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The Mongolic languages are a group of languages spoken in Central Asia
Central Asia

Central Asia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east, and from southern Russia in the north to northern India in the south....
. Some linguists propose the grouping of Mongolic with Turkic
Turkic languages

The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean Sea to Siberia and Western China, and are sometimes considered to be part of the proposed Altaic languages....
 and Tungusic
Tungusic languages

The Tungusic languages are spoken in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria. Although it is a very debated subject, many linguists consider them to be part of the Altaic languages language phylum, which, if it actually exists as a genetic entity, also includes the Turkic languages and Mongolic languages language families....
 as Altaic languages
Altaic languages

Altaic is a disputed language family that is generally held by its proponents to include the Turkic languages, Mongolic languages, Tungusic languages, Korean language, and Japonic languages language families ....
, but this hypothesis is not universally agreed upon.

The best-known member of this language family, Mongolian
Mongolian language

The Mongolian language is the best-known member of the Mongolic languages. It is the language of most residents of Mongolia and of many of the Mongolian residents of Inner Mongolia, totalling about 5.7 million speakers....
 (in Cyrillic orthography as used in Mongolia
Mongolia

Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia and Central Asia. It borders Russia to the north and People's Republic of China to the south, east and west....
, ?????? ???, and in the vertical Uygur-derived script as used in Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia

Inner Mongolia is the Mongols autonomous region of China of the People's Republic of China, located in the country's north.Inner Mongolia borders, from east to west, the provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Ningxia, and Gansu, while to the north it borders Mongolia and Russia....
, China, Mong?ol Kele), is the primary language
Language

A language is a form of symbol communication in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon....
 of most of the residents of Mongolia
Mongolia

Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia and Central Asia. It borders Russia to the north and People's Republic of China to the south, east and west....
, and is spoken by around 5.7 million people in Mongolia, Russia, and China.

olic

This classification is only one among many.






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The Mongolic languages are a group of languages spoken in Central Asia
Central Asia

Central Asia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east, and from southern Russia in the north to northern India in the south....
. Some linguists propose the grouping of Mongolic with Turkic
Turkic languages

The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean Sea to Siberia and Western China, and are sometimes considered to be part of the proposed Altaic languages....
 and Tungusic
Tungusic languages

The Tungusic languages are spoken in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria. Although it is a very debated subject, many linguists consider them to be part of the Altaic languages language phylum, which, if it actually exists as a genetic entity, also includes the Turkic languages and Mongolic languages language families....
 as Altaic languages
Altaic languages

Altaic is a disputed language family that is generally held by its proponents to include the Turkic languages, Mongolic languages, Tungusic languages, Korean language, and Japonic languages language families ....
, but this hypothesis is not universally agreed upon.

The best-known member of this language family, Mongolian
Mongolian language

The Mongolian language is the best-known member of the Mongolic languages. It is the language of most residents of Mongolia and of many of the Mongolian residents of Inner Mongolia, totalling about 5.7 million speakers....
 (in Cyrillic orthography as used in Mongolia
Mongolia

Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia and Central Asia. It borders Russia to the north and People's Republic of China to the south, east and west....
, ?????? ???, and in the vertical Uygur-derived script as used in Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia

Inner Mongolia is the Mongols autonomous region of China of the People's Republic of China, located in the country's north.Inner Mongolia borders, from east to west, the provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Ningxia, and Gansu, while to the north it borders Mongolia and Russia....
, China, Mong?ol Kele), is the primary language
Language

A language is a form of symbol communication in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon....
 of most of the residents of Mongolia
Mongolia

Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia and Central Asia. It borders Russia to the north and People's Republic of China to the south, east and west....
, and is spoken by around 5.7 million people in Mongolia, Russia, and China.

Classification

Mongolic
  • Middle Mongolian
    Middle Mongolian language

    Middle Mongolian is an extinct Mongolic languages language formerly spoken in the Mongol Empire and later on in Greater Mongolia during the 13th to 15th century....
  • Classical Mongolian
    Classical Mongolian language

    Classical Mongolian is an extinct Mongolic languages 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....
  • Central Mongolian
    • Khalkha (Halh) Mongolian
      Mongolian language

      The Mongolian language is the best-known member of the Mongolic languages. It is the language of most residents of Mongolia and of many of the Mongolian residents of Inner Mongolia, totalling about 5.7 million speakers....
       (official language of Mongolia)
    • Ordos
      Ordos dialect

      The Ordos dialect of Mongolian language is spoken in the Ordos City region in Inner Mongolia. It is also sometimes classified as a language within the Mongolic languages....
       (native form: Urdus)
    • Chahar
      Chakhar dialect

      The Chakhar dialect is a variety of Mongolian language spoken in the Xilin Gol, Ulanqab, Bayan Nur, Baotou areas, the northern part of the Hohhot area and the very western part of the Chifeng area of Inner Mongolia....
       and the other Inner Mongolian dialects except for Alasha
  • Western Mongolic
    • Oirat (Kalmyk)
      Oirat language

      File:Oirat-map-ru.pngOirat is a major dialect of Mongolian, an independent language or a group of languages that includes Kalmyk language in Russia, the Oirat varieties spoken in the People's Republic of China arguably including Alasha dialect and varieties such as Zakhchin and ??ld in the west of the Mongolia....
       (Dialects: Torgut, Dorbet, Olot [Ööld, Elyut, Eleuth], Khoshut [Khoshuud])
  • Northern Mongolic
    • Buryat
      Buryat language

      Buryat is a Mongolic languages variety spoken by the Buryats that is usually dialect#"Dialect" or "language". The majority of Buryat speakers live in Russia along the northern border of Mongolia and speak Russia Buriat language....
       (Dialects: Bargu, Khori, Aga, Ekhirit, Unga, Nizhne-Udinsk, Barguzin, Tunka, Oka, Alar, Bohaan, Bulagat)
    • Khamnigan Mongol
  • Northeastern Mongolic
    • Dagur (Daur
      Daur

      This arcticle is about the Daur people and their language. For the Daur region of Pakistan, see Daur region----The Daur people are an ethnic group....
      )
  • Southeastern Mongolic (i.e., the Qinghai-Gansu Sprachbund Mongolic languages)
    • Monguor (Also known as Tu, Dialects: Mongghul, Mangghuer, heavily influenced by Tibetan or Chinese)
    • Kangjia
      Kangjia language

      Kangjia language is a recently-discovered Mongolic idiom spoken by a Muslim population of around 300 people in Jainca County County, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai province of China....
    • Bonan
      Bonan language

      The Bonan language is the Mongolic language of the Bonan ethnic group 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....
    • Dongxiang
      Dongxiang language

      Dongxiang language is a Mongolic languages spoken by the Dongxiang people of northwestern People's Republic of China....
       (Santa)
  • South-Central Mongolic
    • Eastern Yugur
      Eastern Yugur language

      The Eastern Yugur language is a Mongolic language spoken by some Yugurs, in contrast to the Turkic languages Western Yugur language....
       (Shira Yugur)
  • Southwestern Mongolic
    • Moghol
      Moghol language

      Moghol is a Mongolic languages spoken in Afghanistan by the Moghol People around Herat, where Dari is the common language. In the 1970s, when the German people scholar Michael Weiers did fieldwork on the language, few people spoke the language, most knew it passively and most were older than 40 years....
       (Mogholi, Mogol)


This classification is only one among many. Notably, there is a tendency among Mongolian linguists to include Central Mongolic, Western Mongolic and Northern Mongolic into one "Mongolian language" as opposed to the rest of the languages which are then labelled as "Mongolic". This may depend on Mutual intelligibility
Mutual intelligibility

In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is recognized as a relationship between languages 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
Phylogenetic tree

A phylogenetic tree or evolutionary tree is a tree showing the evolutionary relationships among various biological species or other entities that are believed to have a common descent....
 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 is a range of dialects spoken across a large geographical area, differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close, and gradually decreasing in mutual intelligibility as the distances become greater....
. 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 (nutu-un ayalu) and Mundart (aman ayalu).

History


Proto-Mongolic


The Mongolic languages originated from the Proto-Mongolic language that was spoken at the time when Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan

Genghis Khan , born , was the founder, Khan and Khagan of the Mongol Empire, the World's largest empires contiguous empire in history....
 united a number of tribes speaking Late Pre-Proto-Mongolic languages. The Proto-Mongolic language is the origin of all subsequent Mongolic languages. Insofar as its elements are preserved in these languages, it is possible to speak of Common Mongolic. There are languages believed to be related to Proto-Mongolic, namely Tabghach
Tuoba

Tuoba or T'o-pa in Wade-Giles 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 "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. It has been suggested that Khitan is linked with either Mongolian or Tungusic languages....
. 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

The Khitan scripts were the writing systems for the now-extinct Khitan language, used in the 10th-12th century by the Khitan people. who had created the Liao Empire in north-eastern China....
s that have as yet not been deciphered. However, from the available evidence it has to be concluded that a generic relationship to Mongolic is extremely likely. The common ancestor language of these two languages and Proto-Mongolic might be termed Pre-Proto-Mongolic.

Old Mongolian


The first surviving Mongolian text is the Stele of Yisüngge, a report on sports in Mongolian script
Mongolian script

Mongolian script was the first of many Mongolian writing systems created for the Mongolian language and the most successful until the introduction of Cyrillic to Mongolia in 1946....
 on stone, that is most often dated at the verge of 1224 and 1225. Other early sources are written in Mongolian, Phagspa
Phagspa script

The Phags-pa script was an abugida designed by the Tibetan people Lama Drog?n Ch?gyal Phagpa for the emperor Kublai Khan during the Yuan Dynasty in China, as a unified script for all languages within the Yuan Dynasty, although the effort to promote this script was largely unsuccessful....
 (decrets), Chinese
Chinese character

A Chinese character, also known as a Han character , is a logogram used in writing Chinese language ,'' Japanese language ,'' less frequently Korean language ,'' and formerly Vietnamese language .''...
 (the Secret history
The Secret History of the Mongols

The Secret History of the Mongols is the oldest surviving Mongolian language literary work. It was written for the Mongol Empire royal family some time after Genghis Khan's death in AD 1227, by an Anonymity author and probably originally in the Mongolian script, though the surviving texts all derive from transcriptions into Chinese chara...
), Arabic
Arabic alphabet

The Arabic alphabet is the writing system used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa, such as Arabic language, Persian language, and Urdu language....
 (dictionaries) and a few other western scripts. These comprise the so-called Middle Mongolian language
Middle Mongolian language

Middle Mongolian is an extinct Mongolic languages language formerly spoken in the Mongol Empire and later on in Greater Mongolia during the 13th to 15th century....
 that was spoken from the 13th to the early 15th or late 16th century. The documents in Mongolian script show some distinct linguistic characteristics and are therefore often distinguished by terming their language Preclassical Mongolian. The next distinct period is Classical Mongolian
Classical Mongolian language

Classical Mongolian is an extinct Mongolic languages 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....
 that is dated from the 17th to the 19th century. It 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 Kanjur and Tanjur as well as a bunch of chronicles. Middle Mongolian also includes many Turkic loanwords, especially from Old Turkic, which are still used in modern Mongolian language.

For an account of the development from Middle Mongolian to Khalkh Mongolian, see the related section in the article on the Mongolian language
Mongolian language

The Mongolian language is the best-known member of the Mongolic languages. It is the language of most residents of Mongolia and of many of the Mongolian residents of Inner Mongolia, totalling about 5.7 million speakers....
.

External links