Eastern Mongolic languages

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Eastern Mongolic
Geographic distribution:	Central Asia
Genetic classification:	Altaic[1] (controversial)  Mongolic   Eastern Mongolic
Subdivisions:	Daur Mongour group Oirat-Khalkha group

The Eastern Mongolic languages are a group of languages spoken in Central Asia. The best-known member of this language family, Mongolian (in Cyrillic orthography as used in Mongolia, Монгол Хэл, and in the vertical Uygur-derived script as used in Inner Mongolia, China, Mongγol Kele), is the primary language of most of the residents of Mongolia, and is spoken by around 5.7 million people in Mongolia, Russia, and Inner Mongolia.

[edit] Classification

Eastern Mongolic groups include the following:

• Central Mongolic
  • Khalkha (Halh) Mongolian (official language of Mongolia)
  • Ordos (native form: Urdus)
  • Chahar and the other Inner Mongolian dialects except for Alasha
• Western Mongolic (Oirat-Kalmyk-Darkhat)
  • Oirat (Kalmyk) (Dialects: Torgut, Dorbet, Olot [Ööld, Elyut, Eleuth], Khoshut [Khoshuud])
  • Darkhat
• Northern Mongolic
  • Buryat (Dialects: Bargu, Khori, Aga, Ekhirit, Unga, Nizhne-Udinsk, Barguzin, Tunka, Oka, Alar, Bohaan, Bulagat)
  • Khamnigan Mongol
• Northeastern Mongolic
  • Dagur (Daur)
• Southeastern Mongolic (i.e., the Qinghai-Gansu Sprachbund Mongolic languages)
  • Monguor (Also known as Tu, Dialects: Mongghul, Mangghuer, heavily influenced by Tibetan or Chinese)
  • Kangjia
  • Bonan
  • Dongxiang (Santa)
• South-Central Mongolic
  • Eastern Yugur (Shira Yugur)

This classification is only one among many. Notably, there is a tendency among Mongolian linguists to include Central Mongolic, Western Mongolic and Northern Mongolic into one "Mongolian language"^[2] as opposed to the rest of the languages which are then labelled as "Mongolic". This may depend on Mutual intelligibility, but an analysis based on a tree diagram such as the one above faces other problems due to the close contacts eg between Buryat and Khalkh Mongols during history thus creating or preserving a dialect continuum.

[edit] External links

• Ethnologue report on Eastern Mongolian languages
• Ethnic groups of Mongolia
• Ethnic map of Mongolia

[edit] References

• Janhunen, J. 2003. The Mongolic Languages. London.
• Sečenbaɣatur (2005): Mongɣul kelen-ü nutuɣ-un ayalɣun-u sinǰilel-ün uduridqal. Kökeqota: Öbür mongɣul-un arad-un keblel-ün qoriy-a.

v • d • e Altaic languages Turkic languages · Mongolic languages · Tungusic languages · Japonic languages* · Korean language* Notes: *Japonic and Korean are not generally recognized as belonging to the Altaic language family. See also Buyeo languages.