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94-705: Dzungaria ( /( d ) z ʊ ŋ ˈ ɡ ɛər i ə / ; from the Mongolian words züün gar , meaning 'left hand'), also known as Northern Xinjiang or Beijiang , is a geographical subregion in Northwest China that corresponds to the northern half of Xinjiang . Bound by the Altai Mountains to the north and the Tian Shan mountain range to the south, Dzungaria covers approximately 777,000 km (300,000 sq mi), and borders Kazakhstan to

188-776: 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

282-531: A chancellor/vizer/chief minister in his court. The last khan, Maqsud Shah, had Yulbars Khan , the tiger Prince of Hami, as his chancellor. The khan paid a small annual tribute to Urumchi and in return Xinjiang government paid him a formal subsidy of 1,200 silver taels each year—no doubt in Yang Zengxin's opinion a small enough sum for ensuring the continued obedience of the strategically vital khanate. The Han Chinese governor of Xinjiang, Yang Zengxin ,

376-524: A group of endorheic lakes that include Lake Manas and Lake Ailik . During the region's geological past, a much larger lake (the "Old Manas Lake") was located in the area of today's Manas Lake; it was fed not only by the streams that presently flow toward it but also by the Irtysh and Ulungur, which too were flowing toward the Old Manas Lake at the time. The cold climate of nearby Siberia influences

470-590: 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

564-538: 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 This alignment seems to have superseded an alignment according to oral backness.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

658-535: 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

752-596: A pre-existing continental block before the Kazakhstan Block was formed. Ürümqi , Yining and Karamai are the main cities; other smaller oasis towns dot the piedmont areas. Dzungaria is home to a semi-desert steppe ecoregion known as the Dzungarian Basin semi-desert. The vegetation consists mostly of low scrub of Anabasis brevifolia . Taller shrublands of saxaul bush ( Haloxylon ammodendron ) and Ephedra przewalskii can be found near

846-496: 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

940-465: A servant to the emperor during a period of 40 days. It was also known as the principality of Kumul, and the Chinese called it Hami. The khans were friendly to Chinese rule and authorities. The khan Muhammad and his son and successor Khan Maqsud Shah heavily taxed his subjects and extorted forced labor, which resulted in two rebellions against his rule in 1907 and 1912. The khan was assisted by

1034-426: 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

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1128-591: 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

1222-447: A thin layer of vegetation to grow. This is enough to sustain populations of wild camels , jerboas , and other wild species. The Dzungarian Basin is a structural basin with thick sequences of Paleozoic-Pleistocene rocks with large estimated oil reserves . The Gurbantunggut Desert , China's second largest, is in the center of the basin. The Dzungarian basin does not have a single catchment center. The northernmost section of Dzungaria

1316-521: 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 )

1410-433: 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

1504-409: 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

1598-466: 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,

1692-564: Is Xinjiang's center of heavy industry , generates most of the region's GDP, and houses its political capital Ürümqi ( Oirat for 'beautiful pasture'). As such, Dzungaria continues to attract intraprovincial and interprovincial migration to its cities. In contrast to the Tarim Basin, Dzungaria is relatively well integrated with the rest of China by rail and trade links. Xinjiang has traditionally been divided into two geographically and ethnically distinct regions: Dzungaria, located north of

1786-438: 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

1880-491: 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

1974-566: 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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2068-410: 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

2162-427: Is not in line with 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

2256-714: Is part of the basin of the Irtysh River , which ultimately drains into the Arctic Ocean . The rest of the region is split into a number of endorheic basins . In particular, south of the Irtysh, the Ulungur River ends up in the (presently) endorheic Lake Ulungur . The Southwestern part of the Dzungarian basin drains into the Aibi Lake . In the west-central part of the region, streams flow into (or toward)

2350-1269: 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

2444-465: 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

2538-468: Is the oldest tyrannosaur fossil unearthed by a team of scientists from George Washington University who were conducting a study in the Dzungarian Basin. The species, named Guanlong , lived 160 million years ago, more than 90 million years before the famed Tyrannosaurus rex . Mongolian language Mongolian is the principal language of the Mongolic language family that originated in

2632-545: Is the triangular Dzungarian Basin , also known as Junggar Basin ( simplified Chinese : 准噶尔盆地 ; traditional Chinese : 準噶爾盆地 ; pinyin : Zhǔngá'ěr Péndì ), with its central Gurbantünggüt Desert . It is bounded by the Tarbagatai Mountains to the northwest, the Altai Mountains to the northeast, and the Tian Shan mountains to the south. The three corners are relatively open. The northern corner

2726-610: Is the valley of the upper Irtysh River . The western corner is the Dzungarian Gate , a historically important gateway between Dzungaria and the Kazakh Steppe ; presently, a highway and a railway (opened in 1990) run through it, connecting China with Kazakhstan. The eastern corner of the basin leads to Gansu and the rest of China. In the south, an easy pass leads from Ürümqi to the Turfan Depression . In

2820-402: 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

2914-530: 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

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3008-583: The Göktürks received the lands of Dzungaria as an inheritance after the death of his father in the latter half of the sixth century AD . Dzungar power reached its height in the second half of the 17th century, when Galdan Boshugtu Khan repeatedly intervened in the affairs of the Kazakhs to the west, but it was completely destroyed by the Qing Empire about 1757–1759. It has played an important part in

3102-509: 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

3196-523: The Karamay oil fields. Intraprovincial migration has mostly been directed towards Dzungaria also, with immigrants from the poor Uyghur areas of southern Xinjiang flooding to the provincial capital of Ürümqi to find work. As a political or geographical term, Dzungaria has practically disappeared from the map; but the range of mountains stretching north-east along the southern frontier of the Zhetysu, as

3290-480: 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 . The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5–6 million, including the vast majority of

3384-784: The Republic of China , the Second East Turkestan Republic and since 1950, it has been under the control of the People's Republic of China . Dzungaria is named after the Dzungar Khanate that existed in Central Asia during the 17th and 18th centuries. Dzungaria , or Zungharia , derives from the name of the Dzungar people , which comes from the Mongolian term Zűn Gar , or Jüün Gar (depending on

3478-667: 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

3572-812: The Tocharians in prehistory and the Jushi Kingdom in the first millennium BC. One of the earliest mentions of the Dzungaria region occurs when the Han dynasty dispatched an explorer to investigate lands to the west, using the northernmost Silk Road trackway of about 2,600 kilometres (1,600 mi) in length, which connected the ancient Chinese capital of Xi'an to the west over the Wushao Ling Pass to Wuwei and emerged in Kashgar . Istämi of

3666-639: 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

3760-553: 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

3854-493: 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

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3948-501: The Internet. In the discussion of grammar to follow, 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

4042-521: 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

4136-581: The Ming. The Turpan Khanate under Sultan Said Baba Khan supported Chinese Muslim Ming loyalists during the 1646 Milayin rebellion against the Qing dynasty. Beginning in 1647, after the defeat of the Ming loyalists, during which the Kumul Prince Turumtay was killed at the hands of Qing forces, Kumul submitted to the Qing and sent tribute. It came under Qing rule and remained a khanate as a part of

4230-484: The Mongolian dialect used). Zűn (or Jüün ) means 'left' and Gar means 'hand'. The name originates from the notion that the Western Mongols ( Oirats ) were on the left-hand side when the Mongol Empire began its division into East and West Mongols. After this fragmentation, the western Mongolian nation was called Zuun Gar . The first people to inhabit the region were Indo-European-speaking peoples such as

4324-847: 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

4418-504: 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

4512-608: The Qing Empire. The title " Jasak Tarkhan" was granted to Abdullah Beg Tarkhan (son of Kumul ruler Muhammad Shah-i-Beg Tarkhan), ruler of Hami in 1696 after submitting to the Qing as a vassal during the Dzungar–Qing War . The khanate had fought against the Dzungar Khanate for the Qing. Kumul continued as a vassal khanate when Xinjiang was changed into a province in 1884 after the Dungan revolt . The khans also were given

4606-730: The Tian Shan mountains through Dzungaria or south of the mountains through the Tarim Basin. Trade usually took the south side and migrations the north. This is most likely because the Tarim leads to the Ferghana Valley and Iran, while Dzungaria leads only to the open steppe. The difficulty with the south side was the high mountains between the Tarim and Ferghana. Furthermore, the Taklamakan is too dry to support much grass, and therefore nomads when they are not robbing caravans. Its inhabitants live mostly in oases formed where rivers run out of

4700-458: The Tian Shan mountains; and the Tarim Basin, located south of the mountains. At the time of the Qing conquest of Xinjiang in 1759, Dzungaria was predominantly inhabited by steppe -dwelling, nomadic Tibetan-Buddhist Dzungars while the Tarim Basin was inhabited by predominantly oasis-dwelling, sedentary, Turkic Muslim farmers, now known as the Uyghurs . The Qing government was well aware of

4794-426: 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

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4888-402: The assassination of Yang Zengxin , it was estimated that the aging Maqsud Shah ruled over a population of between 25,000 and 30,000 Kumulliks. The khan was responsible for levying taxes and dispensing justice; his administration rested on twenty one Begs, four of whom were responsible for Kumul itself, five others being responsible for the plains villages and the remaining twelve administering

4982-514: 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

5076-416: The climate of the Dzungarian Basin, making the temperature colder—as low as −4 °F (−20 °C)—and providing more precipitation, ranging from 3 to 10 inches (76 to 254 mm), compared to the warmer, drier basins to the south. Runoff from the surrounding mountains into the basin supplies several lakes. The ecologically rich habitats traditionally included meadows, marshlands, and rivers. However, most of

5170-692: The continued existence of the Khanate of Kumul was also of psychological importance to the Uyghurs of Turfan and the Tarim Basin, who were tolerant to Chinese rule so long as their own seat of the government was firmly established at Hami under Khan Maqsud Shah who still hold the proud title of King of the Gobi. Upon Maqsud Shah's death on 6 June 1930 Jin Shuren replaced the khanate with three normal provincial administrative districts Hami, Yihe, and Yiwu. This set off

5264-525: The differences between the inhabitants of the two regions, and initially ruled them as separate administrative units. However, after the Qing army 's final pacification of the Tarim Basin in 1760, the Qing government began to describe Dzungaria and the Tarim Basin as one region called "Xinjiang" ( lit.   ' new frontier ' ). The Qing government officially unified Dzungaria and the Tarim Basin into one political entity called Xinjiang Province in 1884, despite protests by some officials who believed that

5358-450: The district to the southeast of Lake Balkhash preserves the name of Dzungarian Alatau . It also gave name to Djungarian hamsters . Wheat , barley , oats , and sugar beets are grown, and cattle , sheep , and horses are raised in Dzungaria. The fields are irrigated with melted snow from the permanently white-capped mountains. Dzungaria has deposits of coal , gold , and iron , as well as large oil fields . The core of Dzungaria

5452-412: 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

5546-635: 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

5640-444: 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

5734-647: The history of Mongolia and the great migrations of Mongolian stems westward. Its widest limit included Kashgar , Yarkand , Khotan , the whole region of the Tian Shan , and the greater proportion of that part of Central Asia which extends from 35° to 50° N and from 72° to 97° E. After 1761, its territory fell mostly to the Qing dynasty during the campaign against the Dzungars ( Xinjiang and north-western Mongolia) and partly to Russian Turkestan (the earlier Kazakh state provinces of Zhetysu and Irtysh river). A traveler going west from China must go either north of

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5828-583: 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

5922-442: The land is now used for agriculture. It is a largely steppe and semi-desert basin surrounded by high mountains: the Tian Shan (ancient Mount Imeon ) in the south and the Altai in the north. Geologically it is an extension of the Paleozoic Kazakhstan Block and was once part of an independent continent before the Altai mountains formed in the late Paleozoic. It does not contain the abundant minerals of Kazakhstan and may have been

6016-413: 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

6110-405: 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

6204-418: 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

6298-416: 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 ] ,

6392-421: 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

6486-546: The margins of the basin. Streams descending from the Tian Shan and Altai ranges support stands of poplar ( Populus diversifolia ) together with Nitraria roborovsky, N. sibirica, Neotrinia splendens , tamarisk (Tamarix sibirimosissima) , and willow ( Salix ledebouriana ) . The northeastern portion of the Dzungarian Basin semi-desert lies within Great Gobi National Park , and is home to herds of Onagers (Equus hemionus) , goitered gazelles (Gazella subgutturosa) and Wild Bactrian camels (Camelus ferus) . The basin

6580-531: 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,

6674-464: The mountainous regions of the Barkul and Karlik Tagh. Maqsud Shah also maintained a Uyghur militia which was reputed to be better trained than its counterpart in the predominantly Chinese Old City. The soil of the oasis was rich and well-cultivated, and the conditions of the Kumulliks before 1929 was one of relative contentment and prosperity. According to British missionaries Mildred Cable and Francesca French , both of whom knew Maqsud Shah personally,

6768-472: The mountains into the desert. These are inhabited by peasants who are unwarlike and merchants who have an interest in keeping trade running smoothly. Dzungaria has a fair amount of grass, few towns to base soldiers in and no significant mountain barriers to the west. Therefore, trade went south and migrations north. Today most trade is north of the mountains ( Dzungarian Gate and Khorgas in the Ili valley) to avoid

6862-496: The mountains west of the Tarim and because Russia is currently more developed. After the Dzungar genocide , the Qing subsequently began to repopulate the area with Han and Hui people from China proper. The population in the 21st century consists of Kazakhs , Kyrgyz , Mongols , Uyghurs and Han Chinese . Since 1953, northern Xinjiang has attracted skilled workers from all over China—who have mostly been Han Chinese —to work on water conservation and industrial projects, especially

6956-491: 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

7050-618: 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

7144-448: 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,

7238-555: 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

7332-601: 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

7426-652: The region. These policies pushed forward a cultural identity which sharply contrasted with both the rest of China and the rest of Central Asia. Before the 21st century, all or part of the region has been ruled or controlled by the Xiongnu Empire , Han dynasty , Xianbei state , Rouran Khaganate , Turkic Khaganate , Tang dynasty , Uyghur Khaganate , Yenisei Kyrgyz Khaganate , Liao dynasty , Kara-Khitan Khanate , Mongol Empire , Yuan dynasty , Chagatai Khanate , Moghulistan , Kara Del , Northern Yuan , Four Oirat , Dzungar Khanate , Qumul Khanate , Qing dynasty ,

7520-472: The residents of Mongolia and many of the ethnic Mongol residents of 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

7614-485: The southwest, the tall Borohoro Mountains branch of the Tian Shan separates the basin from the upper Ili River . The basin is similar to the larger Tarim Basin on the southern side of the Tian Shan Range. Only a gap in the mountains to the north allows moist air masses to provide the basin lands with enough moisture to remain semi-desert rather than becoming a true desert like most of the Tarim Basin and allows

7708-610: 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

7802-520: The stem with certain case endings (e.g. цэрэг  ( tsereg ) → цэргийн  ( tsergiin )). The additional morphological rules specific to loanwords are not covered. Qumul Khanate The Kumul Khanate was a semi-autonomous feudal Turco-Mongol khanate (equivalent to a banner in Mongolia ) within the Qing dynasty and then the Republic of China until it was abolished by Xinjiang governor Jin Shuren in 1930. The khanate

7896-430: 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

7990-521: The title of Qinwang (Prince of the First Rank Chinese : 親王 ; pinyin : qīn wáng ) by the Qing Empire. The khans were allowed enormous power by the Qing court, with the exception of administering execution, which had to be allowed by a Chinese official posted in Kumul. The khans were officially vassals to the emperor of China, and every six years were required to visit Beijing to be

8084-456: 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

8178-465: The two regions were better off left separated. The geographic concept of Xinjiang was ultimately a construct of the Qing government; by the end of Qing rule in 1912, Xinjiang's native inhabitants had still not developed a distinct regional identity. However, the foundations for a regional identity were laid by the Qing government's 150-year-long policies of politically isolating Xinjiang from the rest of Central Asia and introducing Han and Hui settlers into

8272-424: 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

8366-536: The west and Mongolia to the east. In contexts prior to the mid-18th century Dzungar genocide , the term "Dzungaria" could cover a wider area, coterminous with the Oirat -led Dzungar Khanate . Although Dzungaria is geographically, historically, and ethnically distinct from the Tarim Basin or Southern Xinjiang (Nanjiang), the Manchu -led Qing dynasty integrated both areas into one province, Xinjiang. Dzungaria

8460-547: 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,

8554-427: Was a monarchist and tolerated the khanate. He was friendly toward the khan Maqsud Shah. Around the 1920s Japanese secret agents began exploring the Kumul area. It was that the khanate existed which prevented the Uyghurs from rebelling, since the khanate represented a government where a man of their ethnicity and religion was reigning. The abolition of the khanate led to a bloody rebellion . By 1928, shortly after

8648-417: 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,

8742-623: Was located in present-day Hami prefecture of Xinjiang . The khans of Kumul were direct descendants of the khans of the Chagatai Khanate , and thus the last descendants of the Mongol Empire . The Ming dynasty established a tributary relationship with the Turpan Khanate (division of Moghulistan ), that put end to Kara Del in 1513 after its conquest by Mansur Khan in the Ming–Turpan conflict . The khanate paid tribute to

8836-518: Was one of the last habitats of Przewalski's horse (Equus przewalskii) , also known as Dzungarian horse, which was once extinct in the wild, though it has since been reintroduced in areas of Mongolia and China. Dzungaria and its derivatives are used to name a number of pre-historic animals, hailing from the rocky outcrops located in the Dzungar Basin : A notable find, in February 2006,

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