Mongolic languages

Mongolic languages. The Mongolic languages form a family of closely related tongues spoken across Central Asia and East Asia, primarily in the sovereign state of Mongolia and the Chinese region of Inner Mongolia. The most prominent member is Khalkha Mongolian, the national language of Mongolia, while other significant varieties include Buryat, Oirat, and the Monguor languages. These languages share a common ancestor in Proto-Mongolic and have historically been written in several scripts, most famously the classical Mongolian script and the modern Cyrillic script.

Classification

The internal classification of the Mongolic family is typically divided into several branches. The Central Mongolic branch includes the major languages Khalkha Mongolian, Inner Mongolian dialects, and Buryat, the latter spoken in Russia around Lake Baikal. The Southern Mongolic branch comprises languages like Monguor (Tu) and Bonan, spoken in Qinghai and Gansu provinces of China. Two peripheral, geographically isolated languages are Dagur, found in Heilongjiang and Inner Mongolia, and the nearly extinct Moghol in Afghanistan. Some scholars propose a link to the Tungusic languages and possibly Korean within the controversial Altaic languages hypothesis.

History

The history of the Mongolic languages is deeply intertwined with the rise of the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan in the 13th century. The empire's administrative language, known as Middle Mongol, is attested in important historical texts like the Secret History of the Mongols and contemporary records from visitors like William of Rubruck. Following the empire's fragmentation, the languages diverged into their modern forms. Significant historical developments include the conversion of the Oirats to Tibetan Buddhism and their migration west to form the Kalmyk Khanate, and the later incorporation of Buryatia and Mongolia into the spheres of Russia and the Qing dynasty.

Geographical distribution

The core geographical area of the Mongolic languages is the Mongolian Plateau. The primary political entities are the country of Mongolia, where Khalkha is dominant, and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Significant communities exist in the Russian federal subjects of the Republic of Buryatia and the Republic of Kalmykia on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Smaller, scattered populations are found in Chinese provinces such as Qinghai, Gansu, and Xinjiang, as well as in parts of Afghanistan where the Moghol people reside.

Linguistic features

Mongolic languages are agglutinative, employing suffixes to indicate grammatical functions. A key feature is vowel harmony, which governs the selection of suffixes based on the vowels in a word's root. The typical sentence structure is subject–object–verb (SOV). They possess a rich case system, with up to eight grammatical cases including nominative, genitive, dative-locative, and accusative. Lexically, they have borrowed extensively from surrounding languages, including Tibetan via Buddhism, Chinese, and, in the case of Buryat and Khalkha Mongolian, from Russian.

Writing systems

Historically, the principal script was the classical Mongolian script, derived from the Old Uyghur alphabet and traditionally written vertically. It remains in limited use in Inner Mongolia. In the 20th century, Mongolia adopted a Cyrillic script under Soviet influence, which is now the standard. The Buryat and Kalmyk languages in Russia also use Cyrillic-based alphabets. There have been periodic government initiatives in Ulaanbaatar to reintroduce the traditional script. Other historical writing systems include the clear script (Todo bichig) developed for Oirat by Zaya Pandita, and the Phagspa script used during the Yuan dynasty.

Modern languages and dialects

The major modern literary languages are Khalkha Mongolian, based on the dialect of Ulaanbaatar; Buryat; and Kalmyk, the language of the Kalmyks in Russia. The Oirat dialect continuum persists in Xinjiang and western Mongolia. In China, besides the Inner Mongolian dialects, there are several distinct Southern Mongolic languages like Monguor, Bonan, and Dongxiang, which have been influenced by neighboring Sinitic and Tibetic languages. The vitality of these languages varies, with some, like Moghol, being critically endangered.