Mongolic languages
Encyclopedia
The Mongolic languages are a group of languages spoken in East
-Central
Asia, mostly in Mongolia
and surrounding areas plus in Kalmykia
. The best-known member of this language family, Mongolian
, is the primary language of most of the residents of Mongolia
and the Mongolian residents of Inner Mongolia
, China with an estimated 5.2 million speakers. Mongolic is sometimes grouped with Turkic
, Tungusic
and possibly Korean
and Japonic
as part of the larger Altaic
family.
Contemporary Mongolic:
The classification and speaker numbers above follow Janhunen except that Mongghul and Mangghuer are treated as a sub-branch and that Kangjia has been added. In another classificational approach, there is a tendency to call Central Mongolian a language consisting of Mongolian proper, Oirat and Buryat, while Ordos (and implicitly also Khamnigan) is seen as a variety of Mongolian proper. Within Mongolian proper, they then draw a distinction between Khalkha on the one hand and Southern Mongolian (containing everything else) on the other hand. A less common subdivision of Central Mongolian is to divide it into 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). The broader delimitation of Mongolian may be based on Mutual intelligibility
, but an analysis based on a tree diagram such as the one above faces other problems due to the close contacts between e.g. Buryat and Khalkh Mongols during history thus creating or preserving a dialect continuum
. Another problem lies in the sheer comparability of terminology as Western linguists use language and dialect, while Mongolian linguists use the Grimmian
trichotomy language (kele), dialect (nutuγ-un ayalγu) and Mundart (aman ayalγu).
and the Mongol Empire
. It is also very close to Common Mongolic, the language from which all contemporary Mongolic varieties can be explained and which contains some features not (yet) present in Middle Mongolian.
The languages of Donghu
, Wuhuan
and Xianbei
might be related to Common Mongolic, namely Tabghach
(the language of the founders of the Northern Wei
dynasty) and Khitan
. In the case of Tabghach, the surviving evidence is very sparse, thus one can state that a generic relationship is possible. In the case of Khitan, there is rich evidence, but most of it is written in the two Khitan script
s that have as yet not been fully deciphered. However, from the available evidence it has to be concluded that a generic relationship to Mongolic is likely.
East Asia
East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...
-Central
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
Asia, mostly in Mongolia
Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...
and surrounding areas plus in Kalmykia
Kalmykia
The Republic of Kalmykia is a federal subject of Russia . Population: It is the only Buddhist region in Europe. It has also become well-known as an international chess mecca because its former President, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, is the head of the International Chess Federation .-Geography:*Area:...
. The best-known member of this language family, Mongolian
Mongolian language
The Mongolian language is the official language of Mongolia and the best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner...
, is the primary language of most of the residents of Mongolia
Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...
and the Mongolian residents of Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in the northern region of the country. Inner Mongolia shares an international border with the countries of Mongolia and the Russian Federation...
, China with an estimated 5.2 million speakers. Mongolic is sometimes grouped with Turkic
Turkic languages
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken...
, Tungusic
Tungusic languages
The Tungusic languages form a language family spoken in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria by Tungusic peoples. Many Tungusic languages are endangered, and the long-term future of the family is uncertain...
and possibly Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
and Japonic
Japonic languages
Japonic languages is a term which identifies and characterises the Japanese which is spoken on the main islands of Japan and the Ryukyuan languages spoken in the Ryukyu Islands. This widely accepted linguistics term was coined by Leon Serafim....
as part of the larger Altaic
Altaic languages
Altaic is a proposed language family that includes the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, and Japonic language families and the Korean language isolate. These languages are spoken in a wide arc stretching from northeast Asia through Central Asia to Anatolia and eastern Europe...
family.
Classification
Historical Mongolic:- Middle MongolianMiddle Mongolian languageMiddle Mongolian is an ancient Mongolic language formerly spoken in the Mongol Empire and later on in Greater Mongolia during the 13th to at least the early 15th century.-Definition and historical precessors:...
(depending on classification spoken from the 13th until the early 15th or late 16th century) - Classical MongolianClassical Mongolian languageClassical Mongolian is an extinct Mongolic language formerly used in Mongolia, China, and Russia. It is a standardized written language used in a number of written texts such as the translation of the Kanjur and Tanjur and several cronicles roughly between 1700 and 1900...
Contemporary Mongolic:
- Dagur (=Daur) (ca. 100,000 speakers)
- Central Mongolic
- Khamnigan (ca. 2000 speakers)
- BuryatBuryat languageBuryat is a Mongolic variety spoken by the Buryats that is either classified as a language or as a major dialect group of Mongolian. The majority of Buryat speakers live in Russia along the northern border of Mongolia where it is an official language in the Buryat Republic, Ust-Orda Buryatia and...
(Dialects: Bargu, Khori, Aga, Ekhirit, Unga, Nizhne-Udinsk, Barguzin, Tunka, Oka, Alar, Bohaan, Bulagat) (ca. 300,000 speakers) - Mongolian properMongolian languageThe Mongolian language is the official language of Mongolia and the best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner...
(including KhalkhaKhalkha dialectThe Khalkha dialect is a dialect of Mongolian widely spoken in Mongolia and according to some classifications includes such South Mongolian varieties such as Shiliin gol, Ulaanchab and Sönid...
basically in Mongolia and ChakharChakhar dialectThe Chakhar dialect is a variety of Mongolian spoken the central region of Inner Mongolia. It is phonologically close to Khalkha and is the basis for the standard pronunciation of Mongolian in Inner Mongolia....
, KhorchinKhorchin dialectThe Khorchin dialect is a variety of Mongolian spoken in the east of Inner Mongolia, namely in Hinggan League, in the north, north-east and east of Hinggan and in all but the south of the Tongliao region...
, Kharchin, BaarinBaarin dialectBaarin is a dialect of Mongolian spoken mainly in Inner Mongolia.-Location and classification:...
, Shilin gol in Inner MongoliaInner MongoliaInner Mongolia is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in the northern region of the country. Inner Mongolia shares an international border with the countries of Mongolia and the Russian Federation...
) (ca. 5-6 mio. speakers) - OrdosOrdos dialectThe Ordos dialect of Mongolian is spoken in the Ordos City region in Inner Mongolia. It is also sometimes classified as a language within the Mongolic language family or as a dialect of the Southern Mongolian standard language...
(ca. 100,000 speakers) - OiratOirat languageOirat belongs to the group of Mongolic languages. Scholars differ as to whether Oirat is a distinct language or a major dialect of the Mongolian language...
(Varieties: Torgut, Dörbet, Olot (Ööld, Elyut, Eleuth), Zakhchin, Mingat, Bayad, KalmykKalmyk languageThe Kalmyk language , or Russian Oirat, is the native speech of the Kalmyk people of the Republic of Kalmykia, a federal subject of the Russian Federation. In Russia, it is the normative form of the Oirat language , which belongs to the Mongolic language family...
, Khoshut (Khoshuud), AlashaAlasha dialectAlasha ; Mongolian script Alaša, Chinese 阿拉善 Ālāshàn), or ', is a variety in-between Oirat and Mongolian that historically used to belong to Oirat but has come under the influence of Mongolian proper. It is spoken by well above 40.000 speakers in Alasha league in South Mongolia and consists of two...
) (ca. 300,000 speakers)
- Shirongolic (part of a Gansu–Qinghai Sprachbund)
- Eastern YugurEastern Yugur languageEastern Yugur and Western Yugur are terms coined by Chinese linguists to distinguish between the Mongolic and Turkic Yugur language, both spoken within the Yugur nationality. The terms may also indicate the speakers of these languages. Traditionally, both languages are indicated by the term Yellow...
(Shira Yugur) (ca. 3000 speakers) - Monguor (also known as Tu; dialects: Mongghul (Huzhu), Mangghuer (Minhe)) (ca. 100,000+30,000 speakers)
- BonanBonan languageThe Bonan language is the Mongolic language of the Bonan people of China. As of 1985, it was spoken by about 8,000 people, including about 75% of the total Baonan ethnic population and many ethnic Monguor, in Gansu and Qinghai Provinces and the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture...
(ca. 10,000 speakers) - DongxiangDongxiang languageThe Santa language, also known as Dongxiang , is a Mongolic language spoken by the Dongxiang people in northwest China.-Grammar:In common with other Mongolic languages, Dongxiang is basically a subject–object–verb language...
(Santa) (ca. 600,000 speakers) - KangjiaKangjia languageThe Kangjia language is a recently-discovered Mongolic language spoken by a Muslim population of around 300 people in Jainca County, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai province of China...
- Eastern Yugur
- MogholMoghol languageMoghol is a Mongolic language spoken in the region of Herat, Afghanistan, by a few members of the Hazara community. In the 1970s, when the German scholar Michael Weiers did fieldwork on the language, few people spoke the language, most knew it passively and most were older than 40...
(=Mogholi) (unclear whether there are speakers left)
The classification and speaker numbers above follow Janhunen except that Mongghul and Mangghuer are treated as a sub-branch and that Kangjia has been added. In another classificational approach, there is a tendency to call Central Mongolian a language consisting of Mongolian proper, Oirat and Buryat, while Ordos (and implicitly also Khamnigan) is seen as a variety of Mongolian proper. Within Mongolian proper, they then draw a distinction between Khalkha on the one hand and Southern Mongolian (containing everything else) on the other hand. A less common subdivision of Central Mongolian is to divide it into 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). The broader delimitation of Mongolian may be based on Mutual intelligibility
Mutual intelligibility
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is recognized as a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related languages can readily understand each other without intentional study or extraordinary effort...
, but an analysis based on a tree diagram such as the one above faces other problems due to the close contacts between e.g. Buryat and Khalkh Mongols during history thus creating or preserving a dialect continuum
Dialect continuum
A dialect continuum, or dialect area, was defined by Leonard Bloomfield as a range of dialects spoken across some geographical area that differ only slightly between neighboring areas, but as one travels in any direction, these differences accumulate such that speakers from opposite ends of the...
. Another problem lies in the sheer comparability of terminology as Western linguists use language and dialect, while Mongolian linguists use the Grimmian
Brothers Grimm
The Brothers Grimm , Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm , were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who collected folklore and published several collections of it as Grimm's Fairy Tales, which became very popular...
trichotomy language (kele), dialect (nutuγ-un ayalγu) and Mundart (aman ayalγu).
Proto-Mongolic
Proto-Mongolic, the ancestor language of the modern Mongolic languages, is very close to Middle Mongolian, the language spoken at the time of Genghis KhanGenghis Khan
Genghis Khan , born Temujin and occasionally known by his temple name Taizu , was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death....
and the Mongol Empire
Mongol Empire
The Mongol Empire , initially named as Greater Mongol State was a great empire during the 13th and 14th centuries...
. It is also very close to Common Mongolic, the language from which all contemporary Mongolic varieties can be explained and which contains some features not (yet) present in Middle Mongolian.
The languages of Donghu
Donghu
Donghu was the name of a Mongolic nomadic tribal confederation that was first recorded from the 7th century BCE and was destroyed by the Xiongnu in 150 BCE. Donghu was later divided into the Wuhuan and Xianbei Confederations, from which the Mongols are derived...
, Wuhuan
Wuhuan
The Wuhuan were a proto-Mongolic nomadic people who inhabited northern China, in what is now the provinces of Hebei, Liaoning, Shanxi, the municipality of Beijing and the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia....
and Xianbei
Xianbei
The Xianbei were a significant Mongolic nomadic people residing in Manchuria, Inner Mongolia and eastern Mongolia. The title “Khan” was first used among the Xianbei.-Origins:...
might be related to Common Mongolic, namely Tabghach
Tuoba
Tuoba, or Tabgach, were a clan of Xianbei people of ancient China.-Xianbei Tuoba:Tuoba was a clan of the Xianbei people in the early centuries of the 1st millennium AD. They established the State of Dai from 310 to 376 AD, and the Northern Wei Dynasty from 386 to 536 AD...
(the language of the founders of the Northern Wei
Northern Wei
The Northern Wei Dynasty , also known as the Tuoba Wei , Later Wei , or Yuan Wei , was a dynasty which ruled northern China from 386 to 534 . It has been described as "part of an era of political turbulence and intense social and cultural change"...
dynasty) and Khitan
Khitan language
The Khitan language is a now-extinct language once spoken by the Khitan people . Khitan is generally deemed to be genetically linked to the Mongolic languages. It was written using two mutually exclusive writing systems known as the Khitan large script and the Khitan small script...
. In the case of Tabghach, the surviving evidence is very sparse, thus one can state that a generic relationship is possible. In the case of Khitan, there is rich evidence, but most of it is written in the two Khitan script
Khitan script
Khitan scripts may refer to one of two mutually exclusive scripts used by the Khitan people during the 10th-12th centuries:*Khitan small script – invented in about 924 or 925 CE by a scholar named Diela...
s that have as yet not been fully deciphered. However, from the available evidence it has to be concluded that a generic relationship to Mongolic is likely.
