The traditionalMongolian script,[note 1] also known as theHudum Mongol bichig,[note 2] was the firstwriting system created specifically for theMongolian language, and was the most widespread until the introduction ofCyrillic in 1946. It is traditionally written in vertical lines from top to bottom, flowing in lines from left to right. Derived from theOld Uyghur alphabet, it is a truealphabet, with separate letters for consonants and vowels. It has been adapted for such languages asOirat andManchu. Alphabets based on this classical vertical script continue to be used inMongolia andInner Mongolia to write Mongolian,Xibe and, experimentally,Evenki.
Computer operating systems have been slow to adopt support for the Mongolian script; almost all have incomplete support or other text rendering difficulties.
The Mongolian vertical script developed as an adaptation of theOld Uyghur alphabet for the Mongolian language.[2]: 545 Tata-tonga, a 13th-centuryUyghur scribe captured byGenghis Khan, was responsible for bringing the Old Uyghur alphabet to theMongolian Plateau and adapting it to the form of the Mongolian script.[3]
From the seventh and eighth to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Mongolian language separated into southern, eastern and western dialects. The principal documents from the period of theMiddle Mongol language are: in the eastern dialect, the famous textThe Secret History of the Mongols, monuments in theSquare script, materials of theChinese–Mongolian glossary of the fourteenth century and materials of the Mongolian language of the middle period in Chinese transcription, etc.; in the western dialect, materials of the Arab–Mongolian and Persian–Mongolian dictionaries, Mongolian texts in Arabic transcription, etc.[4]: 1–2 The main features of the period are that the vowelsï andi had lost their phonemic significance, creating theiphoneme (in theChakhar dialect, the Standard Mongolian inInner Mongolia, these vowels are still distinct); inter-vocal consonantsɣ/g,b/w had disappeared and the preliminary process of the formation of Mongolian long vowels had begun; the initialh was preserved in many words; grammatical categories were partially absent, etc. The development over this period explains why the Mongolian script looks like a vertical Arabic script (in particular the presence of the dot system).[4]: 1–2
Eventually, minor concessions were made to the differences between theUyghur and Mongol languages: In the 17th and 18th centuries, smoother and more angular versions of the lettertsadi became associated with/dʒ/ and/tʃ/ respectively, and in the 19th century, theManchu hookedyodh was adopted for initial/j/.Zain was dropped as it was redundant for/s/. Various schools of orthography, some usingdiacritics, were developed to avoid ambiguity.[2]: 545
Words arewritten vertically from top to bottom, flowing in lines from left to right. The Old Uyghur script and its descendants, of which traditional Mongolian is one amongOirat Clear,Manchu, andBuryat are the only known vertical scripts written from left to right. This developed because the Uyghurs rotated theirSogdian-derived script, originally written right to left, 90 degrees counterclockwise to emulate Chinese writing, but without changing the relative orientation of the letters.[5][1]: 36
Thereed pen was the writing instrument of choice until the 18th century, when thebrush took its place under Chinese influence.[6]: 422 Pens were also historically made of wood,bamboo, bone,bronze, or iron. Ink used was black orcinnabar red, and written with onbirch bark, paper, cloths made ofsilk or cotton, and wooden orsilver plates.[7]: 80–81
Mongols learned their script as asyllabary, dividing the syllables into twelve different classes, based on the final phonemes of the syllables, all of which ended in vowels.[8]
The script remained in continuous use by Mongolian speakers inInner Mongolia in thePeople's Republic of China. In theMongolian People's Republic, it was largely replaced by theMongolian Cyrillic alphabet, although the vertical script remained in limited use. In March 2020, the Mongolian government announced plans to increase the use of the traditional Mongolian script and to use both Cyrillic and Mongolian script in official documents by 2025.[9][10][11] However, due to the particularity of the traditional Mongolian script, a large part (40%[12]) of theSinicizedMongols in China are unable to read or write this script, and in many cases the script is only used symbolically on plaques in many cities.[13][14]
The script is known by a wide variety of names. As it was derived from theOld Uyghur alphabet, theMongol script is known as theUighur(-)Mongol script.[note 3] From 1941 onwards, it became known as theOld Script,[note 4] in contrast to theNew Script,[note 5] referring to Cyrillic. The Mongolian script is also known as theHudum or 'not exact' script,[note 6] in comparison with theTodo 'clear, exact' script,[note 7] and also as 'vertical script'.[note 8][15]: 308 [1]: 30–32, 38–39 [16]: 640 [17]: 7 [18][19]: 206 [20]: 27 [21]
The traditional or classicalMongolian alphabet, sometimes calledHudum 'traditional' inOirat in contrast to theClear script (Todo 'exact'), is the original form of the Mongolian script used to write theMongolian language. It does not distinguish several vowels (o/u,ö/ü, finala/e) and consonants (syllable-initialt/d andk/g, sometimesǰ/y) that were not required forUyghur, which was the source of the Mongol (or Uyghur-Mongol) script.[5] The result is somewhat comparable to the situation ofEnglish, which must represent ten or more vowels with only five letters and uses thedigraphth for two distinct sounds. Ambiguity is sometimes prevented by context, as the requirements ofvowel harmony and syllable sequence usually indicate the correct sound. Moreover, as there are few words with an exactly identical spelling, actual ambiguities are rare for a reader who knows the orthography.
Letters have different forms depending on their position in a word: initial, medial, or final. In some cases, additional graphic variants are selected for visual harmony with the subsequent character.
The rules for writing below apply specifically for theMongolian language, unless stated otherwise.
Any Mongolian word can contain the neutral voweli, but only vowels from either of the other two groups. The vowel qualities of visually separated vowels and suffixes must likewise harmonize with those of the preceding word stem. Such suffixes are written withfront or neutral vowels when preceded by a word stem containing only neutral vowels. Any of these rules might not apply for foreign words however.[4]: 11, 35, 39 [24]: 10 [25]: 4 [26]
A separated final form of vowelsa ore (ᠠ⟨?⟩‑a/‑e) is common, and can appear at the end of aword stem, orsuffix. This form requires a final-shaped preceding letter, and an word-internal gap in between. This gap can be transliterated with a hyphen.[note 9][4]: 30, 77 [27]: 42 [1]: 38–39 [25]: 27 [28]: 534–535
Two examples of the two kinds of letter separation: with the suffix‑un ( ᠤᠨ)⟨?⟩ and the final vowel‑a ( ᠠ)⟨?⟩
The presence or lack of a separateda ore can also indicate differences in meaning between different words (compareᠬᠠᠷᠠ⟨?⟩qar‑a 'black' withᠬᠠᠷᠠqara 'to look').[29]: 3 [28]: 535
It has the same shape as thetraditional dative-locative suffix‑a/‑e exemplified in the next section. This form of the suffix is, however, more commonly found in older texts, and is restricted in its Post-Classical use.[24]: 15 [30][1]: 46
1925 logo of Buryat–Mongolian newspaper: ᠪᠤᠷᠢᠶᠠᠳᠮᠣᠩᠭᠣᠯ ᠤᠨᠦᠨᠡᠨ᠃ Buriyad Mongɣol‑un ünen 'Buryat-Mongol truth' with the suffix ᠤᠨ⟨?⟩‑un.
Allcasesuffixes, as well as any plural suffixes consisting of one or two syllables, are likewise separated by a preceding and hyphen-transliterated gap.[note 10] A maximum of two case suffixes can be added to a stem.[4]: 30, 73 [24]: 12 [30][31][25]: 28 [28]: 534
Such single-letter vowel suffixes appear with the final-shaped forms ofa/e,i, oru/ü,[4]: 30 as inᠭᠠᠵᠠᠷ ᠠ⟨?⟩ɣaǰar‑a 'to the country' andᠡᠳᠦᠷ ᠡ⟨?⟩edür‑e 'on the day',[4]: 39 orᠤᠯᠤᠰ ᠢ⟨?⟩ulus‑i 'the state' etc.[4]: 23 Multi-letter suffixes most often start with an initial- (consonants), medial- (vowels), or variant-shaped form. Medial-shapedu in the two-letter suffix ᠤᠨ⟨?⟩‑un/‑ün is exemplified in the adjacent newspaper logo.[4]: 30 [28]: 27
Two medial consonants are the most that can come together in original Mongolian words. There are however, a few loanwords that can begin or end with two or more.[note 11]
In the modern language,proper names can usually join two words into graphic compounds (such as those ofᠬᠠᠰᠡᠷᠳᠡᠨᠢQas'erdeni 'Jasper-jewel' orᠬᠥᠬᠡᠬᠣᠲᠠKökeqota – the city ofHohhot; as opposed to other compound words). This also allows components of different harmonic classes to be joined together, and vowels of an added suffix will harmonize with those of the latter part of the compound. Orthographic peculiarities are most often retained, as with the short and longteeth of an initial-shaped⟨ᠥ→᠊ᠥ᠌⟩ö inᠮᠤᠤᠥ᠌ᠬᠢᠨMuu'ökin 'Bad Girl' (protective name). Medialt andd, in contrast, are not affected in this way.[4]: 30 [33]: 92 [1]: 44 [17]: 88
Isolate citation forms for syllables containingo,u,ö, andü may in dictionaries appear without a final tail as in⟨ᠪᠣ⟩bo/bu or⟨ᠮᠣ᠋⟩mo/mu, and with a vertical tail as in⟨ᠪᠥ᠋⟩bö/bü or⟨ᠮᠥ᠋⟩mö/mü (as well as in transcriptions of Chinese syllables).[26][1]: 39
In 1587, the translator and scholarAyuush Güüsh created the Galik alphabet (Али-галиAli-gali), inspired by the thirdDalai Lama,Sonam Gyatso. It primarily added extra characters for transcribingTibetan andSanskrit terms when translating religious texts, and later also fromChinese. Some of those characters are still in use today for writing foreign names (as listed below).[38]
In 1917, the politician and linguistBayantömöriin Khaisan published therime dictionaryMongolian-Han Bilingual Original Sounds of the Five Regions,[a] a bilingual edition of the earlierOriginal Sounds of the Five Regions,[b] to aid Mongolian speakers in learning Mandarin Chinese. To that end, he included transliterations of Mandarin using the Mongolian script, and repurposed three Galik letters to represent the Mandarinretroflex consonants. These letters remain in use inInner Mongolia for the purpose of transcribing Chinese.[39]
Example ofword-breaking the nameOyirad 'Oirat', 1604 manuscript
Abbreviation exemplified with the initial syllable of theMongolian tögrög(ᠲᠥ᠂)
When written between words, punctuation marks use space on both sides of them. They can also appear at the very end of a line, regardless of where the preceding word ends.[33]: 99 Red (cinnabar) ink is used in many manuscripts, to either symbolize emphasis or respect.[33]: 241 Modern punctuation incorporates Western marks: parentheses; quotation, question, and exclamation marks; including precomposed⁈ and⁉.[28]: 535–536
15 on 'year of 15' on a 1925 tögrög coin, with the number written across the baseline.[44]
᠑᠕ ᠣᠨ
89 (top) written vertically on a hillside, with the number written along the baseline.
᠘ ᠙
Printed numeral3, written along the baseline and rotated 90 degrees clockwise.
᠁ᠤᠢ ᠓ ᠬᠡ᠁
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
᠐
᠑
᠒
᠓
᠔
᠕
᠖
᠗
᠘
᠙
Mongolian numerals are either written from left to right, or from top to bottom.[4]: 54 [36]: 9 For typographical reasons, they are rotated 90° in modern books to fit on the line.[24]: 56
Listed in the table below are letter components (graphemes)[note 27] commonly used across the script. Some of these are used with several letters, and others to contrast between them. As their forms and usage may differ betweenwriting styles, however, examples of these can be found under this section below.
An exaggerated initial (swash) tooth. Used for the leadingaleph of initial vowels (a,e,i,o,u,ö,ü,ē), and with some initial consonants (n,m,l,h =nun,mem,hooked resh,ha etc.). Historically unused.
As exemplified in this section, the shapes of glyphs may vary widely between different styles of writing and choice of medium with which to produce them. The development of written Mongolian can be divided into the three periods ofpre-classical (beginning – 17th century),classical (16/17th century – 20th century), andmodern (20th century onward):[32][4]: 2–3, 17, 23, 25–26 [24]: 58–59 [2]: 539–540, 545–546 [36]: 62–63 [47]: 111, 113–114 [27]: 40–42, 100–101, 117 [1]: 34–37 [53]: 8–11 [19]: 211–215
Cursive sample in (pre-classical) Middle Mongol:Uridu maqam‑un qaǰiun medekü
Final letterforms with a right-pointing tail (such as those ofa,e,n,q,ɣ,m,l,s,š, andd) may have the notch preceding it in printed form, written in a span between two extremes: from as a more or less tapered point, to a fully rounded curve in handwriting.
The long final tails ofa,e,n, andd in the texts of pre-classical Mongolian can become elongated vertically to fill up the remainder of a line. Such tails are used consistently for these letters in the earliest 13th to 15th centuryUyghur Mongolian style of texts.
Examples of lengthened letterformsd andn in‑daɣan (left), and their regular equivalents (right)
A hooked form ofyodh was borrowed from theManchu alphabet in the 19th century to distinguish initialy fromǰ. The handwritten form of final-shapedyodh (i,ǰ,y), can be greatly shortened in comparison with its initial and medial forms.
The definite status or function of diacritics was not established prior to classical Mongolian. As such, the dotted lettersn,ɣ, andš, can be found sporadically dotted or altogether lacking them. Additionally, bothq andɣ could be (double-)dotted to identify them regardless of their sound values. Final dottedn is also found in modern Mongolian words. Any diacritical dots ofɣ andn can be offset downward from their respective letters(as inᠭᠣᠣᠯɣool andᠭᠦᠨ ᠢ⟨?⟩gün‑i).
When abow-shaped consonant is followed by a vowel in Uyghur style text, said bow can be found to notably overlap it (seebi). A finalb has, in its final pre-modern form, a bow-less final form as opposed to the common modern one:[1]: 39
As inkü,köke,ǰüg and separateda/e, two teeth can also make up the top-left part of akaph (k/g) oraleph (a/e) in pre-classical texts. In back-vocalic words of Uyghur Mongolian,qi was used in place ofki, and can therefore be used to identify this stage of the written language. An example of this appears in the suffix‑taqi/‑daqi.[27]: 100, 117
A pre-modern variant form for finals appears in the shape of a short finaln⟨ᠰ᠋⟩, derived from Old Uyghurzayin (𐽴). It tended to be replaced by themouth-shaped form and is no longer used. An early example of it is found in the name ofGengis Khan on the Stele of Yisüngge:ᠴᠢᠩᠭᠢᠰ᠋Činggis. A zayin-shaped final can also appear as part of finalm andɣ.
Initialtaw (t/d) can, akin to finalmem (m), be found written quite explicitly loopy (as innom 'book' andtoli 'mirror'). Thelamedh (t ord) may appear simply as an oval loop or looped shin, or as more angular, with an either closed or opencounter (as in‑daki/‑deki or‑dur/‑dür). As inmetü, a Uyghur style word-medialt can sometimes be written with the pre-consonantal form otherwise used ford.Taw was applied to both initialt andd from the outset of the script's adoption. This was done in imitation of Old Uyghur which, however, had lacked the phonemed in this position.
Following the late classical Mongolian orthography of the 17th and 18th centuries, a smooth and angulartsade (ᠵ andᠴ) has come to representǰ andč respectively. Thetsade before this was used for both these phonemes, regardless of graphical variants, as noǰ had existed in Old Uyghur:
As insara and‑dur/‑dür, aresh (ofr, and sometimes ofl) can appear as two teeth or crossed shins; adjacent, angled, attached to a shin and/or overlapping.
The Mongolian script was added to theUnicode standard in September 1999 with the release of version 3.0. However, several design issues have been pointed out.[57]
The 1999 Mongolian script Unicode codes are duplicated and not searchable.
The 1999 Mongolian script Unicode model has multiple layers of FVS (free variation selectors), MVS, ZWJ, NNBSP, and those variation selections conflict with each other, which create incorrect results.[58] Furthermore, different vendors understood the definition of each FVS differently, and developed multiple applications in different standards.[59]
The characters themselves are typed left to right, instead of the correct up to down.
^Used in Inner Mongolia, and always followed byi. Only used to transcribe the Mandarin Chinese retroflexr, as in日;rì:ᠿᠢ.
^Lee & Zee (2003) harvp error: no target: CITEREFLeeZee2003 (help) andLin (2007) harvp error: no target: CITEREFLin2007 (help) transcribe these as approximants, whileDuanmu (2007) harvp error: no target: CITEREFDuanmu2007 (help) transcribes these as voiced fricatives. The actual pronunciation has been acoustically measured to be more approximant-like.[37][41]
^Only used in Tibetan loanwords to representལྷ syllables, as inᡀᠠᠰᠠLhasa orᠳᠠᡀᠠdalha 'enemy gods'.[42]: 31, 427, 432 [18]: 121 Treated as a separate letter due to representing an independentphoneme, but can be analysed as a digraph ofᠯ (l) andᠾ (h) (noting the latter is in medial position).
^Used in Inner Mongolia, and always followed byi. Only used to transcribe the Mandarin Chinese retroflexzh, as in之;zhī:ᡁᠢ. Takes the form of medialh, but used in initial position.
^Used in Inner Mongolia, and always followed byi. Only used to transcribe the Mandarin Chinese retroflexch, as in蚩;chī:ᡂᠢ.
^Mongolian Language Law is effective from July 1st, Gogo, 1 July 2015. "Misinterpretation 1:Use of cyrillic is to be terminated and only Mongolian script to be used. There is no provision in the law that states the termination of use of cyrillic. It clearly states that Mongolian script is to be added to the current use of cyrillic. Mongolian script will be introduced in stages and state and local government is to conduct their correspondence in both cyrillic and Mongolian script. This provision is to be effective starting January 1st of 2025. ID,birth certificate,marriage certificate and education certificates are to be both in Mongolian cyrillic and Mongolian script and currently Mongolian script is being used in official letters of President, Prime Minister and Speaker of Parliament."
^abcdLessing, Ferdinand (1960).Mongolian-English Dictionary(PDF). University of California Press. Note that this dictionary uses the transliterationsc,ø,x,y,z,ai, andei; instead ofč,ö,q,ü,ǰ,ayi, andeyi;: xii as well as problematically and incorrectly treatsall rounded vowels (o/u/ö/ü) after the initial syllable asu orü.[45]
^Chuluunbaatar, Otgonbayar (2008).Einführung in die mongolischen Schriften (in German). Buske.ISBN978-3-87548-500-4.
^Wu, Jiaye (2022). "Teaching Mandarin Pronunciation to Mongolian Learners in Early Republican Period China: The Case of the Mongolian Han Original Sounds of the Five Regions". In Nicola McLelland and Hui Zhao (ed.).Language Standardization and Language Variation in Multilingual Contexts. Multilingual Matters.ISBN978-1-80041-155-5.
^Lee-Kim, Sang-Im (2014), "Revisiting Mandarin 'apical vowels': An articulatory and acoustic study",Journal of the International Phonetic Association,44 (3):261–282,doi:10.1017/s0025100314000267,S2CID16432272
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