain transfinite numbers * Large category, a category with a proper class of objects and morphisms (o ...

and

small Small means of insignificant size Size in general is the Magnitude (mathematics), magnitude or dimensions of a thing. More specifically, ''geometrical size'' (or ''spatial size'') can refer to three geometrical measures: length, area, or ...

) which have as yet not been fully deciphered, a direct affiliation to Mongolic can now be taken to be most likely or even demonstrated.

Middle Mongol

The changes from Proto-Mongolic to Middle Mongol are described below.

Changes in phonology

=Consonants

= Research into reconstruction of the consonants of Middle Mongol has engendered several controversies. Middle Mongol had two series of plosives, but there is disagreement as to which phonological dimension they lie on, whether aspiration or voicing. The early scripts have distinct letters for velar plosives and uvular plosives, but as these are in complementary distribution according to vowel harmony class, only two back plosive phonemes, *''/k/'', *' (~ *'' ', *') are to be reconstructed. One prominent, long-running disagreement concerns certain correspondences of word medial consonants among the four major scripts (''UM'', ''SM'', ''AM'', and ''Ph'', which were discussed in the preceding section). Word-medial ''/k/'' of Uyghur Mongolian (UM) has not one, but two correspondences with the three other scripts: either /k/ or zero. Traditional scholarship has reconstructed *''/k/'' for both correspondences, arguing that *''/k/'' was lost in some instances, which raises the question of what the conditioning factors of those instances were. More recently, the other possibility has been assumed; namely, that the correspondence between UM ''/k/'' and zero in the other scripts points to a distinct phoneme, ''/h/'', which would correspond to the word-initial phoneme ''/h/'' that is present in those other scripts. ''/h/'' (also called ''/x/'') is sometimes assumed to derive from *', which would also explain zero in ''SM'', ''AM'', ''Ph'' in some instances where ''UM'' indicates /p/; e.g. '' debel'' > Khalkha ''deel''. The palatal affricates *''č'', *''čʰ'' were fronted in Northern Modern Mongolian dialects such as Khalkha. was spirantized to in Ulaanbaatar Khalkha and the Mongolian dialects south of it, e.g. Preclassical Mongolian ''kündü'', reconstructed as ' 'heavy', became Modern Mongolian (but in the vicinity of Bayankhongor and Baruun-Urt, many speakers will say ). Originally word-final *''n'' turned into /ŋ/; if *' was originally followed by a vowel that later dropped, it remained unchanged, e.g. ' became , but ' became . After i-breaking, became phonemic. Consonants in words containing back vowels that were followed by ' in Proto-Mongolian became palatalized in Modern Mongolian. In some words, word-final ' was dropped with most case forms, but still appears with the ablative, dative and genitive. Only foreign origin words start with the letter ''L'' and none start with the letter ''R''.

=Vowels

= The standard view is that Proto-Mongolic had '. According to this view, ' and ' were

pharyngealized Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound. IPA symbols In the International Phonetic Alphabet, pharyngealization can be indicate ...

to and , then ' and ' were velarized to and . Thus, the vowel harmony shifted from a velar to a pharyngeal paradigm. ' in the first syllable of back-vocalic words was assimilated to the following vowel; in word-initial position it became . ' was rounded to when followed by '. VhV and VjV sequences where the second vowel was any vowel but ' were monophthongized. In noninitial syllables, short vowels were deleted from the phonetic representation of the word and long vowels became short; e.g. ' (' becomes , ' disappears) > ' (unstable ''n'' drops; vowel reduction) > /jama(n)/ 'goat', and ' (regressive rounding assimilation) > ' (vowel velarization) > ' (vowel reduction) > /oms-/ 'to wear' This reconstruction has recently been opposed, arguing that vowel developments across the Mongolic languages can be more economically explained starting from basically the same vowel system as Khalkha, only with ' instead of ''* '. Moreover, the sound changes involved in this alternative scenario are more likely from an articulatory point of view and early Middle Mongol loans into Korean.

Changes in morphology

=Nominal system

"-shaped bracket, and to the right of each such bracket, there are other medium-sized characters, ''

The Secret History of the Mongols The ''Secret History of the Mongols'' is the oldest surviving literary work in the Mongolic languages. Written for the Borjigin, Mongol royal family some time after the death of Genghis Khan in 1227, it recounts his life and conquests, and parti ...

'' which goes back to a lost Mongolian script original is the only document that allows the reconstruction of agreement in social gender in Middle Mongol. In the ensuing discourse, as noted earlier, the term "Middle Mongol" is employed broadly to encompass texts scripted in either Uighur Mongolian (UM), Chinese (SM), or Arabic (AM). The case system of Middle Mongol has remained mostly intact down to the present, although important changes occurred with the comitative and the dative and most other case suffixes did undergo slight changes in form, i.e., were shortened. The Middle Mongol comitative -''luɣ-a'' could not be used attributively, but it was replaced by the suffix -''taj'' that originally derived adjectives denoting possession from nouns, e.g. ''mori-tai'' 'having a horse' became ''mor'toj'' 'having a horse/with a horse'. As this adjective functioned parallel to ''ügej'' 'not having', it has been suggested that a "privative case" ('without') has been introduced into Mongolian. There have been three different case suffixes in the dative-locative-directive domain that are grouped in different ways: -''a'' as locative and -''dur'', -''da'' as dative or -''da'' and -''a'' as dative and -''dur'' as locative, in both cases with some functional overlapping. As -''dur'' seems to be grammaticalized from ''dotur-a'' 'within', thus indicating a span of time, the second account seems to be more likely. Of these, -''da'' was lost, -''dur'' was first reduced to -''du'' and then to -''d'' and -''a'' only survived in a few frozen environments. Finally, the directive of modern Mongolian, -''ruu'', has been innovated from ''uruɣu'' 'downwards'. Social gender agreement was abandoned.

=Verbal system

= Middle Mongol had a slightly larger set of declarative finite verb suffix forms and a smaller number of participles, which were less likely to be used as finite predicates. The linking converb -''n'' became confined to stable verb combinations, while the number of converbs increased. The distinction between male, female and plural subjects exhibited by some finite verbal suffixes was lost.

Changes in syntax

Neutral word order in clauses with pronominal subject changed from object–predicate–subject to subject–object–predicate; e.g. The syntax of verb negation shifted from negation particles preceding final verbs to a negation particle following participles; thus, as final verbs could no longer be negated, their paradigm of negation was filled by particles. For example, Preclassical Mongolian ''ese irebe'' 'did not come' v. modern spoken Khalkha Mongolian ''ireegüi'' or ''irsengüi''.

Classification

The Mongolic languages have no convincingly established living relatives. The closest relatives of the Mongolic languages appear to be the para-Mongolic languages, which include the extinct Khitan, Tuyuhun, and possibly also

Tuoba The Tuoba (Chinese language, Chinese) or Tabgatch (, ''Tabγač''), also known by #Names, other names, was an influential Xianbei clan in early imperial China. During the Sixteen Kingdoms after the fall of Han and the Three Kingdoms, the Tuoba e ...

languages.

Alexander Vovin Alexander Vladimirovich Vovin (; 27 January 1961 – 8 April 2022) was a Soviet-born Russian-American linguist and philologist, and director of studies at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris, France. He wa ...

(2007) identifies the extinct Tabɣač or

Tuoba language Tuoba (Tabγač or Tabghach; also Taγbač or Taghbach; ) is an extinct language spoken by the Tuoba people in northern China around the 5th century AD during the Northern Wei dynasty. It has variously been considered to be of ( Para-) Mongolic ...

as a Mongolic language. However, Chen (2005) argues that Tuoba (Tabɣač) was a

Turkic language The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic langua ...

. Vovin (2018) suggests that the Rouran language of the

Rouran Khaganate The Rouran Khaganate ( Chinese: zh, c=, p=Róurán, label=no), also known as Ruanruan or Juan-juan ( zh, c=, p=Ruǎnruǎn, label=no) (or variously ''Jou-jan'', ''Ruruan'', ''Ju-juan'', ''Ruru'', ''Ruirui'', ''Rouru'', ''Rouruan'' or ''Tantan'') ...

was a Mongolic language, close but not identical to Middle Mongolian.

Altaic

A few linguists have grouped Mongolic with Turkic, Tungusic and possibly Koreanic or Japonic as part of the controversial Altaic family. Following

Sergei Starostin Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (; March 24, 1953 – September 30, 2005) was a Russian historical linguistics, historical linguist and philology, philologist, perhaps best known for his reconstructions of hypothetical proto-languages, including hi ...

, Martine Robbeets suggested that Mongolic languages belong to a " Transeurasian" superfamily also comprising

Japonic languages Japonic or Japanese–Ryukyuan () is a language family comprising Japanese language, Japanese, spoken in the main islands of Japan, and the Ryukyuan languages, spoken in the Ryukyu Islands. The family is universally accepted by linguists, and sig ...

, Korean,

Tungusic languages The Tungusic languages (also known as Manchu–Tungus and Tungus) form a language family spoken in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria by Tungusic peoples. Many Tungusic languages are endangered. There are approximately 75,000 native speakers of the ...

and

, but this view has been severely criticized.

Languages

Contemporary Mongolic languages are as follows. The classification and numbers of speakers follow Janhunen (2006), except for Southern Mongolic, which follows Nugteren (2011). * Mongolic ** Dagur (96,000 speakers) ** Central Mongolic ***

Khamnigan Mongol Khamnigan (Khamnigan: ) is a Mongolic language spoken by the Hamnigan people east of Lake Baikal. Usage The Hamnigan, Khamnigan people, called the ''Horse Tungusic peoples, Tungus'' or ''Steppe Tungus'', are natively bilingual, speaking both a M ...

(2,000 speakers) *** Buryat (330,000 speakers) *** Mongolian proper (5.2 million speakers) *** Peripheral Mongolian (as Ordos) *** Kalmyk– Oirat (360,000 speakers) ** Southern Mongolic (part of a Gansu–Qinghai

Sprachbund A sprachbund (, from , 'language federation'), also known as a linguistic area, area of linguistic convergence, or diffusion area, is a group of languages that share areal features resulting from geographical proximity and language contact. Th ...

) *** Shira Yugur (4,000 speakers) *** Shirongol **** Monguor (150,000 speakers) ***** Mongghul/Huzhu Monguor ***** Mangghuer/Minhe Monguor **** Baoanic ***** Bonan (6,000 speakers) ***** Santa (Dongxiang) (200,000 speakers) ***** Kangjia (1,000 speakers) ** Moghol (extinct) In another classificational approach, there is a tendency to call Central Mongolian a language consisting of Mongolian proper, Oirat and Buryat, while Ordos (and implicitly also Khamnigan) is seen as a variety of Mongolian proper. Within Mongolian proper, they then draw a distinction between Khalkha on the one hand and the Mongolian language in Inner Mongolia (containing everything else) on the other hand. A less common subdivision of Central Mongolic is to divide it into a Central dialect (Khalkha, Chakhar, Ordos), an Eastern dialect (Kharchin, Khorchin), a Western dialect (Oirat, Kalmyk), and a Northern dialect (consisting of two Buryat varieties). The broader delimitation of Mongolian may be based on

mutual intelligibility In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intelli ...

, but an analysis based on a tree diagram such as the one above faces other problems because of the close contacts between, for example, Buryat and Khalkha Mongols during history, thus creating or preserving a

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...

. Another problem lies in the sheer comparability of terminology, as Western linguists use ''language'' and ''dialect'', while Mongolian linguists use the Grimmian trichotomy ''language'' (kele), ''dialect'' (nutuɣ-un ayalɣu) and ''Mundart'' (aman ayalɣu). Rybatzki (2003: 388–389) recognizes the following 6 areal subgroups of Mongolic. * Northeastern Mongolic (NE) = Dagur * Northern Mongolic (N) =

– Buryat * Central Mongolic (C) = Mongol proper– Ordos– Oirat * South-Central Mongolic (SC) = Shira Yughur * Southeastern Mongolic (SE) = Mongghul– Mangghuer– Bonan– Santa – Kangjia * Southwestern Mongolic (SW) = Moghol Additionally, the

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (, shortened to MPI EVA) is a research institute based in Leipzig, Germany, that was founded in 1997. It is part of the Max Planck Society network. Well-known scientists currently based at ...

refers to Central Mongolic as "Eastern Mongolic" and classifies the group as follows, using data from Rybatzki (2003) as the basis: * Eastern Mongolic ** Khalkha–Buriat *** Buriat **** China Buriat **** Mongolia Buriat **** Russia Buriat *** Mongolian **** Halh Mongolian **** Oirad–Kalmyk–Darkhat **** Peripheral Mongolian ** Khamnigan

Mixed languages

The following are mixed Sinitic–Mongolic languages. * Tangwang (mixed

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

– Santa) * Wutun (mixed

– Bonan)

Writing systems

* The traditional

Mongolian script The traditional Mongolian script, also known as the Hudum Mongol bichig, was the first Mongolian alphabet, writing system created specifically for the Mongolian language, and was the most widespread until the introduction of Cyrillic script, Cy ...

(based on the

Old Uyghur alphabet The Old Uyghur alphabet was a list of alphabets used by Turkic languages, Turkic script used for writing Old Uyghur, a variety of Old Turkic spoken in Turpan and Gansu that is the ancestor of the modern Western Yugur language. The term "Old Uyghu ...

) was first developed for Proto-Mongolic, possibly as early as the 7th century. * In 1931, the

Mongolian People's Republic The Mongolian People's Republic (MPR) was a socialist state that existed from 1924 to 1992, located in the historical region of Outer Mongolia. Its independence was officially recognized by the Nationalist government of Republic of China (1912� ...

adopted a Mongolian version of the Latin alphabet as the official script for Mongolian. * Under

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

influence, in 1941 Mongolia switched to a version of the Russian alphabet called Mongolian Cyrillic. * In March 2020, the Mongolian government announced plans to use both Cyrillic and the traditional Mongolian script in official documents by 2025.Official documents to be recorded in both scripts from 2025
Montsame, 18 March 2020.

Notes

References

Citations

Sources

* * * * * * * * * * echenbaatarSečenbaɣatur, Qasgerel, Tuyaɣ-a, B. ǰirannige, U Ying ǰe. (2005). ''Mongɣul kelen-ü nutuɣ-un ayalɣun-u sinǰilel-ün uduridqal''. Kökeqota: ÖMAKQ. * * * (review of Starostin et al. 2003) *

External links

Ethnic map of Mongolia

grammars, texts, dictionaries and bibliographies of Mongolian and other Altaic languages {{DEFAULTSORT:Mongolic Languages Mongolic–Khitan languages Languages of Mongolia Languages of China Languages of Russia Languages of Afghanistan Languages of Kyrgyzstan