| Ordos | |
|---|---|
| Native to | China |
| Region | Gansu,Qinghai |
| Ethnicity | Ordos Mongols |
Native speakers | (120,000 cited 1982 census)[1] |
Mongolic
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | ordo1245 |
| ELP | Ordos |
 Ordos is classified as Definitely Endangered by theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger. | |
Ordos Mongolian (alsoUrdus;Mongolianᠣᠷᠳᠣᠰ;Chinese:鄂尔多斯 鄂尔多斯È'ěrduōsī) is avariety of CentralMongolic spoken in theOrdos City region inInner Mongolia and historically byOrdos Mongols. It is alternatively classified as a language within theMongolic language family or as a dialect of the standardMongolian language.[2] Due to the research ofAntoine Mostaert,[3] the development of this dialect can be traced back 100 years.
The Ordosvowel-phoneme system in word-initialsyllables is similar to that ofChakhar Mongolian, the most notable difference being that it has [e] and [e:] instead of [ə] and [ə:].[4] In southern varieties,*ɔ merged into/ʊ/, e.g. while you still sayɔrtɔs inEjin Horo Banner, it has becomeʊrtʊs inUxin or theOtog Front Banner.[citation needed] In contrast to the other dialects of Mongolian proper, it retains this distinction in all following syllables including in open word-final syllables, thus resembling the syllable and phoneme structure ofMiddle Mongolian more than any other Mongolian variety. E.g. MM/ɑmɑ/ Ordos/ɑmɑ/ Khalkha/ɑm/ 'mouth', Ordos/ɑxʊr/ Khalkha/ɑxr/ ([ɑxɑ̯r]) 'short; short sheep's wool'.[5] Accordingly, it could never acquire palatalized consonant phonemes. Due to their persistent existence as short non-initial phonemes,/u/ and/ʊ/ haveregressively assimilated *ø and *o, e.g. *otu >/ʊtʊ/ 'star',*ɡomutal >/ɡʊmʊdal/ 'offence',*tʰøry >/tʰuru/ 'power'. An analogous change took place for some sequences of *a and *u, e.g. *arasu >/arʊsʊ/.[6]
Ordos retains a variant of the oldcomitative case and shares the innovateddirective case.[7] Theverb system is not well researched, but employs a notable innovatedsuffix,⟨guːn⟩, that does not seem to adhere to the common division into threeMongolic verb suffix classes.[8]
Thelexicon of Ordos is that of a normal Mongolian dialect, with someTibetan and Chinese loanwords.[9]
