Mongolian language Facts for Kids

Quick facts for kids

Mongolian

монгол хэл ᠮᠣᠩᠭᠣᠯ ᠬᠡᠯᠡ

Native to Mongolia

Region All of state Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, parts of Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Xinjiang and Gansu provinces in China

Native speakers 5.2 million (2005)

Language family

Mongolic

Mongolian

Early forms:

Middle Mongolian

Classical Mongolian
- Mongolian

Standard forms

Khalkha (Mongolia)

Chakhar (China)

Dialects

Khalkha

Chakhar

Khorchin

Kharchin

Baarin

Shilin gol

Ordos Mongolian

Darkhad

Writing system Mongolian alphabets:
Traditional Mongolian script
(in China),
Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet (in Mongolia),
Mongolian Braille

Official status

Official language in Mongolia
China
Inner Mongolia

Regulated by Mongolia:
State Language Council,
China:
Council for Language and Literature Work

Linguasphere part of 44-BAA-b

Topographic map showing Asia as centered on modern-day Mongolia and Kazakhstan. An orange line shows the extent of the Mongol Empire. Some places are filled in red. This includes all of Mongolia, most of Inner Mongolia and Kalmykia, three enclaves in Xinjiang, multiple tiny enclaves round Lake Baikal, part of Manchuria, Gansu, Qinghai, and one place that is west of Nanjing and in the south-south-west of Zhengzhou

Geographic distribution of Mongolic peoples across Asia (red)

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The Mongolian language (, Mongɣol kele, Cyrillic: Монгол хэл, Mongol khel) is the best-known member of the Mongolic language family and the language of most of the residents of Mongolia, where it is officially written with the Cyrillic alphabet and of around three million Mongolian speakers in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China, where it is officially written with the traditional Mongolian script. It is also spoken in some areas in the Russian Far East and Kyrgyzstan. The majority of speakers in Mongolia speak the Khalkha (or Halh) dialect, while those in China speak one of many Inner Mongolian dialects.

Janhunen, Juha (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge.

Images for kids

Mongolian script and Mongolian Cyrillic on Sukhbaatar's statue in Ulaanbaatar
Nova N 176 found in Kyrgyzstan. The manuscript (dating to the 12th century Western Liao) is written in the Mongolic Khitan language using cursive Khitan large script. It has 127 leaves and 15,000 characters.
Edict of Yesün Temür Khan, Emperor Taiding of Yuan (1328). Only the 'Phags-pa script retains the complete Middle Mongol vowel system.
The Secret History of the Mongols 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.

Mongolian language facts for kids

Images for kids

See also