The traditional Mongolian script , also known as the Hudum Mongol bichig , was the first writing system created specifically for the Mongolian language , and was the most widespread until the introduction of Cyrillic in 1946. It is traditionally written in vertical lines Top-Down, right across the page. Derived from the Old Uyghur alphabet , it is a true alphabet , with separate letters for consonants and vowels. It has been adapted for such languages as Oirat and Manchu . Alphabets based on this classical vertical script continue to be used in Mongolia and Inner Mongolia to write Mongolian, Xibe and, experimentally, Evenki .
37-565: Yesugei Baghatur or Yesükhei ( Traditional Mongolian : ᠶᠢᠰᠦᠭᠡᠢ ᠪᠠᠭᠠᠲᠤᠷ ; Modern Mongolian : Есүхэй баатар, Yesukhei baatar , [ˈjosuxɛː ˈbaːtər] ; Chinese : 也速該 ; pinyin : Yěsùgāi ) (b. 1134 – d. 1171) was a major chief of the Khamag Mongol confederation and the father of Temüjin, who later became known as Genghis Khan . Yesügei was from the Borjigin family, and his name means "like nine", meaning he had
74-510: A or e ( ᠠ ‑a/‑e ) is common, and can appear at the end of a word stem , or suffix . This form requires a final-shaped preceding letter, and an word-internal gap in between. This gap can be transliterated with a hyphen. The presence or lack of a separated a or e can also indicate differences in meaning between different words (compare ᠬᠠᠷᠠ qar‑a 'black' with ᠬᠠᠷᠠ qara 'to look'). It has
111-526: A baseline, and have both isolated and contextual forms, when they occur in initial, medial or final positions. The script is traditionally written vertically, from top to bottom and left to right. After the 14th century, some examples in a horizontal direction can be found. Words are separated by spaces. Like the Sogdian alphabet (technically, an abjad), the Old Uyghur tended to use matres lectionis for
148-469: A daughter, Temülen . Yesugei had two sons by his second wife Sochigel : Behter and Belgutei . The Secret History of the Mongols records that in his youth Temüjin killed his brother Behter in a fight for food. His other half-brother, Belgutei, however was a good friend, and later became a general under Genghis. Mongolian script Computer operating systems have been slow to adopt support for
185-815: A final tail as in ⟨ ᠪᠣ ⟩ bo / bu or ⟨ ᠮᠣ᠋ ⟩ mo / mu , and with a vertical tail as in ⟨ ᠪᠥ᠋ ⟩ bö / bü or ⟨ ᠮᠥ᠋ ⟩ mö / mü (as well as in transcriptions of Chinese syllables). Only in a late form can a definite order of signs be established for the alphabet, but can likely be traced back to an earlier Uyghur model. ᠠ᠋ ᠡ᠋ ᠥ ᠦ ᠨ᠋ ᠨ [REDACTED] [REDACTED] k [REDACTED] ᠭ᠋ [REDACTED] ᠭ [REDACTED] g ᠳ᠋ In 1587,
222-549: A reader who knows the orthography. Letters have different forms depending on their position in a word: initial, medial, or final. In some cases, additional graphic variants are selected for visual harmony with the subsequent character. The rules for writing below apply specifically for the Mongolian language, unless stated otherwise. Mongolian vowel harmony separates the vowels of words into three groups – two mutually exclusive and one neutral: Any Mongolian word can contain
259-475: A stem. Such single-letter vowel suffixes appear with the final-shaped forms of a / e , i , or u / ü , as in ᠭᠠᠵᠠᠷ ᠠ γaǰar‑a 'to the country' and ᠡᠳᠦᠷ ᠡ edür‑e 'on the day', or ᠤᠯᠤᠰ ᠢ ulus‑i 'the state' etc. Multi-letter suffixes most often start with an initial- (consonants), medial- (vowels), or variant-shaped form. Medial-shaped u in
296-985: A wide variety of names. As it was derived from the Old Uyghur alphabet , the Mongol script is known as the Uighur(-)Mongol script . From 1941 onwards, it became known as the Old Script , in contrast to the New Script , referring to Cyrillic. The Mongolian script is also known as the Hudum or 'not exact' script, in comparison with the Todo 'clear, exact' script, and also as 'vertical script'. The traditional or classical Mongolian alphabet , sometimes called Hudum 'traditional' in Oirat in contrast to
333-459: Is one among Oirat Clear , Manchu , and Buryat are the only known vertical scripts written from left to right. This developed because the Uyghurs rotated their Sogdian -derived script, originally written right to left, 90 degrees counterclockwise to emulate Chinese writing, but without changing the relative orientation of the letters. The reed pen was the writing instrument of choice until
370-412: Is somewhat comparable to the situation of English , which must represent ten or more vowels with only five letters and uses the digraph th for two distinct sounds. Ambiguity is sometimes prevented by context, as the requirements of vowel harmony and syllable sequence usually indicate the correct sound. Moreover, as there are few words with an exactly identical spelling, actual ambiguities are rare for
407-599: The Clear script ( Todo 'exact'), is the original form of the Mongolian script used to write the Mongolian language . It does not distinguish several vowels ( o / u , ö / ü , final a / e ) and consonants (syllable-initial t / d and k / g , sometimes ǰ / y ) that were not required for Uyghur , which was the source of the Mongol (or Uyghur-Mongol) script. The result
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#1732772423034444-656: The Tarim Basin of Central Asia , located in present-day Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. The script flourished through the 15th century in Central Asia and parts of Iran , but it was eventually replaced by the Arabic script in the 16th century. Its usage was continued in Gansu through the 17th century. The Old Uyghur alphabet is a cursive-joining alphabet with features of an abjad . Letters join together at
481-651: The 17th and 18th centuries, smoother and more angular versions of the letter tsadi became associated with [ dʒ ] and [ tʃ ] respectively, and in the 19th century, the Manchu hooked yodh was adopted for initial [ j ] . Zain was dropped as it was redundant for [ s ] . Various schools of orthography, some using diacritics , were developed to avoid ambiguity. Traditional Mongolian words are written vertically from top to bottom, flowing in lines from left to right. The Old Uyghur script and its descendants, of which traditional Mongolian
518-410: The 18th century, when the brush took its place under Chinese influence. Pens were also historically made of wood, bamboo , bone, bronze , or iron. Ink used was black or cinnabar red, and written with on birch bark , paper, cloths made of silk or cotton, and wooden or silver plates. Mongols learned their script as a syllabary , dividing the syllables into twelve different classes, based on
555-829: The Mandarin retroflex consonants . These letters remain in use in Inner Mongolia for the purpose of transcribing Chinese. ཛ When written between words, punctuation marks use space on both sides of them. They can also appear at the very end of a line, regardless of where the preceding word ends. Red (cinnabar) ink is used in many manuscripts, to either symbolize emphasis or respect. Modern punctuation incorporates Western marks: parentheses; quotation, question, and exclamation marks; including precomposed ⁈ and ⁉ . Mongolian numerals are either written from left to right, or from top to bottom. For typographical reasons, they are rotated 90° in modern books to fit on
592-744: The Mongolian language of the middle period in Chinese transcription, etc.; in the western dialect, materials of the Arab–Mongolian and Persian–Mongolian dictionaries, Mongolian texts in Arabic transcription, etc. The main features of the period are that the vowels ï and i had lost their phonemic significance, creating the i phoneme (in the Chakhar dialect , the Standard Mongolian in Inner Mongolia , these vowels are still distinct); inter-vocal consonants γ / g , b / w had disappeared and
629-493: The Mongolian script; almost all have incomplete support or other text rendering difficulties. The Mongolian vertical script developed as an adaptation of the Old Uyghur alphabet for the Mongolian language. Tata-tonga , a 13th-century Uyghur scribe captured by Genghis Khan , was responsible for bringing the Old Uyghur alphabet to the Mongolian Plateau and adapting it to the form of the Mongolian script. From
666-593: The auspicious qualities of the number nine, a lucky number to the Mongols . Yesügei was the son of Bartan Baghatur, who was the second son of Khabul Khan . Khabul was recognized as a khagan by the Jin Dynasty . Khabul Khan was, in turn, the great-grandson of the Mongol chief Khaidu , the first to try to unite the Mongols. Yesügei abducted his chief wife, Hö'elün , a daughter of the Olkhunut forest people, with
703-714: The city of Hohhot ; as opposed to other compound words). This also allows components of different harmonic classes to be joined together, and vowels of an added suffix will harmonize with those of the latter part of the compound. Orthographic peculiarities are most often retained, as with the short and long teeth of an initial-shaped ⟨ ᠥ → ᠊ᠥ᠌ ⟩ ö in ᠮᠤᠤ ᠥ᠌ ᠬᠢᠨ Muu' ö kin 'Bad Girl' ( protective name ). Medial t and d , in contrast, are not affected in this way. Isolate citation forms for syllables containing o , u , ö , and ü may in dictionaries appear without
740-594: The final phonemes of the syllables, all of which ended in vowels. The script remained in continuous use by Mongolian speakers in Inner Mongolia in the People's Republic of China . In the Mongolian People's Republic , it was largely replaced by the Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet , although the vertical script remained in limited use. In March 2020, the Mongolian government announced plans to increase
777-553: The guise of hospitality. Although ill, Yesügei managed to escape back to his family's camp. Yesügei died three days later at home. During the reign of the Yuan dynasty , he was given the temple name of Liezu ( Chinese : 烈祖 ; lit. 'Ardent Founder') and the posthumous name Shenyuan Huangdi ( Chinese : 神元皇帝 ; lit. 'Supernaturally Prime Emperor'). Yesügei and Hoelun had four sons Temüjin , (later known as Genghis Khan), Hasar , Hachiun , Temüge and
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#1732772423034814-670: The help of his elder brother Negün Taishi and younger brother Daritai Otchigin, from her newlywed husband Chiledu of Merkits . Yesügei abducted Hoelun because of her beauty and indications of fertility. After the Khamag Mongol confederation khan Hotula died, the confederation had no elected king, but de facto Yesügei ruled the confederation. Yesügei had a bloodbrother, or anda , Toghrul Khan (later known as Wang Khan and Ong Khan). Yesügei helped Toghrul to defeat his uncle Gurkhan. After Yesügei's death, Toghrul initially helped Temüjin in arranging his marriage to Börte and uniting
851-537: The line. Listed in the table below are letter components ( graphemes ) commonly used across the script. Some of these are used with several letters, and others to contrast between them. As their forms and usage may differ between writing styles , however, examples of these can be found under this section below. As exemplified in this section, the shapes of glyphs may vary widely between different styles of writing and choice of medium with which to produce them. The development of written Mongolian can be divided into
888-427: The neutral vowel i , but only vowels from either of the other two groups. The vowel qualities of visually separated vowels and suffixes must likewise harmonize with those of the preceding word stem. Such suffixes are written with front or neutral vowels when preceded by a word stem containing only neutral vowels. Any of these rules might not apply for foreign words however. A separated final form of vowels
925-524: The politician and linguist Bayantömöriin Khaisan published the rime dictionary Mongolian-Han Bilingual Original Sounds of the Five Regions , a bilingual edition of the earlier Original Sounds of the Five Regions , to aid Mongolian speakers in learning Mandarin Chinese. To that end, he included transliterations of Mandarin using the Mongolian script, and repurposed three Galik letters to represent
962-484: The preliminary process of the formation of Mongolian long vowels had begun; the initial h was preserved in many words; grammatical categories were partially absent, etc. The development over this period explains why the Mongolian script looks like a vertical Arabic script (in particular the presence of the dot system). Eventually, minor concessions were made to the differences between the Uyghur and Mongol languages: In
999-452: The same shape as the traditional dative-locative suffix ‑a/‑e exemplified in the next section. This form of the suffix is, however, more commonly found in older texts, and is restricted in its Post- Classical use. All case suffixes , as well as any plural suffixes consisting of one or two syllables, are likewise separated by a preceding and hyphen-transliterated gap. A maximum of two case suffixes can be added to
1036-594: The seventh and eighth to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Mongolian language separated into southern, eastern and western dialects. The principal documents from the period of the Middle Mongol language are: in the eastern dialect, the famous text The Secret History of the Mongols , monuments in the Square script , materials of the Chinese–Mongolian glossary of the fourteenth century and materials of
1073-445: The short vowels as well as for the long ones. The practice of leaving short vowels unrepresented was almost completely abandoned. Thus, while ultimately deriving from a Semitic abjad, the Old Uyghur alphabet can be said to have been largely "alphabetized". Unicode text might render incorrectly depending on the typeface version installed. Transliteration ʾ β w δ The Old Uyghur alphabet
1110-763: The three periods of pre-classical (beginning – 17th century), classical (16/17th century – 20th century), and modern (20th century onward): The Mongolian script was added to the Unicode standard in September 1999 with the release of version 3.0. However, several design issues have been pointed out. The Unicode block for Mongolian is U+1800–U+18AF. It includes letters, digits and various punctuation marks for Hudum Mongolian , Todo Mongolian , Xibe (Manchu) , Manchu proper , and Ali Gali , as well as extensions for transcribing Sanskrit and Tibetan . Old Uyghur alphabet The Old Uyghur alphabet
1147-455: The translator and scholar Ayuush Güüsh created the Galik alphabet ( Али-гали Ali-gali ), inspired by the third Dalai Lama , Sonam Gyatso . It primarily added extra characters for transcribing Tibetan and Sanskrit terms when translating religious texts, and later also from Chinese . Some of those characters are still in use today for writing foreign names (as listed below). In 1917,
Yesugei - Misplaced Pages Continue
1184-460: The tribes, but later defected to Genghis' anda and rival, Jamukha . In 1171 Yesügei died when his son Temüjin was nine years old. The Secret History of the Mongols records that he was poisoned by Tatars while sharing a meal at a wedding on the way home after leaving Temüjin at the home of Dai Setsen, a noble man of Khongirad tribe, when two fathers, Yesügei and Dai Setsen, agreed that their kids, Temüjin and Börte, would marry. When Yesügei
1221-481: The two-letter suffix ᠤᠨ ‑un / ‑ün is exemplified in the adjacent newspaper logo. Two medial consonants are the most that can come together in original Mongolian words. There are however, a few loanwords that can begin or end with two or more. In the modern language, proper names can usually join two words into graphic compounds (such as those of ᠬᠠᠰᠡᠷᠳᠡᠨᠢ Qas'erdeni 'Jasper-jewel' or ᠬᠥᠬᠡᠬᠣᠲᠠ Kökeqota –
1258-521: The use of the traditional Mongolian script and to use both Cyrillic and Mongolian script in official documents by 2025. However, due to the particularity of the traditional Mongolian script, a large part (40% ) of the Sinicized Mongols in China are unable to read or write this script, and in many cases the script is only used symbolically on plaques in many cities. The script is known by
1295-560: Was a Turkic script used for writing Old Uyghur , a variety of Old Turkic spoken in Turpan and Gansu that is the ancestor of the modern Western Yugur language . The term "Old Uyghur" used for this alphabet is misleading because Qocho , the Uyghur (Yugur) kingdom created in 843, originally used the Old Turkic alphabet . The Uyghur adopted this "Old Uyghur" script from local inhabitants when they migrated into Turfan after 840. It
1332-468: Was an adaptation of the Aramaic alphabet used for texts with Buddhist , Manichaean and Christian content for 700–800 years in Turpan . The last known manuscripts are dated to the 18th century. This was the prototype for the Mongolian and Manchu alphabets . The Old Uyghur alphabet was brought to Mongolia by Tata-tonga . The Old Uyghur script was used between the 8th and 17th centuries primarily in
1369-559: Was on his way home after leaving Temüjin with Börte's family, he noticed an encampment where the Tatars were celebrating a feast. The Secret History explains that he wanted to join their feast, but he knew he could not reveal his identity since he was known among the Tatars as the person who killed their relative (called Temüjin Uge) in a battle eight years earlier. Yesügei tried his luck but someone recognized him and offered him poisoned food under
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