Ulaanbaatar ( / ʊ ˌ l ɑː n ˈ b ɑː t ər / ; Mongolian : Улаанбаатар , pronounced [ʊˌɮaːɴ‿ˈpaːʰtə̆r] , lit. ' Red Hero ' ), previously anglicized as Ulan Bator , is the capital and most populous city of Mongolia . It has a population of 1.6 million, and it is the coldest capital city in the world by average yearly temperature. The municipality is located in north central Mongolia at an elevation of about 1,300 metres (4,300 ft) in a valley on the Tuul River . The city was founded in 1639 as a nomadic Buddhist monastic centre, changing location 28 times, and was permanently settled at its modern location in 1778.
108-513: Urga may refer to: former name of Ulaanbaatar , the capital of Mongolia the former Catholic missio sui iuris of Urga Ürgə , a village and municipality in Lankaran Rayon of Azerbaijan Urga (movie) aka Close to Eden , a 1991 film by Nikita Mikhalkov Urga (Cazin) , Bosnia and Herzegovina Urga (music group) , an alternative music group from Sweden. Topics referred to by
216-776: 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
324-705: A language Sprachbund , rather than common origin. Mongolian literature is well attested in written form from the 13th century but has earlier Mongolic precursors in the literature of the Khitan and other Xianbei peoples. The Bugut inscription dated to 584 CE and the Inscription of Hüis Tolgoi dated to 604–620 CE appear to be the oldest substantial Mongolic or Para-Mongolic texts discovered. Writers such as Owen Lattimore referred to Mongolian as "the Mongol language". The earliest surviving Mongolian text may be
432-1018: A mobile monastery-town, Örgöö was often moved to various places along the Selenge , Orkhon and Tuul rivers, as supply and other needs would demand. During the Dzungar wars of the late 17th century, it was even moved to Inner Mongolia . As the city grew, it moved less and less. The movements of the city can be detailed as follows: Shireet Tsagaan Nuur (1639), Khoshoo Tsaidam (1640), Khentii Mountains (1654), Ogoomor (1688), Inner Mongolia (1690), Tsetserlegiin Erdene Tolgoi (1700), Daagandel (1719), Usan Seer (1720), Ikh Tamir (1722), Jargalant (1723), Eeven Gol (1724), Khujirtbulan (1729), Burgaltai (1730), Sognogor (1732), Terelj (1733), Uliastai River (1734), Khui Mandal (1736), Khuntsal (1740), Udleg (1742), Ogoomor (1743), Selbe (1747), Uliastai River (1756), Selbe (1762), Khui Mandal (1772) and Selbe (1778). In 1778,
540-591: A monastic rule, Internal Rule of the Grand Monastery or Yeke Kuriyen-u Doto'adu Durem . For example, in 1797 a decree of the 4th Jebtsundamba forbade "singing, playing with archery, myagman, chess, usury and smoking"). Executions were forbidden where the holy temples of the Bogd Jebtsundama could be seen, so capital punishment took place away from the city. In 1839, the 5th Bogd Jebtsundamba moved his residence to Gandan Hill, an elevated position to
648-590: 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
756-538: 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
864-535: 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
972-513: A revolutionary character, symbolizing the revolutionary steadfastness of the Mongolian people in their struggle for independence. In the Western world, Ulaanbaatar continued to be generally known as Urga or Khuree until 1924, and afterward as Ulan Bator Russian : Улан-Батор , romanized : Ulan-Bator . This form was defined two decades before the Mongolian name got its current Cyrillic spelling and transliteration (1941–1950); however,
1080-423: A settlement of the "Mongolian question" along Qing-era lines, but before this settlement could be put into effect, Khüree was occupied by the troops of Chinese warlord Xu Shuzheng , who forced the Mongolian nobles and clergy to renounce autonomy completely. The city changed hands twice in 1921. First, on 4 February, a mixed Russian/Mongolian force led by White Russian warlord Roman von Ungern-Sternberg captured
1188-426: 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
SECTION 10
#17327726443381296-483: A special role is played by converbs . Modern Mongolian evolved from Middle Mongol , the language spoken in the Mongol Empire of the 13th and 14th centuries. In the transition, a major shift in the vowel-harmony paradigm occurred, long vowels developed, the case system changed slightly, and the verbal system was restructured. Mongolian is related to the extinct Khitan language . It was believed that Mongolian
1404-591: 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
1512-472: A term originally referring to an enclosure or settlement . Upon independence in 1911 , with both the secular government and the Bogd Khan 's palace present, the city's name was changed to Niĭslel Khüree ( Mongolian : ᠨᠡᠶᠢᠰᠯᠡᠯ ᠬᠦᠷᠢᠶᠡᠨ ; Нийслэл Хүрээ , lit. 'Capital Khüree'). When the city became the capital of the new Mongolian People's Republic on 29 October 1924, its name
1620-521: 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 )
1728-433: 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
1836-409: 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
1944-466: 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,
2052-438: 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
2160-426: Is a typical agglutinative language that relies on suffix chains in the verbal and nominal domains. While there is a basic word order, subject–object–verb , ordering among noun phrases is relatively free, as grammatical roles are indicated by a system of about eight grammatical cases . There are five voices . Verbs are marked for voice, aspect , tense and epistemic modality / evidentiality . In sentence linking,
2268-472: Is also valid for vernacular (spoken) Khalkha and other Mongolian dialects, especially Chakhar Mongolian . Some classify several other Mongolic languages like Buryat and Oirat as varieties of Mongolian, but this classification is not in line with the current international standard. Mongolian is a language with vowel harmony and a complex syllabic structure compared to other Mongolic languages, allowing clusters of up to three consonants syllable-finally. It
SECTION 20
#17327726443382376-491: 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
2484-405: Is brought down by its cold winter temperatures even though it is significantly warm from late April to early October. The city lies in the zone of discontinuous permafrost , which means that building is difficult in sheltered locations that preclude thawing in the summer, but easier on more exposed ones where soils fully thaw. Suburban residents live in traditional yurts that do not protrude into
2592-580: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Ulaanbaatar During its early years, as Örgöö (anglicized as Urga ), it became Mongolia's preeminent religious centre and seat of the Jebtsundamba Khutuktu , the spiritual head of the Gelug lineage of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia . Following the regulation of Qing-Russian trade by
2700-566: 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
2808-410: 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
2916-418: Is much frequented by merchants from China and Russia, and other places. By Zanabazar's death in 1723, Urga was Mongolia's preeminent monastery in terms of religious authority. A council of seven of the highest-ranking lamas ( Khamba Nomon Khan , Ded Khamba and five Tsorj ) made most of the city's religious decisions. It had also become Outer Mongolia's commercial center. From 1733 to 1778, Urga moved around
3024-1269: 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
3132-416: 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 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
3240-402: 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
3348-729: The Community of Democracies , and has also lent its name to the Ulaanbaatar Dialogue on Northeast Asian Security. Chinggis Khaan International Airport in Ulaanbataar was opened to the public on 4 July 2021. Since the 2010s Ulaanbaatar has seen a construction boom filling the city with high-rise offices and apartment blocks. Since 2013, a number of landmark buildings and structures have been demolished in Ulaanbaatar, despite considerable public outcry. This includes
Urga - Misplaced Pages Continue
3456-476: The Gobi Desert to Kalgan , and southeast over the mountains to Peking. Urga was also a collection point for goods coming from further west. These were either sent to China or shipped north to Russia via Kyakhta, because of legal restrictions and the lack of good trade routes to the west. By 1908, there was a Russian quarter with a few hundred merchants and a Russian club and informal Russian mayor. East of
3564-509: 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
3672-708: The Keraites , a Nestorian Christian monarch whom Marco Polo identified as the legendary Prester John , is said to have had his palace here (the Black Forest of the Tuul River) and forbade hunting in the holy mountain Bogd Uul. The palace is said to be where Genghis Khan stayed with Yesui Khatun before attacking the Tangut in 1226. During the Mongol Empire (1206–1368) and Northern Yuan dynasty (1368–1635)
3780-561: The Khutugtu 's subjects". In 1761, a second amban was appointed for the same purpose, a Manchu one. A quarter-century later, in 1786, a decree issued in Peking gave right to the Urga ambans to decide the administrative affairs of Tusheet Khan and Setsen Khan territories. With this, Urga became the highest civil authority in the country. Based on Urga's Mongol governor Sanzaidorj's petition,
3888-638: The Qianlong Emperor officially recognized an annual ceremony on Bogd Khan Mountain in 1778 and provided the annual imperial donations. The city was the seat of the Jebtsundamba Khutugtus, two Qing ambans, and a Chinese trade town grew "four trees" 4.24 km (2.63 mi) east of the city center at the confluence of the Uliastai and Tuul rivers. By 1778, Urga may have had as many as ten thousand monks, who were regulated by
3996-667: 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
4104-457: The Siberian anticyclone , Ulaanbaatar is the coldest national capital in the world, with a monsoon -influenced, cold semi-arid climate ( Köppen BSk , USDA Plant Hardiness Zone 3b ). Aside from precipitation and from a thermal standpoint, the city is on the boundary between humid continental ( Dwb ) and subarctic ( Dwc ). This is due to its 10 °C (50 °F) mean temperature for
4212-539: The Stele of Yisüngge [ ru ] , a report on sports composed in Mongolian script on stone, which is most often dated at 1224 or 1225. The Mongolian- Armenian wordlist of 55 words compiled by Kirakos of Gandzak (13th century) is the first written record of Mongolian words. From the 13th to the 15th centuries, Mongolian language texts were written in four scripts (not counting some vocabulary written in Western scripts): Uyghur Mongolian (UM) script (an adaptation of
4320-570: The Treaty of Kyakhta in 1727 , a caravan route between Beijing and Kyakhta opened up, along which the city was eventually settled. With the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911, the city was a focal point for independence efforts, leading to the proclamation of the Bogd Khanate in 1911 led by the 8th Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, or Bogd Khan , and again during the communist revolution of 1921 . With
4428-639: 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
Urga - Misplaced Pages Continue
4536-553: 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
4644-474: The 1910s estimated the population of Urga at 60,000, based on Nikolay Przhevalsky 's study in the 1870s. The city's population swelled during the Naadam festival and major religious festivals to more than 100,000. In 1919, the number of monks had reached 20,000, up from 13,000 in 1810. In 1910, the amban Sando went to quell a major fight between Gandan lamas and Chinese traders started by an incident at
4752-594: The 2010s, a construction boom has been ongoing, leading to many high-rise apartment and office blocks in the inner core as well as new settlement areas. Sükhbaatar Square , in the government district, is the center of Ulaanbaatar and contains in the middle a statue of revolutionary hero Damdin Sükhbaatar on horseback; and in the north side a statue of Chinggis Khan . To the north is the Government Palace , while Peace Avenue ( Enkh Taivny Urgon Chuloo ),
4860-662: The Da Yi Yu shop in the Baruun Damnuurchin market district. He was unable to bring the lamas under control, and was forced to flee back to his quarters. In 1911, with the Qing dynasty in China headed for total collapse, Mongolian leaders in Ikh Khüree for Naadam met in secret on Mount Bogd Khan Uul and resolved to end 220 years of Manchu control of their country. On 29 December 1911, the 8th Jebtsundamba Khutughtu
4968-603: 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
5076-465: 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
5184-745: 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
5292-504: 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
5400-621: The Natural History Museum, and stated that the government planned to renovate them instead. Ulaanbaatar is located at about 1,350 metres (4,430 ft) above mean sea level , slightly east of the center of Mongolia, on the Tuul River , a sub- tributary of the Selenge , in a valley at the foot of the mountain Bogd Khan Uul . Bogd Khan Uul is a broad, heavily forested mountain rising 2,250 metres (7,380 ft) to
5508-922: The White Gate at Nisekh in September 2013, the Victims of Political Persecution Memorial Museum in October 2019, the Natural History Museum in December 2019, Buildings #3 and #6 of the National University of Mongolia , and the main building of the University of Finance and Economics in 2023. The 2019 Mongolian government budget originally included items for the demolition of a number of historic neoclassical buildings in
SECTION 50
#17327726443385616-426: 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
5724-403: The bones of which are found abundantly around Ulaanbaatar. A number of Xiongnu -era royal tombs have been discovered around Ulaanbaatar, including the tombs of Belkh Gorge near Dambadarjaalin monastery and tombs of Songinokhairkhan. Located on the banks of the Tuul River , Ulaanbaatar has been well within the sphere of Turco-Mongol nomadic empires throughout history. Wang Khan , Toghrul of
5832-514: 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
5940-734: The city moved from Khui Mandal and settled for good at its current location, near the confluence of the Selbe and Tuul rivers, and beneath Bogd Khan Uul , at that time also on the caravan route from Beijing to Kyakhta . One of the earliest Western mentions of Urga is the account of the Scottish traveller John Bell in 1721: What they call the Urga is the court, or the place where the prince (Tusheet Khan) and high priest (Bogd Jebtsundamba Khutugtu) reside, who are always encamped at no great distance from one another. They have several thousand tents about them, which are removed from time to time. The Urga
6048-515: The city was 659 millimetres or 25.94 inches at the Khureltogoot Astronomical Observatory on Mount Bogd Khan Uul. Ulaanbaatar has an average annual temperature of 0.2 °C or 32.4 °F, making it the coldest capital in the world (almost as cold as Nuuk , Greenland , but Greenland is not independent). Nuuk has a tundra climate with consistent cold temperatures throughout the year. Ulaanbaatar's annual average
6156-604: The city was named Ulaanbaatar Khot ( lit. ' Red-Hero City ' ). During the socialist period , especially following the Second World War , most of the old ger districts were replaced by Soviet-style blocks of flats , often financed by the Soviet Union. Urban planning began in the 1950s, and much of the city core today is a result of construction between 1960 and 1985. The Trans-Mongolian Railway , connecting Ulaanbaatar with Moscow and Beijing,
6264-507: The city was named Ulan Bator Khoto ("City of the Red Hero") [14]. After the vote, he gave a speech: Genghis Khan was a national hero, but he was a conqueror. Present-day People's Mongolia has no imperialistic goals; it wants to liberate itself and develop independently, along revolutionary lines. Therefore, the name Ulaanbaatar-Khoto will be a revolutionary name, and it will be understandable to everyone. The prefix Ulan ("red") gives this name
6372-571: The city, freeing the Bogd Khan from Chinese imprisonment and killing a part of the Chinese garrison. Baron Ungern's capture of Urga was followed by the clearing out of Mongolia's small gangs of demoralized Chinese soldiers and, at the same time, looting and murder of foreigners, including a vicious pogrom that killed off the Jewish community . On 22 February 1921, the Bogd Khan was once again elevated to Great Khan of Mongolia in Urga. However, at
6480-413: The city. Much of these new arrivals settle in ger districts without plumbing, sanitation, central heating, and basic services. This rise in population, including the formation of new settlement areas, has not been accompanied with appropriate investment in infrastructure and services, hampering development and causing a myriad of problems. Ulaanbaatar was the scene of riots in 2008 after supporters of
6588-479: The control of Soviet Russia. On 29 October 1924, the town was renamed Ulaanbaatar . On the session of the 1st Great People's Khuraldaan of Mongolia in 1924, a majority of delegates had expressed their wish to change the capital city's name to Baatar Khot ( lit. ' Hero City ' ). However, under pressure from Turar Ryskulov , a Kazakh Soviet activist of the Communist International ,
SECTION 60
#17327726443386696-541: The country's total population. As the country's primate city , it serves as its cultural, industrial and financial heart and the center of its transport network . The city at its establishment in 1639 was referred to as Örgöö ( Mongolian : ᠥᠷᠭᠦᠭᠡ ; Өргөө , lit. 'Palace'). This name was eventually adapted as Urga in the West. By 1651, it began to be referred to as Nomiĭn Khüree ( Mongolian : ᠨᠣᠮ ᠤᠨ ᠬᠦᠷᠢᠶᠡᠨ ; Номын хүрээ , lit. 'Khüree of Wisdom'), and by 1706 it
6804-412: 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
6912-635: 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
7020-444: 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
7128-419: The heart of Ulaanbaatar, including the Natural History Museum , Opera and Ballet House , Drama Theatre and National Library . The decision was met by a public outcry and criticism from the Union of Mongolian Architects, which demanded that the buildings be preserved and restored. In January 2020, culture minister Yondonperenlein Baatarbileg denied that the government intended to demolish buildings other than
7236-407: The imperial capital Karakorum) in what is now Burd sum , Övörkhangai , around 230 kilometres (143 miles) south-west from the present site of Ulaanbaatar, and was intended by the Mongol nobles to be the seat of Zanabazar , the first Jebtsundamba Khutughtu . Zanabazar returned to Mongolia from Tibet in 1651, and founded seven aimags (monastic departments) in Urga, later establishing four more. As
7344-583: 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
7452-413: 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
7560-405: 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
7668-418: 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
7776-421: 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
7884-469: The main thoroughfare through town, runs along the south side of the square. Mongolian language Mongolian is the principal language of the Mongolic language family that originated in the Mongolian Plateau . It is spoken by ethnic Mongols and other closely related Mongolic peoples who are native to modern Mongolia and surrounding parts of East and North Asia . Mongolian
7992-534: The main town was the Russian consulate, built in 1863, with an Orthodox church, a post office and 20 Cossack guards. It was fortified in 1900 and briefly occupied by troops during the Boxer Rebellion . There was a telegraph line north to Kyakhta and southeast to Kalgan and weekly postal service along these routes. Beyond the Russian consulate was the Chinese trading post called Maimaicheng , and nearby
8100-528: The main, natural route from the capital region of Karakorum to the birthplace and tomb of the Khans in the Khentii mountain region ( Ikh Khorig ) passed through the area of Ulaanbaatar. The Tuul River naturally leads to the north-side of Bogd Khan Mountain, which stands out as a large island of forest positioned conspicuously at the south-western edge of the Khentii mountains. As the main gate and stopover point on
8208-646: 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,
8316-425: The month of May. The city features brief, warm summers and long, bitterly cold and dry winters. The coldest January temperatures, usually at the time just before sunrise, are between −36 and −40 °C (−32.8 and −40.0 °F) with no wind, because of temperature inversion . Most of the annual precipitation of 267 millimetres (10.51 in) falls from May to September. The highest recorded annual precipitation in
8424-556: The name of the city was spelled Ulaanbaatar koto during the decade in which Mongolia used the Latin alphabet . Human habitation at the site of Ulaanbaatar dates from the Lower Paleolithic , with a number of sites on the Bogd Khan , Buyant-Ukhaa and Songinokhairkhan mountains, revealing tools which date from 300,000 years ago to 40,000–12,000 years ago. These Upper Paleolithic people hunted mammoth and woolly rhinoceros ,
8532-491: 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
8640-419: The opposition parties disputed the ruling Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party 's claim of victory after the parliamentary elections . A four-day state of emergency was declared, the capital was placed under a curfew, and alcohol sales banned with no further riots taking place. This was the first deadly riot in modern Ulaanbaatar's history. In April 2013, Ulaanbaatar hosted the 7th Ministerial Conference of
8748-618: 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
8856-472: The palace of the Manchu viceroy. With the growth of Western trade at the Chinese ports, the tea trade to Russia declined, some Chinese merchants left, and wool became the main export. Manufactured goods still came from Russia, but most were now brought from Kalgan by caravan. The annual trade was estimated at 25 million rubles, nine-tenths in Chinese hands and one-tenth in Russian. The Moscow trade expedition of
8964-448: 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,
9072-555: 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
9180-601: 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
9288-489: The proclamation of the Mongolian People's Republic in 1924, the city was officially renamed Ulaanbaatar and declared the country's capital. Modern urban planning began in the 1950s, with most of the old ger districts replaced by Soviet-style flats . In 1990, Ulaanbaatar was the site of large demonstrations that led to Mongolia's transition to democracy and a market economy . Since 1990, an influx of migrants from
9396-434: The rest of the country has led to an explosive growth in its population, a major portion of whom live in ger districts, which has led to harmful air pollution in winter. Governed as an independent municipality , Ulaanbaatar is surrounded by Töv Province , whose capital Zuunmod lies 43 kilometres (27 mi) south of the city. With a population of just over 1.6 million as of December 2022 , it contains almost half of
9504-472: The riverine forest of the Tuul River is composed of broad-leaved, deciduous poplars , elms and willows . Ulaanbaatar lies at roughly the same latitude as Vienna , Munich , Orléans and Seattle . It lies at roughly the same longitude as Chongqing , Hanoi and Jakarta . Owing to its high elevation, its relatively high latitude, its location hundreds of kilometres from any coast, and the effects of
9612-670: The route to and from the holy Khentii mountains, the Bogd Khan Mountain saw large amounts of traffic going past it and was protected from early times. Even after the Northern Yuan period it served as the location of the annual and triannual Assembly of Nobles ( Khan Uuliin Chuulgan ). Founded in 1639 as a yurt monastery as Örgöö ( lit. ' palace- yurt ' ), the settlement was first located at Lake Shireet Tsagaan nuur (75 kilometres (47 miles) directly east of
9720-444: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Urga . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Urga&oldid=1020275228 " Categories : Disambiguation pages Place name disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
9828-688: The same time that Baron Ungern was taking control of Urga, a Soviet-supported Communist Mongolian force led by Damdin Sükhbaatar was forming in Russia, and in March they crossed the border. Ungern and his men rode out in May to meet Red Russian and Red Mongolian troops, but suffered a disastrous defeat in June. In July 1921, the Communist Soviet-Mongolian army became the second conquering force in six months to enter Urga, and Mongolia came under
9936-711: The soil. Extreme temperatures in the city range from −43.9 °C (−47.0 °F) in January 1957 to 39.0 °C (102.2 °F) in July 1988. The city's inner core consists of a central district built in 1940s- and 1950s-style Soviet architecture, surrounded by and mingled with residential concrete towerblocks and large ger districts . Starting after the fall of communism, many of the towerblocks' ground floors were modified and upgraded to small shops, and many new buildings have been erected—some illegally, as some private companies erect buildings without legal licenses/permits. Since
10044-414: The south of Ulaanbaatar. It forms the boundary between the steppe zone to the south and the forest-steppe zone to the north. Traditionally, Ulaanbaatar is said to be surrounded by four peaks, clockwise from west: Songino Khairkhan, Chingeltei, Bayanzurkh, and finally Bogd Khan Uul. The forests of the mountains surrounding Ulaanbaatar are composed of evergreen pines, deciduous larches and birches , while
10152-610: 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
10260-430: 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
10368-538: The traditional Mongolian script . In Inner Mongolia, it is dialectally more diverse and written in the traditional Mongolian script. However, Mongols in both countries often use the Latin script for convenience on the Internet. In the discussion of grammar to follow, the variety of Mongolian treated is the standard written Khalkha formalized in the writing conventions and in grammar as taught in schools, but much of it
10476-735: The vicinity of its present location. In 1754, the Erdene Shanzodba Yam ^ of Urga was given authority to supervise the administrative affairs of the Bogd's subjects. It also served as the city's chief judicial court. In 1758, the Qianlong Emperor appointed the Khalkha Vice General Sanzaidorj as the first Mongol amban of Urga, with full authority to "oversee the Khuree and administer well all
10584-424: 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
10692-522: The way for the new constitution of 1992 and the dissolution of the Mongolian People's Republic . Since Mongolia's transition to a market economy in 1990, the city has experienced rapid growth. From a population of 535,000 in 1990, it had grown to 1 million inhabitants by 2007, and 1.5 million by 2021, or about half the entire country's population. Much of this rapid population rise is attributed to migration from rural areas, as herder families abandon their traditional lifestyles in search of opportunities in
10800-658: The west of the Baruun Damnuurchin markets. Part of the city was moved to nearby Tolgoit. In 1855, the part of the camp that moved to Tolgoit was brought back to its 1778 location, and the 7th Bogd Jebtsundamba returned to the Zuun Khuree. The Gandan Monastery flourished as a center of philosophical studies. Following the Treaty of Kyakhta in 1727, Urga (Ulaanbaatar) was a major point of the Kyakhta trade between Russia and China – mostly Siberian furs for Chinese cloth and later tea. The route ran south to Urga, southeast across
10908-547: 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,
11016-593: Was a major site of demonstrations that led to Mongolia's transition to democracy and market economy in 1990 . Starting on 10 December 1989, protesters outside the Youth Culture Center called for Mongolia to implement perestroika and glasnost in their full sense. After months of large-scale demonstrations and hunger strikes, the governing Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party resigned on 9 March 1990. The provisional government announced Mongolia's first free elections , which were held in July 1990, paving
11124-583: Was changed to Ulaanbaatar ( lit. ' Red Hero ' ). At the meeting of the 1st Great People's Khural in 1924, the majority of delegates voted in favor of renaming the capital of Mongolia to Bator-khoto ("City of the Hero," or "City of the Hero," implicitly referring to the figure of Genghis Khan). Nevertheless, at the insistence of the Comintern representative, Soviet-Kazakhstan political figure T. R. Ryskulov , who previously had no connection to Mongolia,
11232-417: Was completed in 1956, and cinemas, theaters, museums and other modern facilities were erected. Most of the temples and monasteries of pre-socialist Khüree were destroyed following the anti-religious purges of the late 1930s. The Gandan monastery was reopened in 1944 when the U.S. Vice President Henry Wallace asked to see a monastery during his visit to Mongolia. Ulaanbaatar and chiefly Sükhbaatar Square
11340-417: 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,
11448-493: Was declared ruler of an independent Mongolia and assumed the title Bogd Khan. Khüree as the seat of the Jebtsundamba Khutugtu was the logical choice for the capital of the new state. However, following the tripartite Kyakhta agreement of 1915 , Mongolia's status was effectively reduced to mere autonomy. In 1919, Mongolian nobles, over the opposition of the Bogd Khan, agreed with the Chinese resident Chen Yi on
11556-510: Was referred to as Ikh Khüree ( Mongolian : ᠶᠡᠬᠡ ᠬᠦᠷᠢᠶᠡᠨ ; Их хүрээ , lit. 'Great Khüree'). The Chinese equivalent, Dà Kùlún ( Chinese : 大庫倫 , Mongolian : Да Хүрээ ), was rendered into Western languages as Kulun or Kuren . Other names include Bogdiin Khuree ( Mongolian : ᠪᠣᠭᠳᠠ ᠶᠢᠨ ᠬᠦᠷᠢᠶᠡᠨ ; Богдын хүрээ , lit. 'The Bogd 's Khüree'), or simply Khüree ( Mongolian : ᠬᠦᠷᠢᠶᠡᠨ ; Хүрээ , romanized : Küriye ), itself
11664-560: Was related to Turkic , Tungusic , Korean and Japonic languages but this view is now seen as obsolete by a majority of (but not all) comparative linguists. These languages have been grouped under the Altaic language family and contrasted with the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area . However, instead of a common genetic origin, Clauson, Doerfer, and Shcherbak proposed that Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic languages form
#337662