Mongolian is the principal language of the Mongolic language family that originated in the Mongolian Plateau . It is spoken by ethnic Mongols and other closely related Mongolic peoples who are native to modern Mongolia and surrounding parts of East and North Asia . Mongolian is the official language of Mongolia and Inner Mongolia and a recognized language of Xinjiang and Qinghai .
88-603: Khar Us Nuur National Park ( Mongolian : Хар Ус нуурын байгалийн цогцолборт газар , romanized : Khar Us nuuriin baigaliin cogcolbort gazar ) is a national park in Khovd Province , Mongolia . It covers a chain of three large lakes in the Great Lakes Basin of western Mongolia. The lakes, Khar-Us Nuur , Khar Lake and Dörgön Lake are bordered by marshes and reed-beds that are an important breeding sport for birds, over 200 species of which have been identified in
176-681: A back). The complex one is concerned with the high vowels i, ü, ı, u and has both [±front] and [±rounded] features ( i front unrounded vs ü front rounded and ı back unrounded vs u back rounded). The close-mid vowels ö, o are not involved in vowel harmony processes. Turkish has two classes of vowels – front and back . Vowel harmony states that words may not contain both front and back vowels. Therefore, most grammatical suffixes come in front and back forms, e.g. Türkiye' de "in Turkey" but Almanya' da "in Germany". In addition, there
264-741: A literary standard for Mongolian in whose grammar is said to be based on the Standard Mongolian of Inner Mongolia and whose pronunciation is based on the Chakhar dialect as spoken in the Plain Blue Banner . Dialectologically, however, western Mongolian dialects in Inner Mongolia are closer to Khalkha than they are to eastern Mongolian dialects in Inner Mongolia: e.g. Chakhar is closer to Khalkha than to Khorchin. Juha Janhunen (2003: 179) lists
352-460: A tongue root harmony and a rounding harmony. In particular, the tongue root harmony involves the vowels: /a, ʊ, ɔ/ (+RTR) and /i, u, e, o/ (-RTR). The vowel /i/ is phonetically similar to the -RTR vowels. However, it is largely transparent to vowel harmony. Rounding harmony only affects the open vowels, /e, o, a, ɔ/ . Some sources refer to the primary harmonization dimension as pharyngealization or palatalness (among others), but neither of these
440-405: A few native modern Turkish words that do not follow the rule (such as anne "mother" or kardeş "sibling" which used to obey vowel harmony in their older forms, ana and karındaş , respectively). However, in such words, suffixes nevertheless harmonize with the final vowel; thus annes i – "his/her mother", and voleybolc u – "volleyballer". In some loanwords the final vowel
528-416: A front/back system, but there is also a system of rounding harmony, which strongly resembles that of Kazakh. Turkish has a 2-dimensional vowel harmony system, where vowels are characterised by two features: [±front] and [±rounded]. There are two sets of vocal harmony systems: a simple one and a complex one. The simple one is concerned with the low vowels e, a and has only the [±front] feature ( e front vs
616-475: A fully developed system. The one exception is Uzbek , which has lost its vowel harmony due to extensive Persian influence; however, its closest relative, Uyghur , has retained Turkic vowel harmony. Azerbaijani 's system of vowel harmony has both front/back and rounded/unrounded vowels. Tatar has no neutral vowels. The vowel é is found only in loanwords . Other vowels also could be found in loanwords, but they are seen as Back vowels. Tatar language also has
704-574: A much broader "Mongolian language" consisting of 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). Additionally, the Language Policy in the People's Republic of China: Theory and Practice Since 1949 , states that Mongolian can be classified into four dialects: the Khalkha dialect in
792-534: A parameter called ATR ( advanced tongue root ); the groups are −ATR, +ATR, and neutral. This alignment seems to have superseded an alignment according to oral backness. However, some scholars still describe Mongolian as being characterized by a distinction between front vowels and back vowels, and the front vowel spellings 'ö' and 'ü' are still often used in the West to indicate two vowels which were historically front. The Mongolian vowel system also has rounding harmony. Length
880-530: A postalveolar or palatalized consonant will be followed by an epenthetic [i] , as in [ˈatʃĭɮ] . Stress in Mongolian is nonphonemic (does not distinguish different meanings) and thus is considered to depend entirely on syllable structure. But scholarly opinions on stress placement diverge sharply. Most native linguists, regardless of which dialect they speak, claim that stress falls on the first syllable. Between 1941 and 1975, several Western scholars proposed that
968-491: A report on sports composed in Mongolian script on stone, which is most often dated at 1224 or 1225. The Mongolian- Armenian wordlist of 55 words compiled by Kirakos of Gandzak (13th century) is the first written record of Mongolian words. From the 13th to the 15th centuries, Mongolian language texts were written in four scripts (not counting some vocabulary written in Western scripts): Uyghur Mongolian (UM) script (an adaptation of
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#17328770319691056-512: A rounding harmony superimposed over a backness harmony. Even among languages with vowel harmony, not all vowels need to participate in the vowel conversions; these vowels are termed neutral . Neutral vowels may be opaque and block harmonic processes or they may be transparent and not affect them. Intervening consonants are also often transparent. Finally, languages that do have vowel harmony often allow for lexical disharmony , or words with mixed sets of vowels even when an opaque neutral vowel
1144-403: A rounding harmony, but it is not represented in writing. O and ö could be written only in the first syllable, but vowels they mark could be pronounced in the place where ı and e are written. Kazakh 's system of vowel harmony is primarily a front/back system, but there is also a system of rounding harmony that is not represented by the orthography. Kyrgyz 's system of vowel harmony is primarily
1232-426: A short first syllable are stressed on the second syllable. But if their first syllable is long, then the data for different acoustic parameters seems to support conflicting conclusions: intensity data often seems to indicate that the first syllable is stressed, while F0 seems to indicate that it is the second syllable that is stressed. The grammar in this article is also based primarily on Khalkha Mongolian. Unlike
1320-583: A system of vowel harmony : For historical reasons, these have been traditionally labeled as "front" vowels and "back" vowels, as /o/ and /u/ developed from /ø/ and /y/, while /ɔ/ and /ʊ/ developed from /o/ and /u/ in Middle Mongolian. Indeed, in Mongolian romanizations , the vowels /o/ and /u/ are often conventionally rendered as ⟨ö⟩ and ⟨ü⟩ , while the vowels /ɔ/ and /ʊ/ are expressed as ⟨o⟩ and ⟨u⟩ . However, for modern Mongolian phonology, it
1408-508: Is Classical Mongolian , which is dated from the 17th to the 19th century. This is a written language with a high degree of standardization in orthography and syntax that sets it quite apart from the subsequent Modern Mongolian. The most notable documents in this language are the Mongolian Kangyur and Tengyur as well as several chronicles. In 1686, the Soyombo alphabet ( Buddhist texts )
1496-420: Is Khar Lake ("Black Lake", 565 km), which is connected by a canal with Dörgön Lake (300 km) to the southeast. The first two lakes are freshwater, the third is saline. On the southern edge of Khar-Us is Jargalant Mountain , with an elevation of 3,796 metres (12,454 ft). The park is surrounded by semi-arid desert steppe. The lakes, once part of a larger single lake 5,000 years ago, are fed by rivers from
1584-433: Is determined according to phonotactic requirements. The following table lists the consonants of Khalkha Mongolian. The consonants enclosed in parentheses occur only in loanwords. The occurrence of palatalized consonant phonemes, except /tʃ/ /tʃʰ/ /ʃ/ /j/ , is restricted to words with [−ATR] vowels. A rare feature among the world's languages, Mongolian has neither a voiced lateral approximant, such as [l] , nor
1672-409: Is ellipsis . The rules governing the morphology of Mongolian case endings are intricate, and so the rules given below are only indicative. In many situations, further (more general) rules must also be taken into account in order to produce the correct form: these include the presence of an unstable nasal or unstable velar, as well as the rules governing when a penultimate vowel should be deleted from
1760-466: Is CVVCCC, where the last C is a word-final suffix. A single short vowel rarely appears in syllable-final position . If a word was monosyllabic historically, *CV has become CVV. In native words, the following consonants do not occur word-initially: /w̜/ , /ɮ/ , /r/ , /w̜ʲ/ , /ɮʲ/ , /rʲ/ , /tʰʲ/ , and /tʲ/ . [ŋ] is restricted to codas (else it becomes [n] ), and /p/ and /pʲ/ do not occur in codas for historical reasons. For two-consonant clusters,
1848-438: Is a +ATR vowel, then every vowel of the word must be either /i/ or a +ATR vowel. In the case of suffixes, which must change their vowels to conform to different words, two patterns predominate. Some suffixes contain an archiphoneme /A/ that can be realized as /a, ɔ, e, o/ ; e.g. Other suffixes can occur in /U/ being realized as /ʊ, u/ , in which case all −ATR vowels lead to /ʊ/ and all +ATR vowels lead to /u/ ; e.g. If
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#17328770319691936-418: Is a secondary rule that i and ı in suffixes tend to become ü and u respectively after rounded vowels, so certain suffixes have additional forms. This gives constructions such as Türkiye' dir "it is Turkey", kapı dır "it is the door", but gün dür "it is the day", karpuz dur "it is the watermelon". Not all suffixes obey vowel harmony perfectly. In the suffix -(i)yor ,
2024-676: Is an a , o or u and thus looks like a back vowel, but is phonetically actually a front vowel, and governs vowel harmony accordingly. An example is the word saat , meaning "hour" or "clock", a loanword from Arabic. Its plural is sa a tl e r . This is not truly an exception to vowel harmony itself; rather, it is an exception to the rule that a denotes a front vowel. Disharmony tends to disappear through analogy, especially within loanwords; e.g. Hüsnü (a man's name) < earlier Hüsni , from Arabic husnî ; Müslüman "Moslem, Muslim (adj. and n.)" < Ottoman Turkish müslimân , from Persian mosalmân . Tuvan has one of
2112-485: Is based primarily on the Khalkha dialect as spoken in Ulaanbaatar , Mongolia's capital. The phonologies of other varieties such as Ordos, Khorchin, and even Chakhar, differ considerably. This section discusses the phonology of Khalkha Mongolian with subsections on Vowels, Consonants, Phonotactics and Stress. The standard language has seven monophthong vowel phonemes. They are aligned into three vowel harmony groups by
2200-715: Is called dominant ). This is fairly common among languages with vowel harmony and may be seen in the Hungarian dative suffix: The dative suffix has two different forms -nak/-nek . The -nak form appears after the root with back vowels ( o and a are back vowels). The -nek form appears after the root with front vowels ( ö and e are front vowels). Vowel harmony often involves dimensions such as In many languages, vowels can be said to belong to particular sets or classes, such as back vowels or rounded vowels. Some languages have more than one system of harmony. For instance, Altaic languages are proposed to have
2288-685: Is closely pronounced as the Finnish front vowel 'ä' [æ] . 7 out of the 10 local dialects have the vowel ë [e] which has never been part of the Hungarian alphabet, and thus is not used in writing. Unrounded front vowels (or Intermediate or neutral vowels) can occur together with either back vowels (e.g. r é p a carrot, k o cs i car) or rounded front vowels (e.g. tető , tündér ), but rounded front vowels and back vowels can occur together only in words of foreign origins (e.g. sofőr = chauffeur, French word for driver). The basic rule
2376-566: Is impeded by the fact that existing data for the major varieties is not easily arrangeable according to a common set of linguistic criteria. Such data might account for the historical development of the Mongolian dialect continuum , as well as for its sociolinguistic qualities. Though phonological and lexical studies are comparatively well developed, the basis has yet to be laid for a comparative morphosyntactic study, for example between such highly diverse varieties as Khalkha and Khorchin. In Juha Janhunen's book titled Mongolian , he groups
2464-410: Is more appropriate to instead characterize the two vowel-harmony groups by the dimension of tongue root position. There is also one neutral vowel, /i/ , not belonging to either group. All the vowels in a non compound word, including all its suffixes, must belong to the same group. If the first vowel is −ATR, then every vowel of the word must be either /i/ or a −ATR vowel. Likewise, if the first vowel
2552-539: Is not involved. Van der Hulst & van de Weijer (1995) point to two such situations: polysyllabic trigger morphemes may contain non-neutral vowels from opposite harmonic sets and certain target morphemes simply fail to harmonize. Many loanwords exhibit disharmony. For example, Turkish vakit , ('time' [from Arabic waqt ]); * vak ı t would have been expected. There are three classes of vowels in Korean : positive, negative, and neutral. These categories loosely follow
2640-1261: Is phonemic for vowels, and except short [e], which has merged into short [i], at least in Ulaanbaatar dialect, each of the other six phonemes occurs both short and long. Phonetically, short /o/ has become centralised to the central vowel [ɵ] . In the following table, the seven vowel phonemes, with their length variants, are arranged and described phonetically. The vowels in the Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet are: Khalkha also has four diphthongs : historically /ui, ʊi, ɔi, ai/ but are pronounced more like [ʉe̯, ʊe̯, ɞe̯, æe̯] ; e.g. ой in нохой ( nohoi ) [nɔ̙ˈχɞe̯] 'dog', ай in далай ( dalai ) [taˈɮæe̯] sea', уй in уйлах ( uilah ) [ˈʊe̯ɮɐχ] 'to cry', үй in үйлдвэр ( üildver ) [ˈʉe̯ɮtw̜ɘr] 'factory', эй in хэрэгтэй ( heregtei ) [çiɾɪxˈtʰe] 'necessary'. There are three additional rising diphthongs /ia/ (иа), /ʊa/ (уа) /ei/ (эй); e.g. иа in амиараа ( amiaraa ) [aˈmʲæɾa] 'individually', уа in хуаран ( huaran ) [ˈχʷaɾɐɴ] 'barracks'. This table below lists vowel allophones (short vowels allophones in non-initial positions are used interchangeably with schwa): Mongolian divides vowels into three groups in
2728-451: Is reconstructed also for Proto-Samoyedic . Hungarian , like its distant relative Finnish, has the same system of front , back , and intermediate (neutral) vowels but is more complex than the one in Finnish, and some vowel harmony processes. The basic rule is that words including at least one back vowel get back vowel suffixes ( kar ba – in(to) the arm), while words excluding back vowels get front vowel suffixes ( kéz be – in(to)
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2816-458: Is relatively free, as grammatical roles are indicated by a system of about eight grammatical cases . There are five voices . Verbs are marked for voice, aspect , tense and epistemic modality / evidentiality . In sentence linking, a special role is played by converbs . Modern Mongolian evolved from Middle Mongol , the language spoken in the Mongol Empire of the 13th and 14th centuries. In
2904-434: Is technically correct. Likewise, referring to ±RTR as the sole defining feature of vowel categories in Mongolian is not fully accurate either. In any case, the two vowel categories differ primarily with regards to tongue root position, and ±RTR is a convenient and fairly accurate descriptor for the articulatory parameters involved. Turkic languages inherit their systems of vowel harmony from Proto-Turkic , which already had
2992-590: Is that words including at least one back vowel take back vowel suffixes (e.g. répában in a carrot, kocsiban in a car), while words excluding back vowels usually take front vowel suffixes (except for words including only the vowels i or í , for which there is no general rule, e.g. lisztet , hidat ). Some other rules and guidelines to consider: Grammatical suffixes in Hungarian can have one, two, three, or four forms: An example on basic numerals: Vowel harmony occurred in Southern Mansi . In
3080-402: Is typically long distance, meaning that the affected vowels do not need to be immediately adjacent, and there can be intervening segments between the affected vowels. Generally one vowel will trigger a shift in other vowels, either progressively or regressively, within the domain, such that the affected vowels match the relevant feature of the trigger vowel. Common phonological features that define
3168-401: Is used in two different senses. In the first sense, it refers to any type of long distance assimilatory process of vowels, either progressive or regressive . When used in this sense, the term vowel harmony is synonymous with the term metaphony . In the second sense, vowel harmony refers only to progressive vowel harmony (beginning-to-end). For regressive harmony, the term umlaut
3256-501: Is used. In this sense, metaphony is the general term while vowel harmony and umlaut are both sub-types of metaphony. The term umlaut is also used in a different sense to refer to a type of vowel gradation . This article will use "vowel harmony" for both progressive and regressive harmony. Harmony processes are "long-distance" in the sense that the assimilation involves sounds that are separated by intervening segments (usually consonant segments). In other words, harmony refers to
3344-402: Is word-final, it gets stressed anyway. In cases where there is only one phonemic short word-initial syllable, even this syllable can get the stress: More recently, the most extensive collection of phonetic data so far in Mongolian studies has been applied to a partial account of stress placement in the closely related Chakhar dialect. The conclusion is drawn that di- and trisyllabic words with
3432-456: The o is invariant, while the i changes according to the preceding vowel; for example sön ü y o r – "he/she/it fades". Likewise, in the suffix -(y)ken , the e is invariant: Roma'dayk e n – "When in Rome"; and so is the i in the suffix -(y)ebil : inanıl a b i lir – "credible". The suffix -ki exhibits partial harmony, never taking a back vowel but allowing only
3520-516: The Altaic language family and contrasted with the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area . However, instead of a common genetic origin, Clauson, Doerfer, and Shcherbak proposed that Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic languages form a language Sprachbund , rather than common origin. Mongolian literature is well attested in written form from the 13th century but has earlier Mongolic precursors in
3608-501: The Kalmyk variety ) and Buryat, both of which are spoken in Russia, Mongolia, and China; and Ordos , spoken around Inner Mongolia's Ordos City . The influential classification of Sanžeev (1953) proposed a "Mongolian language" consisting of just the three dialects Khalkha, Chakhar, and Ordos, with Buryat and Oirat judged to be independent languages. On the other hand, Luvsanvandan (1959) proposed
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3696-546: The Khanty language , vowel harmony occurs in the Eastern dialects, and affects both inflectional and derivational suffixes. The Vakh-Vasyugan dialect has a particularly extensive system of vowel harmony: Trigger vowels occur in the first syllable of a word, and control the backness of the entire word. Target vowels are affected by vowel harmony and are arranged in seven front-back pairs of similar height and roundedness, which are assigned
3784-642: The Shuluun Huh/Zhènglán Banner , and is written in the traditional Mongolian script . The number of Mongolian speakers in China is still larger than in the state of Mongolia, where the majority of Mongolians in China speak one of the Khorchin dialects , or rather more than two million of them speak the Khorchin dialect itself as their mother tongue, so that the Khorchin dialect group has about as many speakers as
3872-627: The Uyghur alphabet), 'Phags-pa script (Ph) (used in decrees), Chinese (SM) ( The Secret History of the Mongols ), and Arabic (AM) (used in dictionaries). While they are the earliest texts available, these texts have come to be called " Middle Mongol " in scholarly practice. The documents in UM script show some distinct linguistic characteristics and are therefore often distinguished by terming their language "Preclassical Mongolian". The Yuan dynasty referred to
3960-553: The syllable 's position in the word. In word-initial syllables, there is a phonemic contrast in vowel length . A long vowel has about 208% the length of a short vowel. In word-medial and word-final syllables, formerly long vowels are now only 127% as long as short vowels in initial syllables, but they are still distinct from initial-syllable short vowels. Short vowels in noninitial syllables differ from short vowels in initial syllables by being only 71% as long and by being centralized in articulation. As they are nonphonemic, their position
4048-505: The Inner Mongolia of China . In Mongolia , Khalkha Mongolian is predominant, and is currently written in both Cyrillic and the traditional Mongolian script . In Inner Mongolia, it is dialectally more diverse and written in the traditional Mongolian script. However, Mongols in both countries often use the Latin script for convenience on the Internet. In the discussion of grammar to follow,
4136-588: The Inner Mongolia since September, which caused widespread protests among ethnic Mongol communities. These protests were quickly suppressed by the Chinese government. Mandarin has been deemed the only language of instruction for all subjects as of September 2023. Mongolian belongs to the Mongolic languages . The delimitation of the Mongolian language within Mongolic is a much disputed theoretical problem, one whose resolution
4224-512: The Khalkha dialect group in the State of Mongolia. Nevertheless, the Chakhar dialect, which today has only about 100,000 native speakers and belongs to the Khalkha dialect group, is the basis of standard Mongolian in China. The characteristic differences in the pronunciation of the two standard varieties include the umlauts in Inner Mongolia and the palatalized consonants in Mongolia (see below) as well as
4312-812: The Mongolian language in Chinese as "Guoyu" ( Chinese : 國語 ), which means "National language", a term also used by other non-Han dynasties to refer to their languages such as the Manchu language during the Qing dynasty , the Jurchen language during the Jin dynasty (1115–1234) , the Khitan language during the Liao dynasty , and the Xianbei language during the Northern Wei period. The next distinct period
4400-497: The Mongolic language family into four distinct linguistic branches: The Common Mongolic branch is grouped in the following way: There is no disagreement that the Khalkha dialect of the Mongolian state is Mongolian. However, the status of certain varieties in the Common Mongolic group—whether they are languages distinct from Mongolian or just dialects of it—is disputed. There are at least three such varieties: Oirat (including
4488-483: The Narrow-headed Altai osman ( Oreoleuciscus angusticephalus ). in the 1960s, muskrat ( Ondatra zibethicus ) were introduced to the area for fur production; they have grown in number and place pressure on the reed beds. Mongolian language The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5–6 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the ethnic Mongol residents of
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#17328770319694576-426: The accusative, while it must take the nominative if it is indefinite . In addition to case, a number of postpositions exist that usually govern the genitive, dative-locative, comitative and privative cases, including a marked form of the nominative (which can itself then take further case forms). There is also a possible attributive case (when a noun is used attributively ), which is unmarked in most nouns but takes
4664-419: The assimilation of sounds that are not adjacent to each other. For example, a vowel at the beginning of a word can trigger assimilation in a vowel at the end of a word. The assimilation occurs across the entire word in many languages. This is represented schematically in the following diagram: In the diagram above, the V a (type-a vowel) causes the following V b (type-b vowel) to assimilate and become
4752-514: The central problem remains the question of how to classify Chakhar, Khalkha, and Khorchin in relation to each other and in relation to Buryat and Oirat. The split of [tʃ] into [tʃ] before *i and [ts] before all other reconstructed vowels, which is found in Mongolia but not in Inner Mongolia, is often cited as a fundamental distinction, for example Proto-Mongolic *tʃil , Khalkha /tʃiɮ/ , Chakhar /tʃil/ 'year' versus Proto-Mongolic *tʃøhelen , Khalkha /tsoːɮəŋ/ , Chakhar /tʃoːləŋ/ 'few'. On
4840-407: The current international standard. Mongolian is a language with vowel harmony and a complex syllabic structure compared to other Mongolic languages, allowing clusters of up to three consonants syllable-finally. It is a typical agglutinative language that relies on suffix chains in the verbal and nominal domains. While there is a basic word order, subject–object–verb , ordering among noun phrases
4928-412: The examples given above, the words are phonetically [ˈxɔjɔ̆r] , [ˈatʃĭɮ] , and [ˈsaːrmăɢ] . The phonetic form of the epenthetic vowel follows from vowel harmony triggered by the vowel in the preceding syllable. Usually it is a centralized version of the same sound, with the following exceptions: preceding /u/ produces [e] ; /i/ will be ignored if there is a nonneutral vowel earlier in the word; and
5016-612: The following Mongol dialects, most of which are spoken in Inner Mongolia . There are two standard varieties of Mongolian. Standard Mongolian in the state of Mongolia is based on the northern Khalkha Mongolian dialects, which include the dialect of Ulaanbaatar , and is written in the Mongolian Cyrillic script . Standard Mongolian in Inner Mongolia is based on the Chakhar Mongolian of the Khalkha dialect group, spoken in
5104-444: The following restrictions obtain: Clusters that do not conform to these restrictions will be broken up by an epenthetic nonphonemic vowel in a syllabification that takes place from right to left. For instance, hoyor 'two', azhil 'work', and saarmag 'neutral' are, phonemically, /xɔjr/ , /atʃɮ/ , and /saːrmɡ/ respectively. In such cases, an epenthetic vowel is inserted to prevent disallowed consonant clusters. Thus, in
5192-684: The front (positive) and mid (negative) vowels. Middle Korean had strong vowel harmony; however, this rule is no longer observed strictly in modern Korean. In modern Korean, it is only applied in certain cases such as onomatopoeia , adjectives , adverbs , conjugation , and interjections . The vowel ㅡ ( eu ) is considered a partially neutral and a partially negative vowel. There are other traces of vowel harmony in modern Korean: many native Korean words tend to follow vowel harmony, such as 사람 ( saram , 'person') and 부엌 ( bu-eok , 'kitchen'). 양성모음 (Yangseong moeum) 음성모음 (eumseong moeum) 중성모음 (jungseong moeum) Mongolian exhibits both
5280-562: The front-voweled variant -kü : dünk ü – "belonging to yesterday"; yarınk i – "belonging to tomorrow". Most Turkish words do not only have vowel harmony for suffixes, but also internally. However, there are many exceptions. Compound words are considered separate words with respect to vowel harmony: vowels do not have to harmonize between members of the compound (thus forms like bu | gün "this|day" = "today" are permissible). Vowel harmony does not apply for loanwords , as in otobüs – from French "autobus". There are also
5368-415: The hand). Single-vowel words which have only the neutral vowels ( i , í or é ) are unpredictable, but e takes a front-vowel suffix. One essential difference in classification between Hungarian and Finnish is that standard Hungarian (along with 3 out of 10 local dialects) does not observe the difference between Finnish 'ä' [æ] and 'e' [e] – the Hungarian front vowel 'e' [ɛ]
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#17328770319695456-583: The independent words derived using verbal suffixes can roughly be divided into three classes: final verbs , which can only be used sentence-finally, i.e. ‑ na (mainly future or generic statements) or ‑ ö (second person imperative); participles (often called "verbal nouns"), which can be used clause-finally or attributively, i.e. ‑ san ( perfect - past ) or ‑ maar 'want to'; and converbs , which can link clauses or function adverbially , i.e. ‑ zh (qualifies for any adverbial function or neutrally connects two sentences ) or ‑ tal (the action of
5544-413: The language is spoken by roughly half of the country's 5.8 million ethnic Mongols (2005 estimate) However, the exact number of Mongolian speakers in China is unknown, as there is no data available on the language proficiency of that country's citizens. The use of Mongolian in Inner Mongolia has witnessed periods of decline and revival over the last few hundred years. The language experienced a decline during
5632-405: The late Qing period, a revival between 1947 and 1965, a second decline between 1966 and 1976, a second revival between 1977 and 1992, and a third decline between 1995 and 2012. However, in spite of the decline of the Mongolian language in some of Inner Mongolia's urban areas and educational spheres, the ethnic identity of the urbanized Chinese-speaking Mongols is most likely going to survive due to
5720-418: The leftmost heavy syllable gets the stress. Yet other positions were taken in works published between 1835 and 1915. Walker (1997) proposes that stress falls on the rightmost heavy syllable unless this syllable is word-final: A "heavy syllable" is defined as one that is at least the length of a full vowel; short word-initial syllables are thereby excluded. If a word is bisyllabic and the only heavy syllable
5808-565: The literature of the Khitan and other Xianbei peoples. The Bugut inscription dated to 584 CE and the Inscription of Hüis Tolgoi dated to 604–620 CE appear to be the oldest substantial Mongolic or Para-Mongolic texts discovered. Writers such as Owen Lattimore referred to Mongolian as "the Mongol language". The earliest surviving Mongolian text may be the Stele of Yisüngge [ ru ] ,
5896-421: The main clause takes place until the action expressed by the suffixed verb begins). Roughly speaking, Mongolian has between seven and nine cases : nominative ( unmarked ), genitive , dative - locative , accusative , ablative , instrumental , comitative , privative and directive , though the final two are not always considered part of the case paradigm. If a direct object is definite , it must take
5984-635: The middle, the Horcin-Haracin dialect in the East, Oriat-Hilimag in the west, and Bargu–Buriyad in the north. Some Western scholars propose that the relatively well researched Ordos variety is an independent language due to its conservative syllable structure and phoneme inventory. While the placement of a variety like Alasha , which is under the cultural influence of Inner Mongolia but historically tied to Oirat, and of other border varieties like Darkhad would very likely remain problematic in any classification,
6072-469: The most complete systems of vowel harmony among the Turkic languages. Persian is a language which includes various types of regressive and progressive vowel harmony in different words and expressions. In Persian, progressive vowel harmony only applies to prepositions/post-positions when attached to pronouns. In Persian, regressive vowel harmony, some features spread from the triggering non-initial vowel to
6160-415: The natural classes of vowels involved in vowel harmony include vowel backness , vowel height , nasalization , roundedness , and advanced and retracted tongue root . Vowel harmony is found in many agglutinative languages. The given domain of vowel harmony taking effect often spans across morpheme boundaries, and suffixes and prefixes will usually follow vowel harmony rules. The term vowel harmony
6248-491: The only vowel in the word stem is /i/ , the suffixes will use the +ATR suffix forms. Mongolian also has rounding harmony, which does not apply to close vowels. If a stem contains /o/ (or /ɔ/ ), a suffix that is specified for an open vowel will have [o] (or [ɔ] , respectively) as well. However, this process is blocked by the presence of /u/ (or /ʊ/ ) and /ei/ ; e.g. /ɔr-ɮɔ/ 'came in', but /ɔr-ʊɮ-ɮa/ 'inserted'. The pronunciation of long and short vowels depends on
6336-558: The other hand, the split between the past tense verbal suffixes - /sŋ/ in the Central varieties v. - /dʒɛː/ in the Eastern varieties is usually seen as a merely stochastic difference. In Inner Mongolia, official language policy divides the Mongolian language into three dialects: Standard Mongolian of Inner Mongolia , Oirat, and Barghu-Buryat. The Standard Mongolian of Inner Mongolia is said to consist of Chakhar, Ordos, Baarin , Khorchin, Kharchin, and Alasha. The authorities have synthesized
6424-539: The park. Mount Jargalant is on the southern shore of Khar-Us. This park is distinct from Khyargas Nuur National Park , another large lake in the region, but 60 km to the north. The main lake is Khar-Us Nuur ("Black water lake"), 70 km at its longest extent. Khar-Us is fed by the Khovd Gol (River), which enters in a delta on the west side. In the north of the 1,852 km lake is a large island, Agbash ("White Head"), with an area of 274 km. Immediately east of Khar-Us
6512-448: The phonology, most of what is said about morphology and syntax also holds true for Chakhar, while Khorchin is somewhat more diverse. Modern Mongolian is an agglutinative —almost exclusively suffixing—language, with the only exception being reduplication. Mongolian also does not have gendered nouns, or definite articles like "the". Most of the suffixes consist of a single morpheme . There are many derivational morphemes. For example,
6600-542: The preferential policies for minorities in education, healthcare, family planning, school admissions, the hiring and promotion, the financing and taxation of businesses, and regional infrastructural support given to ethnic minorities in China. In 2020, the Chinese government required three subjects—language and literature, politics, and history—to be taught in Mandarin in Mongolian-language primary and secondary schools in
6688-597: The presence of urban ethnic communities. The multilingual situation in Inner Mongolia does not appear to obstruct efforts by ethnic Mongols to preserve their language. Although an unknown number of Mongols in China, such as the Tumets, may have completely or partially lost the ability to speak their language, they are still registered as ethnic Mongols and continue to identify themselves as ethnic Mongols. The children of inter-ethnic Mongol-Chinese marriages also claim to be and are registered as ethnic Mongols so they can benefit from
6776-406: The same type of vowel (and thus they become, metaphorically, "in harmony"). The vowel that causes the vowel assimilation is frequently termed the trigger while the vowels that assimilate (or harmonize ) are termed targets . When the vowel triggers lie within the root or stem of a word and the affixes contain the targets, this is called stem-controlled vowel harmony (the opposite situation
6864-596: The splitting of the Middle Mongol affricates * ʧ ( ᠴ č ) and * ʤ ( ᠵ ǰ ) into ʦ ( ц c ) and ʣ ( з z ) versus ʧ ( ч č ) and ʤ ( ж ž ) in Mongolia: Aside from these differences in pronunciation, there are also differences in vocabulary and language use: in the state of Mongolia more loanwords from Russian are being used, while in Inner Mongolia more loanwords from Chinese have been adopted. The following description
6952-419: The stem with certain case endings (e.g. цэрэг ( tsereg ) → цэргийн ( tsergiin )). The additional morphological rules specific to loanwords are not covered. Vowel harmony In phonology , vowel harmony is a phonological rule in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – must share certain distinctive features (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony
7040-430: The suffix ‑ н (‑ n ) when the stem has an unstable nasal. Nouns can also take a reflexive-possessive suffix , indicating that the marked noun is possessed by the subject of the sentence: bi najz-aa avar-san I friend- reflexive-possessive save- perfect "I saved my friend". However, there are also somewhat noun-like adjectives to which case suffixes seemingly cannot be attached directly unless there
7128-436: The surrounding Altai Mountains . The climate of the area is Cold semi-arid climate ( Köppen climate classification (BSk) ). This climate is characteristic of steppe climates intermediary between desert humid climates, and typically have precipitation is above evapotranspiration . At least one month averages below 0 °C (32 °F). Precipitation in the area averages 122 mm/year. The lakes are frozen for half
7216-517: The target vowel in the previous syllable. The application and non-application of this backness harmony which can also be considered rounding harmony. Many, though not all, Uralic languages show vowel harmony between front and back vowels. Vowel harmony is often hypothesized to have existed in Proto-Uralic , though its original scope remains a matter of discussion. Vowel harmony is found in Nganasan and
7304-456: The transition, a major shift in the vowel-harmony paradigm occurred, long vowels developed, the case system changed slightly, and the verbal system was restructured. Mongolian is related to the extinct Khitan language . It was believed that Mongolian was related to Turkic , Tungusic , Korean and Japonic languages but this view is now seen as obsolete by a majority of (but not all) comparative linguists. These languages have been grouped under
7392-408: The variety of Mongolian treated is the standard written Khalkha formalized in the writing conventions and in grammar as taught in schools, but much of it is also valid for vernacular (spoken) Khalkha and other Mongolian dialects, especially Chakhar Mongolian . Some classify several other Mongolic languages like Buryat and Oirat as varieties of Mongolian, but this classification is not in line with
7480-424: The voiceless velar plosive [k] ; instead, it has a voiced alveolar lateral fricative , /ɮ/ , which is often realized as voiceless [ɬ] . In word-final position, /n/ (if not followed by a vowel in historical forms) is realized as [ŋ] . Aspirated consonants are preaspirated in medial and word-final contexts, devoicing preceding consonants and vowels. Devoiced short vowels are often deleted. The maximal syllable
7568-547: The word baiguullagiinh consists of the root bai 'to be', an epenthetic ‑ g ‑, the causative ‑ uul ‑ (hence 'to found'), the derivative suffix ‑ laga that forms nouns created by the action (like - ation in organisation ) and the complex suffix ‑ iinh denoting something that belongs to the modified word (‑ iin would be genitive ). Nominal compounds are quite frequent. Some derivational verbal suffixes are rather productive , e.g. yarih 'to speak', yarilc 'to speak with each other'. Formally,
7656-521: The year (November to April). The park is situated in the Great Lakes Basin desert steppe ecoregion. The marshes are largely Phragmites communis (reeds). Birds include the endangered White-headed duck (Oxyura leucocephala), the near-threatened Dalmatian pelican (Pelecanus crispus) (formerly breeding in the park, but lately only passing through), and the vulnerable Swan goose (Anser cygnoides). There are three species of endemic fish, including
7744-417: Was created, giving distinctive evidence on early classical Mongolian phonological peculiarities. Mongolian is the official national language of Mongolia, where it is spoken (but not always written) by nearly 3.6 million people (2014 estimate), and the official provincial language (both spoken and written forms) of Inner Mongolia, where there are at least 4.1 million ethnic Mongols. Across the whole of China,
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