MONGOLIAN SOME USEFUL PHRASES IN MONGOLIAN FIVE REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD Сайн байна уу? Миний нэр Жон. LEARN MORE ABOUT MONGOLIANS [saɪn baɪn uː miˈniː ner ʤon] /Sain baina* uu? Minii ner John./ AND THEIR LANGUAGE Hi. My name is John. 1. Mongolian is spoken by over 7 million people, not just in Mongolia, but also in some parts of Таны нэр хэн бэ? China (Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang Uyghur [taˈniː ner χen be] Autonomous Region) and Russia (Buryatia and /Tanii ner hen be?/ Kalmykia) as well. What is your name? 2. As a member of the Altaic language family, Сонин юу байна? Mongolian shares structural similarities to Turkic [soˈnin yuː baɪn] and Tungusic language groups. The Mongolian /Sonin yuu baina*?/ vocabulary is rich in early Turkic, Sanskrit, How are you doing? Tibetan, and Chinese elements that reflect the country’s nomadic, Buddhist, and Asian heritage. Би чамд хайртай. Mongolian continues to adopt words from [bi ʧamd χaɪrˈtaɪ] Russian and English, but very much retains its /Bi chamd hairtai./ own distinctive character. I love you. 3. The Mongol Empire (1206-1368) was history’s Ямар сайхан морь вэ! largest land-based empire of all time. This empire [jaˈmar saɪˈχan ˈmori ße] and its successor states had enormous influence on /Yammar saihan mori we!/ subsequent world history. What a beautiful horse. 4. Since the 1990s, Mongolia has been transitioning Бие засах газар хаана байна вэ? to a market economy and is predicted to be the [biˈje ʣaˈsaχ gaˈʣar χaan baɪn] fastest growing economy in the region. With its /Biye dzassahh gadzar haana baina we?/* extensive land and mineral deposits, Mongolia Where is the restroom? attracts foreign investments and businesses. Маш их баярлалаа. 5. While you don’t need to know Mongolian to order [maʃ iχ baˌjarlaˈlaa] at a Mongolian BBQ restaurant (because it isn’t actually Mongolian!), most bigger cities do have /Mash ihh bayarlalaa./ Mongolian restaurants, and you can impress your Thank you very much. friends by ordering your buuz in Mongolian! Сайн байна. [saɪn baɪn] ABOUT US /Sain baina*./ The Center for Languages of the Central Asian Region It is good. (CeLCAR) at Indiana University develops materials for learning and teaching a wide variety of Central Asian Баяртай. languages. [ˌbayarˈtaɪ] For more information, go to www.iub.edu/~celcar. /Bayartai./ Good-bye. 718 Eigenmann Hall, 1900 East 10th Street, baina*, xaana* : the short vowel at the end of a word is Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47406 not pronuonced. So these are pronounced like ‘bain’ and Phone: (812) 856-1230 Fax: (812) 856-1206 ‘haan’ E-mail : [email protected] Center for Languages of the Special thanks goes to Tserenchunt Legden Web site: http://www.indiana.edu/~celcar for her contributions to this pamphlet. Central Asian Region (CeLCAR) WHO ARE MONGOLS AND last word in the sentence, and while the order of other they were adherents first of shamanism and then of words in the sentence is flexible, typically the subject Buddhism. But like many other Central Asian cultures, comes first and the direct object comes just before the Mongolia culture has been influenced by the cultures WHERE DO THEY LIVE? verb (SOV). In place of prepositions as in English, of Tibet, China, the Central Asian oases, and Russia Mongols (ethnic Mongolian speakers) are the grammatical function of the nouns in a sentence throughout the descendants of the people unified by the great is indicated with case suffixes. Also Mongolian is recent centuries. Inner Asian conqueror agglutinative, which means that suffixes indicating only Mongolian Genghis Khan before one grammatical meaning are added to a word root in culture has been his death in 1227. a fixed order. Finally, Mongolian has vowel harmony, derived from the Today Mongols live which means that all the vowels added in the suffixes traditional life of primarily in Mongolia, must match the front or back nature of the vowel of the steppe herdsmen. a country in East and root to which they are added. The mainstays Central Asia that of Mongolian borders Russia to the WHAT ALPHABET DO MONGOLS USE? herding are horses, cattle, camels, north and China to the sheep, and goats, which provide milk, meat, clothing, east, south, and west. A large population of Mongols Throughout their history, Mongols used a number of and even fuel for the hearth via dry animal droppings. also live in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region alphabets. From the beginning of the 13th century, To this day, many Mongolian families migrate of the People’s Republic of China, as well as in Mongolian was written using the Uyghur script. Today seasonally three or four times a year with their herds to Xinjiang, the Tibetan plateau, and parts of Russia. it is known as the Classical Mongolian Script, and it is customarily assigned pastures. the only script in the world written vertically and left to right. In the 1930s, the Latin script was introduced Traditional Mongolian society was strongly aristocratic WHAT KIND OF LANGUAGE IS MONGOLIAN? in Mongolia, however, this language and hierarchical, with an insistence on order and Mongolian refers to a number of closely related reform was soon proper behavior. However many of these cultural languages and dialects. Mongolian, the official language abolished and the practices were affected by the Soviet influences of of the independent nation of Mongolia, is properly Russian Cyrillic script the 20th century, including abolishing the Buddhist called Khalkha Mongolian, after the four Khalkha was adapted to write sangha (clergy) and nobility, eliminating “superstitious” provinces that were carved out of this region in the Khalkha Mongolian. and “feudal” customs, and by establishing universal 17th century. Closely related dialects of Mongolian are Speakers and scholars education. As the spoken in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region of in Mongolia found this world’s second China, and more distantly related forms of Mongolian script well-suited to Soviet socialist are spoken by the Buryats of Siberia and the Kalmyks the language because state in the of European Russia, Xinjiang, and Tibet. Despite their it allowed few ambiguities in spelling, and therefore is years following linguistic differences, speakers of all these forms of the alphabet still used to write Mongolian in Mongolia 1921, industry Mongolian view themselves as people of one ethnicity today. However, Mongols of the Inner Mongolia (particularly and culture, a view encouraged by their common use Autonomous Region of China still use the beautiful mining) and of traditional Mongolian script until the breakup of the Classical Mongolian Script with its centuries-old farming were Mongolian cultural world in the 20th century. tradition of calligraphy. A modified version of this script, strongly encouraged to diversify and modernize the economy. Furthermore, western science, In addition, a number of smaller Mongolic languages known as Clear Script, has been used by some Mongols living in the Xinjiang Autonomous region of China. technology, and culture, became increasingly important are spoken in northeastern and western China and in Mongolian society. Since the peaceful democratic in Afghanistan by descendants of Mongol soldiers WHAT IS MONGOLIAN CULTURE LIKE? revolution of 1990, Mongolia has established the only stationed there during the Mongol Empire. stable market democracy between Central Europe Most varieties of Mongolic languages share a number Historically, Mongols are a nomadic people, herding and Korea, and privatization and globalization have of important characteristics. The verb is always the livestock on the Mongolian plateau. Religiously, followed as matters of national policy.