82-725: The Trans-Mongolian Railway ( Mongolian : Транс-Монголын төмөр зам , Trans-Mongolyn tömör zam ) connects Ulan-Ude on the Trans-Siberian Railway in Buryatia , Russia , with Ulanqab in Inner Mongolia , China , via Ulaanbaatar , the capital of Mongolia . It was completed in 1956, and runs from northwest to southeast with major stations at Naushki / Sükhbaatar on the Russian border, Darkhan , Züünkharaa , Choir , Sainshand , and Zamyn-Üüd / Erenhot on
164-776: 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
246-696: A bogie exchange station was placed farther east at the Russian–Chinese border crossing at Zabaykalsk / Manzhouli . Also, China and ex-soviet countries use the different type coupler ( Janney and SA-3 ). An adapter may be used. A bogie exchange station exists in the Port of Turku with a short stretch of 1,435 mm ( 4 ft 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 in ) gauge railway. Freight cars get their bogies exchanged. SeaRail train ferries go from Germany and Sweden. They carry no passenger trains, and passengers must walk to Turku Harbour railway station opposite
328-595: A line linking Züünbayan to Khangi on the Chinese border (280 km (170 mi)) was approved; it was completed in 2023. A 2017 government plan, greatly reduced in scope from the 2010 one, proposed linking Khööt–Choibalsan, Nariin Sukhait–Shivee Khüren, Khööt–Bichigt, and Züünbayan–Khangi. Mongolian language Mongolian is the principal language of the Mongolic language family that originated in
410-590: 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
492-538: 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 This alignment seems to have superseded an alignment according to oral backness.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
574-606: A paved road was extended to Ulaanbaatar , the country's capital. Construction of a rail line from Naushki to Ulaanbaatar was delayed by World War II , and completed in November 1949. The Soviet Union, Mongolia, and the People's Republic of China agreed to extend the line from Ulaanbaatar to the Chinese border. In Mongolia, the railway was built by the Soviet 505th Penal Unit, made up of soldiers mainly imprisoned for surrendering during
656-535: 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
738-496: 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
820-426: 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
902-409: A steam cylinder to wedge the car into the air. Another way of carrying out bogie exchange is to lower the bogies onto a trolley in a pit, after which the trolleys are rolled out of the way and others return. This may allow the train couplings and continuous brakes to remain connected. In addition, the bogies never need leave a solid surface, so they can be wheeled in and out more quickly. This method
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#1732783435584984-591: 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
1066-521: 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 )
1148-433: 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
1230-409: 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
1312-466: 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,
1394-438: 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
1476-491: 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
1558-566: 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
1640-410: 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
1722-437: Is mostly single-tracked , with some 60 stations and double-tracked passing sidings . At Erenhot station in Inner Mongolia, the railway's 1,520 mm ( 4 ft 11 + 27 ⁄ 32 in ) Russian gauge track meets with China's 1,435 mm ( 4 ft 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 in ) standard gauge . There are trans-shipping facilities and rolling-stock equipment for bogie exchange . As of 2000,
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#17327834355841804-413: Is needed to accommodate the ebb and flow of traffic. The bogies and wagons also need to have standardized hooks, etc., where they may be efficiently lifted. The two wheel sets on four-wheel wagons can be changed as well if the wagon has been designed accordingly. Steam locomotives can be designed for more than one gauge, by having, for example, reversible wheel hubs that suit two alternative gauges. This
1886-427: 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
1968-1269: 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
2050-465: 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
2132-572: Is under construction. The 1,110 kilometres (690 mi) of the railway in Mongolia (as of 2017) are managed by UBTZ (the Ulaanbaatar Railway Company), a 50/50 Russian–Mongolian joint-stock company . Rail transport in Mongolia , which also includes the unconnected Choibalsan – Borzya line built in 1938–39, in 1998 carried 96 percent of the country's freight transportation and 55 percent of passenger traffic. In Mongolia it
2214-402: 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
2296-530: 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
2378-539: The Ferrocarril de Antofagasta a Bolivia Railway. A bogie exchange station exists at the Chinese border to Mongolia . Both the Moscow- Beijing passenger train ( Trans-Siberian ) and freight trains get their bogies exchanged. Mongolia has 1,520 mm ( 4 ft 11 + 27 ⁄ 32 in ), China has 1,435 mm ( 4 ft 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 in ) standard gauge . Also,
2460-509: 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
2542-584: The LMS re-gauged a pair of "Jinty" 0-6-0 tank locomotives – originally built to UK 4 ft 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 in ( 1,435 mm ) standard gauge – for use on its 5 ft 3 in ( 1,600 mm ) gauge Northern Counties Committee (NCC) lines in Northern Ireland; re-designated as Class Y , they largely undertook shunting work on dockyard lines in Belfast. The re-gauging
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2624-480: 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
2706-667: 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
2788-639: 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
2870-493: The bogies or trucks (the chassis containing the wheels and axles of the car), and installing a new bogie with differently spaced wheels. It is generally limited to wagons and carriages , though the bogies on diesel locomotives can be exchanged if enough time is available. The term can also refer to the rebuilding of rolling-stock for permanent use on another gauge, e.g. the Little Joe electric locomotives intended for
2952-553: 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
3034-472: The Chinese border, where the railway changes from single-track to double-track and its gauge changes from 1,520 mm Russian gauge to 1,435 mm standard gauge . The railway also has important branch lines to Erdenet and Baganuur . Railway development came late to Mongolia. In 1937, a line was built from Ulan-Ude in the Soviet Union to Naushki on the border with Mongolia. In 1939,
3116-493: 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
3198-501: 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
3280-465: 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
3362-847: 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
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3444-504: 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
3526-718: The Soviet Union ( Russian gauge ) which were rebuilt for use in the United States, or the New Zealand British Rail Mark 2 carriage rebuilt for use on the NZR Cape gauge Bogie wagons can have their gauge changed by lifting them off one set of bogies and putting them back down again on another set of bogies. The pin that centres the bogies and the hoses and fittings for the brakes must be compatible. A generous supply of bogies of each gauge
3608-527: The Soviet Union were rebuilt for use in the United States. The simplest way to carry out bogie exchange is to lift the wagons off the bogies and replace them back on new bogies. This may require the wagons in a train to be uncoupled, and continuous brakes disconnected. If the wagons are swung out of the way by an overhead hoist, they may sway, which wastes time settling them down. The Nutter hoist, patented in 1871, used screw jacks to lift cars off of their bogies. The Imboden railway-car lifter, from 1875, used
3690-426: 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
3772-514: 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
3854-412: 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
3936-549: The ferry terminals. Finland has 1,524 mm ( 5 ft ) broad gauge . In 1898 Emil Breidsprecher, a director of the Marienburg – Mława railway and a future professor at the Königliche Technische Hochschule zu Danzig , invented a system that allowed to change wheelsets in wagons that travelled across a break of gauge, without the need to unload them first. In September 1901 a facility
4018-572: 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
4100-444: 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
4182-583: 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
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#17327834355844264-413: 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
4346-405: 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
4428-418: 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
4510-579: 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 ] ,
4592-421: 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
4674-646: 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,
4756-453: The oil refinery at Züünbayan (63 km (39 mi)). Modernization in the 1990s replaced some old Soviet-made locomotives with more powerful American models, and installed fiber-optic trackside cables for communications and signaling. In 2022, lines opened linking the branch at Züünbayan with Khangi on the Chinese border, and the coal mines at Tavan Tolgoi with Gashuun Sukhait on the border. A new line linking Züünbayan with Tavan Tolgoi
4838-491: 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
4920-618: 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
5002-448: 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,
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#17327834355845084-555: 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
5166-601: 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
5248-550: The primary purpose of connecting Dalanzadgad and Choibalsan , to be built in three stages: In 2012, a line connecting Erdenet– Mörön – Ovoot mine – Arts Suuri on the Russian border (547 km (340 mi)) was approved, but never built. In 2014, it was announced that the planned Tavan Tolgoi–Gashuun Sukhait and Khööt–Bichigt lines were to be of Chinese gauge, while the Dalanzadgad–Choibalsan, Khööt–Nömrög, and Erdenet–Artssuuri lines were to be of Russian gauge. In 2016,
5330-498: The railway had nine container terminals, the largest at Zamyn-Üüd , and UBTZ operated 60 locomotives, 300 passenger cars, and 2,400 freight wagons, including 140 container wagons. The primary international service on the railway is the China Railway K3/4 train, which began service in 1959 and connects Beijing with Moscow . A 2010 Mongolian government plan proposed 5,683.5 kilometres (3,531.6 mi) of new track, for
5412-472: 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
5494-521: The sole facility operated at Zdolbuniv at the then Polish-Soviet border. A bogie exchange station in the port of Mukran serves train ferries that go to and from Russia, Latvia, and Lithuania, which have 1,520 mm ( 4 ft 11 + 27 ⁄ 32 in ) broad gauge. The bogies of the direct sleeping car Moscow – Pyongyang, which runs twice monthly, are exchanged there. Bogie exchange conversion times were: Variable-gauge axles in an automatic track gauge changeover system (ATGCS)
5576-610: 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
5658-425: The stem with certain case endings (e.g. цэрэг ( tsereg ) → цэргийн ( tsergiin )). The additional morphological rules specific to loanwords are not covered. Bogie exchange Bogie exchange is a system for operating railway wagons on two or more gauges to overcome difference in the track gauge . To perform a bogie exchange, a car is converted from one gauge to another by removing
5740-430: 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
5822-451: The track with the bogies out from under it. Between 1961 and 1995, Australia had five bogie exchange centres, which opened and closed as gauge conversion work proceeded. The gauges served were 1,435 mm ( 4 ft 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 in ) and 1,600 mm ( 5 ft 3 in ), though the 1,067 mm ( 3 ft 6 in ) Queensland did acquire 100 bogie-exchange compatible QLX wagons just in case. All
5904-730: The traction motors and take a little longer to convert. In Australia, some classes of diesel locomotives are regularly gauge-converted to suit traffic requirements on the 1,435 mm ( 4 ft 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 in ), 1,600 mm ( 5 ft 3 in ), and 1,067 mm ( 3 ft 6 in ) networks. Since the 1,067 mm ( 3 ft 6 in ) networks in Australia are not all connected to each other, being separated by deserts or lines of other gauges, they are bogie-exchanged or piggybacked on road or rail vehicles when transferred between these networks. The Little Joe electric locomotives intended for
5986-456: 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
6068-424: 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
6150-509: The wagons involved had wagon codes ending in "X", such as VLX. The centres were: The busiest facility was that at Dynon, in a typical year (1981–82), 24,110 wagons were bogie exchanged, an average of 66 per day. This was done by one shift of 18 men, compared with the 100 men required if the same amount of freight were transferred wagon to wagon. Bogie exchange was used between 2 ft 6 in ( 762 mm ) and 1,000 mm ( 3 ft 3 + 3 ⁄ 8 in ) gauge on
6232-447: The war. The railway was opened by Inner Mongolian leader Ulanhu on 1 January 1956. In 1958, the railway switched to diesel engines and automated switching . Branches were built to the coal mines at Sharyngol in 1963 (63 km (39 mi)) and at Baganuur in 1982 (85 km (53 mi)), the copper mine at Erdenet in 1975 (164 km (102 mi)), the fluorspar mine at Bor-Öndör in 1987 (60 km (37 mi)), and
6314-547: 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,
6396-417: 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,
6478-478: Was done in the 1930s and beyond in Victoria for possible gauge conversion, though no engines were ever converted in this manner other than one heritage engine ( R766 ). Some 1,000 mm ( 3 ft 3 + 3 ⁄ 8 in ) metre gauge Garratt locomotives of East Africa were designed for easy conversion to 3 ft 6 in ( 1,067 mm ) gauge, though again none ever was. In 1944,
6560-431: Was installed at the then German-Russian border at Iłowo . The system was used until 1914 on some railway border crossings between Russia and states using standard gauge; known locations, in addition to Iłowo, are Łódź (then an industrial centre served by both standard and broad gauge railway lines) and Novoselytsia (then Austrian-Russian border), there were also some small installations to meet local demand. As of 1938,
6642-405: Was performed by simply reversing the wheel centres so that the spokes dished outwards. In the southern United States, some steam locomotives built by Baldwin were designed for easy conversion from 5 ft ( 1,524 mm ) to 4 ft 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 in ( 1,435 mm ) standard gauge . Diesel locomotives have bogies like wagons and carriages, only with more cables for
6724-416: Was used at Dry Creek railway station , Adelaide. Charles Tisdale patented a system of ramps and moving supports for lowering the trucks out from under a railroad car in 1873. George Atkinson patented a hoist and transfer table arrangement in 1882; this dropped the bogies from under a car and shift them to the side. Ramsay's apparatus patented in 1884 used hydraulic jacks to support the car while lowering
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