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 .
86-481: Naadam (Mongolian Naadam Festival) ( Mongolian : Наадам , classical Mongolian: ᠨᠠᠭᠠᠳᠤᠮ Naɣadum , [ˈnaːdəm] , literally "games" ) is a traditional festival celebrated in Mongolia , Inner Mongolia and Tuva . The festival is also locally termed "eriin gurvan naadam" ( эрийн гурван наадам ), "the three games of men". The games are Mongolian wrestling , horse racing , and archery , and are held throughout
172-741: 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
258-606: A military parade and a flag raising ceremony on Sükhbaatar Square in the capital of Ulaanbaatar . The first official military parade in Communist Mongolia (Mongolian People's Republic) took place in 1921 in honor of the victories of Damdin Sükhbaatar in the People's Revolution . The anniversary parades that followed have been held on jubilee years, examples of which include the parades in 1966, 1981, and 1991 which celebrated
344-558: 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 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,
430-606: A dance festival dedicated to the High Saint Zanabazar. In this festival of Shireet White Lake, Bokh Lama won in wrestling, and Bonkhor Donir's horse won the championship. In 1772, a great festival was held to worship Khentii mountain. It is called the Festival of Ten Governments. In 1912, the Ten Government Games, which used to be played with losing points, became an annual state game. Until the death of Bogd Khan in 1925,
516-691: 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 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
602-574: 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
688-534: 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
774-530: 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
860-426: 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
946-476: 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 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
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#17328491016081032-583: 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
1118-508: 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 )
1204-433: 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
1290-409: 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
1376-466: 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,
1462-438: 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
1548-415: Is a cross-country event, with races 15–30 km long. The length of each race is determined by age class. For example, two-year-old horses race for 16 km (10 mi) and seven-year-olds for 27 km (17 mi). Up to 1000 horses from any part of Mongolia can be chosen to participate. Race horses are fed a special diet. Children from 5 to 13 are chosen as jockeys and train in the months preceding
1634-411: Is a small woven or wooden cylinder. They are placed on top of each other forming a wall three-high, which is approximately 8 inches high by 5 feet wide. Knocking a sur out of the wall with an arrow counts as a hit, though knocking a sur out of the centre will bring a competitor more points. When the archer hits the target, the judge says uuhai which means "hooray". After each hit, an official repairs
1720-485: 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
1806-566: 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
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#17328491016081892-410: 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
1978-1261: 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
2064-454: Is praised with the title of tumny ekh or leader of ten thousand. The horse that finishes last in the Daaga race (two-year-old horses race) is called bayan khodood (meaning "full stomach"). A song is sung to the bayan khodood wishing him luck to be next year's winner. In this competition both men and women may participate. It is played by teams of ten. Each archer is given four arrows;
2150-517: 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, the variety of Mongolian treated is the standard written Khalkha formalized in
2236-1009: Is presided by the President of Mongolia in his/her capacity as Commander in Chief of the MAF. The ceremonies begin as the president steps out of the Government Palace to be received at the saluting base by the Speaker of the State Great Khural, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defense, as well as members of the government and the General Staff of the Mongolian Armed Forces. As the President receives
2322-402: 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
2408-501: 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
2494-642: 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
2580-585: The Stele of Yisüngge [ ru ] , 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
2666-627: 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
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2752-553: 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
2838-689: The 1930s under the Communist influence of the Soviet Union. The anniversary parades of the Mongolian People's Army on Sükhbaatar Square were generally held on jubilee years (specifically in 1946, 1951, 1956, 1961, 1966, 1971, 1976, 1981, 1986 and 1991), alongside the International Workers Day and October Revolution Day parades. General T. Galsan was the longtime commander these parades. During these events, party and government leaders viewed
2924-477: The 45th anniversary, the 60th anniversary and the 70th anniversary respectively. After 1991, the practice was abandoned with the exception of 1996 when a parade in the National Sports Stadium commemorated the 790th anniversary of the founding of Mongolia and the 75th anniversary of the People's Revolution. Many of the celebrations were celebrated with the participation of foreign communists who visited
3010-661: The Danshig Naadam and the National Naadam. The former was only instituted as an annual event in 2015, having previously been held irregularly and commemorates Mongolia's independence from the Qing dynasty, and also coincides with Mongolian State Flag Day . The latter formally commemorates the 1921 Revolution a decade later, when communist invaded and deposed Bogd Khan, spillover from the Russian Civil War . Naadam also celebrates
3096-588: 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
3182-512: 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
3268-764: 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
3354-497: 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
3440-676: The National Emergency Management Agency. The preceding day, an awards ceremony is held in the Chamber of Nine White Banners of the Government Palace. The following awards and titles are conferred upon individuals during the ceremony: After the parade, a wreath laying ceremony is held at the monuments to Damdin Sukhbaatar (the founding member of the Mongolian People's Party ) and Chinggis Khaan (the first Great Khan of
3526-699: The State Little Khural of the Mongolian People’s Republic . As a result of its approval by the Bayar government, State Flag Day was celebrated for the first time on July 10 the following year during the inauguration of President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj . Although officially celebrating the National Flag of Mongolia , it also commemorates the anniversaries of Mongolian Statehood and the Mongol Empire ,
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3612-623: The Ten Government Festival became a state festival. Ten Government Games have been held 125 times. Naadam during the period of the Mongolian People's Republic was associated with the Mongolian Revolution of 1921 . The first official military parade in Communist Mongolia took place in 1921 in honor of the victories of Damdin Sükhbaatar in the revolution. It was celebrated as a Buddhist/shaman holiday until secularization in
3698-426: 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
3784-594: The achievements of the new state. Naadam is also celebrated in different regions of Mongolia and Inner Mongolia in July and August. In the Tuva Republic , Naadam is on 15 August. The three sports are called Danshig games. They became the great celebration of the new nation, where the nobility got together to dedicate to the Bogd Khan (Jabzundamba Khutugtu), the new head of state. Genghis Khan 's nine horse tails, representing
3870-399: The activities, such as military parades and sporting competitions such as archery, horse riding and wrestling, that followed the celebration of various occasions, including weddings or spiritual gatherings. It later served as a way to train soldiers for battle and was also connected to Mongols' nomadic lifestyle. Mongolians practice their unwritten holiday rules that include a long song to start
3956-441: The center of the square to receive the report from the Chief of the General Staff of the MAF, on the status of the parade and its readiness for inspection. As the Minister's vehicle pass the mobile column of the parade, and then the battalions of the parade ground column (as the massed bands play music) he/she greets the formations and congratulates them on the holiday. Once the minister and the parade commander finish their inspection,
4042-514: 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
4128-419: The ceremony, the competitions begin. The competitions are mainly horseback riding. A total of 512 or 1024 wrestlers meet in a single-elimination tournament that lasts nine or ten rounds. Mongolian traditional wrestling is an untimed competition in which wrestlers lose if they touch the ground with any part of their body other than their feet or hands. When picking pairs, the wrestler with the greatest fame has
4214-553: The country during midsummer. Women have started participating in the archery and girls in the horse-racing games, but not in Mongolian wrestling. In 2010, Naadam was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity of UNESCO . Naadam is the most widely watched festival among Mongols and is believed to have existed for centuries in one fashion or another. It has its origin in
4300-628: The country, including Mikhail Suslov , Józef Cyrankiewicz , and Władysław Gomułka . In 2008, three MPs in the State Great Khural passed a law on the establishment of State Flag Day. The grounds for this holiday's selection was on the order of Marshal Khorloogiin Choibalsan on 10 July 1945 to revise the provisions in the "Law on the Design and Composition of the State Flag" at the 43rd Meeting of
4386-423: The damaged wall and makes it ready for the next attempt. The winners of the contest are granted the titles of "national marksman" and "national markswoman". 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 the Inner Mongolia of China . In Mongolia , Khalkha Mongolian
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#17328491016084472-552: The establishment of the Bogd Khanate in the Qing dynasty , the People's Revolution of 1921 and the Democratic Revolution of 1990 . It also coincides with the traditional Mongolian celebration of Naadam , which begins the following day, 11 July. The annual military parade of Mongolian Armed Forces on the southern part of Sükhbaatar Square is the main event during State Flag Day. The parade has been held since 2009, and
4558-525: The events from the top of Sükhbaatar's Mausoleum . After 1991, the communist practice was abandoned with the exception of 1996 when a parade in the National Sports Stadium commemorated the 790th anniversary of the founding of Mongolia and the 75th anniversary of the revolution. Many of the celebrations were celebrated with the participation of foreign communists who visited the country, including Mikhail Suslov , Józef Cyrankiewicz , and Władysław Gomułka . The two largest Naadams held in Mongolia today are
4644-412: 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
4730-612: 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
4816-444: 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
4902-576: The front of their formation for the march past. Once the commander orders the parade to march in quick time with the command Eyes on the right, quick march! , the Corps of Drums of the Military Music College , march to a tune being played by the drummers and fifers. By the signal of the Corps Drum Major, massed bands start playing and the corps stops and swings its drumsticks while their eyes are on
4988-446: The holiday, then a Biyelgee dance. Traditional cuisine, or Khuushuur , is served around the Sports Stadium along with a special drink made of fermented horse milk ( airag ). The three games of wrestling, horse racing, and archery are recorded in the 13th-century book The Secret History of the Mongols . During the Qing dynasty's rule , Naadam became a festival officially held by sums . It began to be held annually in 1639 with
5074-583: 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
5160-413: 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
5246-529: The larger Naadam festivals, tournaments may take place in a separate venue. Recently, concerns have been raised about the perceived corruption of the festival and its ambiguous symbolism. Alongside the Danshig Naadam, the biggest festival is the National Naadam Festival, which is held in the Mongolian capital, Ulaanbaatar , during the National Holiday from 11 to 13 July, in the National Sports Stadium . It begins with an elaborate introduction ceremony featuring dancers, athletes, horse riders, and musicians. After
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#17328491016085332-405: 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
5418-418: 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
5504-421: 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
5590-531: 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,
5676-421: The minister's vehicle heads to the saluting base to greet the president and give his/her ceremonial report on the parade's readiness to march off. Following this, the National Anthem of Mongolia is played by the band as the national flag is raised. Following a threefold Urra by the armed forces, the parade commander orders the parade formations to stand at attention and to move their colours and commanders to
5762-461: The nine tribes of the Mongols, are still ceremonially transported from Sukhbaatar Square to the Stadium to open the Naadam festivities. At the opening and closing ceremonies, there are impressive parades of mounted cavalry, athletes and monks, alongside elements of uniformed organizations. Another popular Naadam activity is the playing of games using shagai , sheep anklebones that serve as game pieces and tokens of both divination and friendship. In
5848-491: 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
5934-508: 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
6020-448: 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,
6106-430: 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
6192-597: 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
6278-428: The privilege to choose his opponent. Wrestlers wear two-piece costumes consisting of a tight shoulder vest ( zodog ) and shorts ( shuudag ). Only men are allowed to participate. Each wrestler has an "encourager" called a zasuul . The zasuul sings a song of praise for the winning wrestler after rounds 3, 5, and 7. Winners of the 7th or 8th stage (depending on whether the competition features 512 or 1024 wrestlers) earn
6364-417: The races. While jockeys are an important component, the main purpose of the races is to test the skill of the horses. Before the races begin, the audience sings traditional songs and the jockeys sing a song called Gingo . Prizes are awarded to horses and jockeys. The top five horses in each class earn the title of airgiyn tav and the top three are given gold, silver, and bronze medals. The winning jockey
6450-650: The right. The Corps of Drums are then immediately followed by cadets from the NDU, who are then followed by the parade formations participating in the parade, ending with the Mongolian State Honor Guard Battalion. The parade consists of officers and personnel of the various units and service academies of the military, as well as the General Authority for Border Protection , the Internal Troops , and
6536-705: The salute, then a car carrying a color guard from the National Defense University takes its place in the parade to the tune of the Tugiin March . After a fanfare by the combined massed bands of the Ulaanbaatar garrison provided by the Military Band of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Mongolia and the Brass Band of the Military Music College of Mongolia of the NDU, the Minister of Defense arrives in
6622-596: 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
6708-436: The stem with certain case endings (e.g. цэрэг ( tsereg ) → цэргийн ( tsergiin )). The additional morphological rules specific to loanwords are not covered. Mongolian State Flag Day State Flag Day ( Mongolian : Төрийн далбааны өдөр ) is the main state holiday in Mongolia , being celebrated annually on July 10. State Flag Day is celebrated with a central government-sponsored events including
6794-430: 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
6880-427: The team must hit 33 "surs". Men shoot their arrows from 75 meters away while women shoot theirs from 65 meters away. Traditionally the archers wear their national clothing ( Deel ) during the competition. All the archers wear leather bracers up to the elbow on their outstretched arm, so that the deel's cuff does not interfere with shooting. Mongolian archery is unique for having dozens of surs as targets. Each sur
6966-474: The title of zaan , "elephant". The winner of the 9th or 10th stage is called arslan , "lion". In the final competition, all the "zasuuls" drop in the wake of each wrestler as they take steps toward each other. Two-time arslans are called the titans / giants, or avraga . Unlike Western horse racing, which consists of short sprints generally not much longer than 2 km, Mongolian horse racing as featured in Naadam
7052-424: 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
7138-547: 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,
7224-416: 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 the current international standard. Mongolian is a language with vowel harmony and
7310-417: 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,
7396-546: 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 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
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