Monday, February 21, 2011

Alphabet: Mongolian

The Alphabet

Today, Mongolian uses a slightly modified version of the Cyrillic alphabet. In the past Mongolian had it's own script which is referred to as "the traditional Mongolian script" (more on that later). The Mongolian languages has a long history of using various scripts to write in until the Cyrillic script was introduced.

The Mongolian modified version of the Cyrillic alphabet:






Cyrillic
Аа
Бб
Вв
Гг
Дд
Ее
Ёё
Жж
Зз
Ии
Йй
Кк
Лл
Мм
Нн
Оо
Өө
Пп
Рр
Сс
Тт
Уу
Үү
Фф
Хх
Цц
Чч
Шш
Щщ
Ъъ
Ыы
Ьь
Ээ
Юю
Яя
Pronunciation
a
b
v
g
d
ye
yo
j
z
í, ee
í, ee
k
l
m
n
oh
o, o-
p
rr (like the Spanish rolled r)
s
t
u-, oo
u
f
h
c
ch
sh, ish
shch (ish + ch)
hard mark
y, uí (61e)
soft mark
eh
yu
ya


Listen to the alphabet:







Grammar: Mongolian Vowels












Masculine VowelsFeminine VowelsNeutral Vowels
а
о
у
я
ё
ю(у)
ы
э
ө
ү
е
ю(ү)
и


и can be used in either "masculine" words or "feminine" words, and can act as either type of vowel. When и is the only vowel in a word then it is treated as a feminine vowel.

The Mongolian languages uses vowel harmony; therefore, it is important to know what vowels belong to which group because a word cannot have both a feminine vowel and a masculine vowel in it. Vowel harmony is also important because it tells you which suffix to ad when conjugating verbs, adding a question particle, and so on.












Short VowelsLong VowelsDiphthongs
а
з
и
о
ө
ү
у
аа
зз
ий
оо
өө
үү
уу
ай
зй
--
ой
--
үй
уй


Listen: